FCPS School Board Regular Meeting #21 June 9, 2016

001e e e he if there are any Scouts here in the audience here for a badge if you'd come see me at the end of the dis thank you e e okay board members please come to the table e e good evening thank you for your patience we don't usually start late I apologize for this this June 9 2016 regular meeting number 21 with 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 anadale high school guitar and Cat B combined Ensemble under the direction of Russell keates am the for sh [Applause] wow thank you so much that was just beautiful thank you um item 2.02 certification of closed meeting compliance in order to comply

002with Section 2.2 372d of the code of Virginia it's necessary for the board to certify that since the Fairfax County School Board convened a closed meeting on June 9 2016 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully Exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting do I have a motion moved by Mrs Strauss seconded by Miss Schultz all those in favor please raise your hand that that is unanimous thank you item 2.03 announcements uh just a few announcements before we begin tonight's meeting if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information is on

003the table by the auditorium entrance you may access tonight's agenda and related meeting documents by going to the FCPS website select school board and then upcoming meetings and agendas the meeting is also being streamed live on the FCPS website homepage click on watch Schoolboard live and for those of you watching tonight will be a little bit different than usual apparently we're having some challenges with the cameras so the camera angle will be apparently the full table um and we'll be able to um actually show individual citizen speakers but sometimes I've been told sometimes um usually individual board members are shown uh when we're speaking but tonight that will be a little bit different because of technical challenges in the truck but we're all we're good just be a little different um please turn off or

004silence your cell phone thank you item 2.04 we have a resolution honoring the 2016 Laura Ashley Piper schol schip award recipient I call on Mrs Schultz thank you very much have a lot of stuff at my table tonight so first of all I would like to go ahead and invite Tessa to come to the podium while I talk about you a little bit Yeah so first before I read the resolution um I just wanted to um say that I've never um had a resolution given to me as a board member that I rewrote I rewrote didn't I didn't I I'm telling my school board's office staff that I rewrote it so um first um I'm going to uh read your resolution as as I wrote it I would like to um say for this resolution

005honoring the 2016 Laura Ashley Piper scholarship award recipient Tessa Basher whereas Tessa Basher has throughout her years at Fairfax High School demonstrated consistent consent commitment to Excellence in academics Athletics and student leadership responsibilities as evidenced by maintaining a high cumulative grade point average participating in Varsity Field Hockey lacrosse and indoor track and serving as class president Student Government Council Senator and student body president and whereas Tessa's determination in the face of adversity reveals a model of perseverance in pursuing goals and dreams with a balance of tenacity and patience whereas Tessa's desire to be engaged in service to others is evident in her extensive and enthusiastic contributions to her peers and school Community earning her the faith and trust of students and administrators alike and whereas Tessa's dedication while serving on the national charity League the

006city of Fairfax Fourth of July committee and as a member of the Indian Student Association benefited the extended Community around her including through enhancing Municipal service those who are disadvantaged have special needs and the military and whereas Tessa's extraordinary athletic abilities have earned her the athletic honor role award as well as the triathlete award and the coaches award for track and whereas and this is when it gets good all the other stuff was good but this is really good Tessa has demonstrated her determination strong spirit and great potential for continued academic success by maintaining a 4.2 grade point average despite experiencing a serious head injury and concussion in her junior year that forced her to miss four months of school and drop four advanced placement AP classes by resuming a rigorous academic schedule with six

007AP courses in her senior year by her membership in both the National Honors Society and the French Honor Society and by her ability to balance a demanding schedule while maintaining leadership positions and involvement in school and community activities showing that she personifies the characteristics and ideals to which Lieutenant Laura Ashley Piper adhered now therefore be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board Awards the Laura Ashley Piper scholarship to Tessa Bashir in memory of Lieutenant Piper and in recognition of each woman's Drive determination and dedication to Excellence is do I have a second uh seconded by miss Corbin sandras okay all in favor all in favor that better be unanimous can we have a round of congratulations and we're we're going to come up for some um some pictures first but I just wanted to

008say um that there are nominations um that happen for this award and um I'm pleased not only that this is I think three years running from the Springfield District so I'm sort of having a a good run of it but when I read what Tessa's teachers administrators wrote about her it was so compelling um to hear about her perseverance in the face of adversity and the the difficulties that she faced academically and you could have folded you could have not had the grit you could have blamed you know your condition um I was so moved by how others spoke about you that I had to incorporate some of that in the resolution so if we could step to the um oh yes um of course Miss Corvett Sanders of course you can I had the

009pleasure of um sitting on the evaluation committee and there were so many very talented and capable students who applied for this scholarship but yours did stick out above all others and um it was actually funny because we didn't have to spend nearly as much time um tussling over advocating for one student or another um but more just talking in admiration about all the great things that you had done and I just want you to know that um we just wish you the very best as you go off to school and uh know that you we have cheerleaders here for you oh my God I'm going to invite my board members to come to the front and take a picture um with her and oh by the way this comes with money so that's the beautiful

010thing family members and friends please come join us as well give you the cuz I enjoyed the phone call to you [Applause] we have the pleasure pleasure of a few more recognitions and celebrations tonight so um next is item 2.05 recognition of the 2016 Schoolboard character award recipient I call on Miss Evans for the recognition and I would uh ask uh that Abigail Ki come to the podium for your recognition thank you Abby um this is an absolute Delight for me to present this award I got to know last summer and I just couldn't be more thrilled to uh present this award to such a remarkable young woman I also want to thank uh steuart principal Penny gross for being here today uh numerous members of the steuart high school staff including her nominators and

011um many many friends here as well so thank you for joining us here tonight the school board character award was initiated by former student representative to the school School Board Chris giia varelli and established by the student advisory Council in 2001 the Apple Federal Federal Credit Union Education Foundation has generously funded the $500 award since 2007 the award is given to a junior or senior who demonstrates a continuous record of high morals strong integrity and good character and who is recognized as a role model for students in Fairfax County Public Schools in day-to-day Behavior the recipient of the 2016 Schoolboard character award is Abigail Kandi a senior at Stuart High School Abby embodies all the traits showcased by this award and demonstrates them daily through her words and actions she is a positive role model

012for her peers leading with integrity and honesty Abby is sincerely interested in others with her heartfelt and up be attitude she easily establishes a rapport and builds lasting friendships and is known for putting others needs ahead of her own as one of her nominators said she is simply filled with goodness and kindness Abby is an accomplished student who has made maintained perfect School attendance and an excellent academic record inducted into the National Honor Society is a sophomore she has served served in an officer role as a Junior and senior while also volunteering and tutoring within the community the path to these accomplishments has not been easy aby's family has faced multiple challenges that required her to accept responsibilities far beyond her years through her maturity common sense and compassion Abby has been a stalwart supporter

013to her mother and brother in difficult times in addition to her school and home commitments Abby is actively involved in the community she is currently serving as the skills USA Virginia's region one vice president through her affiliation with skills USA she has been an advocate for Career and Technical education including speaking on Capitol Hill in her church Abby is one of the top youth leaders and an active participant in multiple Ministries for Children and Youth she is a co-founder of calm a student partnership advocating for changing the high school name and a recipient of the NAACP president's award in recognition of her efforts for Abby a challenge becomes an obstacle only if you let it and she refuses to be defeated she faces and conquers each challenge with determination an exceptional work ethic and honesty

014and sincerity in every action according to one nominator even when things are not going her way she is able to see the good in everyone and in every situation her High morals strong integrity and resilience epitomize the character traits we want to see in all of our students Abby has earned and truly deserves the Schoolboard character award at this time I would like to invite aby's family and friends to the dis for a picture with the board I would ask everyone to give Abby a rousing round of know okay [Applause] she okay um Mr sstack from Apple Federal Credit Union are you here if you would stand if you are Mr sstack no I'm sorry well we just we wanted to be sure to thank Apple Federal Credit Union for that lovely gift to our

015um to our recipient and I I thought he might be in the audience tonight I was just checking we will thank him in absentia for that so um right item 2.06 recognition of the 2016 distinguished SRO award and we have some sro's here tonight um joining us for this I call in Miss pchi for the recognition thank you we have incredible students we also have incredible staff here Fairfax County um and Partnerships um so the Fairfax County Public Schools and the Fairfax County and Fairfax city police departments have established a mutually beneficial relationship for more than a decade one of the Hallmarks of this relationship has been the school resource officer SRO Program sro's help ensure a safe and peaceful learning environment for students and provide School administrators and staff with the law enforcement resources

016and expertise necessary to maintain order prevent treny and enforce the rules and codes of student conduct at this time I would like to recognize all of the Fairfax County Police Department members who are with us this evening including Andy Worland police liaison commander and Sergeant William Bill Fulton of the ferax County Police Department who are in the audience please stand before I continue I I I walked into one of my schools earlier this year and they said um we love our SRO he's been part of our community for 14 years so we really do appreciate what you do um a committee was created to establish and select a distinguished school resource officer award to annually recognize the efforts of outstanding sro's the 2016 sele ction committee members were Tom V Carell director of office of

017Safety and Security Jim mlan security coordinator office of Safety and Security Terry Dade Region 3 assistant superintendent and Lieutenant Andy warland School liaison Commander four School four School sro's were nominated by their principles these nominees are Stellar examples of the outstanding officers working in our schools they should be very proud of their nomination on behal behalf of the school board I would like to congratulate you on your nomination when I call your name please stand first nominee police officer first class Brett Monte Madison High School [Applause] all right let's give a round of [Applause] applause we'll make sure Mr press congratulates him and thanks him tomorrow better be at school second nominee police officer first class Kimberly Wright Robinson Secondary School Middle School level [Music] third nominee police officer first clad Brad Robo Centerville High

018School and the 20 2016 distinguished school resource officer is police officer first class Daryl Estes from Oakton High School he unfortunately is unable to be with us this evening as he's with his family celebrating his son's graduation from Patriot High School so we will send him a thank you as the school resource officer Oakton High School officer Estus cons consistently demonstrates Superior performance in the area of School Safety and Security Beyond providing for a safe School environment officer Estus focuses on positive daily interactions with students throughout the school year officer Estes has repeatedly worked with students to support their success in the fall of 2015 officer Estes helped students who had an interest in law enforcement obtain hands-on experience during a ridealong program with police officers from the Fair Oaks District several students have now

019expressed an interest in a law enforcement career because of their experience in this program officer Estus personifies the ideal of a police officer one who can consistently negotiate the tricky line between protecting and serving dealing with difficulties in a fair and personal manner he possesses the ability to listen closely formulate opinions and seek solutions that fit the situation we thank officer Estus for his efforts in providing the school community and community at large with a reassurance that Oakton High School is a a safe school where learning is the primary focus thank you for your service to FCPS officer darl Estes receiving the award on behalf of Officer Estes is Sergeant Bill Fulton with Sergeant Fulton please come forward and accept the award and with the nominees also join us at the Das for a picture

020with the board [Applause] is t [Applause] than all right our next recognition I see some people in the front row who've been waiting for this one um we have item 2.07 laner Middle School nsba National School boards Association Award winners I call on Mr moon for the recognition thank you madam chair uh it is quite exciting because as you recall many of us who were at the nsba conference up in Boston witnessed personally witnessed how they competed in this particular Challenge and we are very proud of you students so let me read this from you this evening we are so proud to recognize and congrat congratulate the 2016 National School Board Association innovation challenge winning team from our own lineal Middle School the challenge which was held at the national school board association annual conference

021in Boston is sponsored by the DLR group Sor who are also with us this evening three middle school teams from across the country were selected to compete in the challenge which blend the Project based learning collaboration and teamwork to solve one assigned the global issue in our Ever Changing global economy stem careers are some of the fastest growing and highest paying jobs available but there is a no shortage of woman in their Workforce the teams were challenged to design a solution to increase a female leadership surrounding a specific Innovation within a stamfield such that a 30% increase of young woman graduating college will pursue careers in that field by 2025 you know your student students you probably remember my question or my comment on the day about leadership on the school board there is no

022shortage of a woman it's a man who are suffering right here your principal is a woman we have a superintendent who is a woman amongst the 12 adult Schoolboard members nine of them are women so F do when the team arrived in Boston there very difficult Global issue challenge became a bit more complex when this twist was added in 2040 the world governing Council determines population increases can no longer be supported by Earth Resources develop a plan to begin a CO colony an honor planet in one year our line students had a great presentation with a compelling ideas while incorporating 21st century skills the first place winning team consisted of four students Ryan Phillips Luke Hilton molissa triet and Angelina joah and two coaches fisa Alam and Sam Tennison congratulations to you uh for your

023hard work and creativity and collaboration a at this time I would like to introduce Nikki Sor of DLR group Sor for the presentation of the award yeah oh we're good uh so I was going to say that I would like to say very little and uh what I would like to do if I may is invite The Talented students up to stand here here because I'm just another adult in a room but they are the students and I know everybody wants to hear most from them about their experiences plus that's the way that you get the money right um thank you very much Mr moon for that introduction it was uh you took all the words out of my mouth which is great uh my name is Nikki sorg from drr group sorg we are

024an integrated design firm um uh globally and nationally um but this is probably the most fun uh couple of days in my job um and and why do we care to do this as a firm what it does for us as a design firm is that it allows us to observe how kids are learning now um and ultimately in uh influences uh how we design in the future it also gives board members uh a chance to and administrators a chance to access the learning process as it's changing and as it's evolving in the 21st century with uh changes in technology and so forth and this we hope um Can spur conversations that drive the changes in the next generation of educational environments so um Mr Moon mentioned uh the linear Middle School challenge statement that

025had to do with increasing uh women in stem careers and the thing to note about this actually is that these four uh excellent students they came up with this on their own um and it was I think it was just about unanimous almost immediately that everybody was in interested um both the male and female students in exploring this which I thought was truly uh an excellent start to their collaboration um and so I will now shut up and um I would love to prompt the students um before we give you your small prizes and um just maybe hear from you what was the biggest challenge uh that you faced what was maybe the most fun uh that you had over your weekend in Boston and and what will you uh did you learn something about

026yourself or your fellow students that you might take with you so why don't each of you state your name and we do want to hear from each of you state your name and tell us uh my name is Ryan Phillips and I thought the most challenging thing was uh receiving the Twist and having such a limited time to come up with it and then uh prepare the presentation uh with the remaining time after that uh the most fun for me was uh exploring the exhibit hall uh finding out about all the Innovations and uh education and technology and how they connect um and what is to come and um the okay hi I'm Luke Hilton I think the biggest thing for me was biggest challenge for me was that if we didn't win I would

027never hear the end of it by my teacher and administrators and I think the funnest thing was also the exhibit hall it was really interesting and we also met one of the old lineer principles there with the US Energy department so that was a pretty interesting um my name is Melissa and I think the most challenging thing was coming up with an Innovative solution because there have been attempts to increase the number of women in stem and it's important to come up with something Innovative and new and exciting that would come from different perspectives like students and um the most fun thing that happened was probably meeting all the other students who competed because I still keep in contact with them today and have great conversations and I hope I can see them [Applause] again

028good evening my name is Angelina jaw um the most difficult part was getting over my stage spright and communicating with all of the administrators and the people from the other teams and answering their questions after the presentation was extremely hard for me as well one of the most fun Parts was actually getting to know these people they're really amazing students and it was just amazing to get to know them and their unique individual personalities well thank you so much and so one final time I'd like to thank the students Ryan Luke Melissa and Angelina and of of course the indomito fisa Alam and uh their other uh chaperon Sam Tennyson and of course princial lonard who's been a wonderful supporter and leader of this school um so with that I will hand over uh these

029educational gift cards that uh used for very specific purposes and of course I'd like to thank all of the Schoolboard members who came to support all of the teams um it was a great I hope that you all also found that it was a great opportunity to see how um students are surpassing anything that we all could have imagined as students um and and what they're doing they made an app for goodness sakes right thank you very much to the drr group team that's here as well okay well thank you Mr moon will close us but I think Mrs Schultz would like to say something um I just want to say um having gone to um nsba I want to thank um organizations and private uh companies like DLR SAR because this is how the

030best of Education happens is the collaboration not only the expectation that it's the taxpayers and nothing else but it is the work within a community that um inites and creates mentors and creates and builds positive um PRI public private Partnerships and um it's organizations like yours that help make us better so thank you you know Madam chair before I invite all the students and their teachers and principal and parents and all the friends to the front for a picture with the both members let me just take a one more note that I mean those me those both members who are present at the time will remember this but they were so students were so quick in their thinking on their feet when I asked them about why they put age limit on their first flight

031the first flight to another planet that I was not qualified go on the flight too old for that they turned around quickly and said Mr Mo you can take the next flight thank you spe you [Applause] you I just want to recognize Dr Peter Nunan superintendent of Fairfax City Public Schools who just joined us for the photo okay thank you again students it was really really fun to watch you do your work um at the convention item 3.01 uh the next order of business is citizen participation 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 balance boundaries or personal attacks on any person com complaints regarding individual students

032or school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate School principal or other school officials speakers are encouraged to deliver their comments with the decorum and respect appropriate to the conduct of the Public's business um if the concern is a group concern please consider appointing a spokesperson and while the spokesperson is speaking those in support May stand to show their support tonight 10 citizens have signed up to address the board and we have two videos testimony so since we have a Full Slate of speakers I will be rather strict about the three minute delay I apologize in advance but I may cut you off our first speakers are uh deina and Tori Johnson to be followed by George Basera good evening everyone I am deina Johnson and I'm a parent of a wonderful well actually two

033wonderful daughters here in Fairfax County we come to you just to kind of share an experience that we've had recently in our family it changed um I was a proud mother of a son and a daughter and within the last year I became a a proud mother of a daughter and a daughter and so yeah and so it it has been a a challenge but I want to say thank you to Fairfax County for taking the brave steps to make sure that every child in our schools are safe and they want to go to school that's very important in my household education we moved here specifically for the education that we delivered here in Fairfax County as I mentioned it hasn't been easy as a parent but I have such a wonderful young lady now

034that it's been a lot easier because of things that you have made a decision such as Family Life Education that was huge that is huge because now my child does not feel singled out and she feels a part of the community again as I said it's not easy but if we continue to focus on safety for all and not comfort for some then I know we can start and continue to make a huge difference in our young people she is talented she loves to act she loves to sing she loves school she loves to read that's what I want the focus to be that's what I want the focus to continue to be not only in our schools but in our communities it is something sometimes uncomfortable but we must continue to be brave and

035do what we need to do to make sure that my child among many others continue to feel safe going to school Tori Victoria hi my name is Victoria Johnson and um I think it's kind of unfair that transgenders shouldn't be able to use bathrooms and it may not seem like a big deal to those who AR transgenders but but to me it is a big deal I went I recently went on a field trip with my class and I wasn't even allowed to use the female bathroom at the museum that we went to until all the girl until all the girls in my class cleared the bathrooms she's very nervous but thank you for this time we appreciate it thank you good job um George Basera to be followed by Amanda [Applause] Brewer uh good

036evening Dr garzen uh school board members I'm here to talk about a item that canceled out tonight's agenda the One Fairfax resolution uh sorry that the Board of Supervisors uh had issues with that resolution uh a little education on that if most people thought this week the most important thing was uh the vote tonight or the me tax it wasn't most important topic probably in this County was the one FX resolution if people don't know what that is that's racial and social Equity public policy that going to be passed by both boards to start the process so sorry that uh that the Board of Supervisors uh had some reluctancy after 18 months of already having that paper resolution already written by started by them uh with that said more make my comments and a little

037sad about that decision sad about also people who I usually see here who sign up for public speaking so that notice was on Tuesday most people know you have to sign up for these speaker spots on Monday at 6:00 a.m. I haven't seen FCC PTA FAA fcft and my regular Advocate support probably the most public most important public policy in this County in years so but they have another opportunity when it comes back to this board or to both boards to sign up talking about then the resolution is going to be talked about on Tuesday at the Joint board Retreats okay so you got to have a discussion and all that topic is the priorities so hopefully there's a good fruitful discussion but I have chairman Hines I understand you and chairman boua work together

038on the agenda it's a good you know it's a start two hours to talk about priorities I've heard this board talk about an hour on $165,000 so I don't see 22 elected officials doing any type of dent in priorities for both the county and schools um another aspect uh so pretty much a little a little mad since Tuesday but what a little Ray of Hope there is when I saw Mr mine's motion because I thought we had this issue already beat lash to you on terms of civil rights and most people don't know about this school is this is Luther Jackson Middle School 1954 it was the first black high school in this County before black high school students had to go to DC or Manasses for an high school education 1965 became integrated so

039we're talking about something that was a thought decided last year so thank you that Mr Mech for that hard decision um in terms of the amendments well to your guess proposed motions or this policy um I know last year the discussion about public input public Community outcry there wasn't enough time but let me see what is the perspective of relative recent that the Board of Supervisors only offer six public comments in the whole year and you pray to God that your topic is on that night you guys do 24 meetings every year and you have 10 spots and two videos so I I know where public input cry is here and the last motion for Mr Wilson I don't know what that is if you want to run for chairman next month pick the spot

040you got it you can do your agenda or if not if you want all the newbies to have a spot on the committee well then say that too because that's all I see out of here thank you thank you Amanda Brewer followed by Maryann biner H good afternoon and thank you for letting me have some time I have the pleasure of being the amazing mom to a transgender student at Whitman Middle School um Fairfax County has a reputation of being Progressive and I hope that that continues for her um our children who are transgender make up a very small fraction of the students in Fairfax County but their safety and acceptance should be Paramount they should feel just as safe and included in the schools as all the other students my child has been through

041a lot this school year namely just last week she got off the bus and walked about a mile home after the kids some of the kids on the bus were calling her a traine so you know we hear that we need you know we're raising a culture of kids who need a safe space and a trophy for eighth place but they really just need somebody to go to and to know who to turn to so they can be safe where they are one of the biggest drivers of transphobia is the bathroom debate where do they go I'm sure if there was a news station or anything on within an hour you'd hear something about a bathroom when you're discussing these CH things around your family around your children they hear what you say and then

042they repeat those things at school to the kids around them bathrooms have stalls and the Stalls shut and they lock and my daughter just simply wants to use the bathroom without being interrogated just like all the other kids in the school I'm aware that there is a gender neutral bathroom in her school that she uses but it's not next to all of her classes and when you exit that bathroom it lets the other people in the school know that you're different and she's been shoved and hit and called names for exiting that bathroom and having unaccepting peers walking by but the safe the bathroom has also been a safe space for her after she had an incident with a couple of teachers at her school she sat in there many weeks eating lunch and that's

043definitely not in 2016 a place a child should be eating lunch and feeling safe is in a bathroom with a locked door I just want to say that you know we can keep going and now that Obama and everybody has talked about Title 9 in inclusion I would hope that Fairfax County will follow the directive and children can go to the bathroom where they need and feel safe in the space that the school is providing thank you thank you Maryann Becker to be followed by Alexandra Dixon good evening I'm Maryann Bacher and I've been an FCPS parent from 1994 through last year when my daughter graduated from faifax high school I'm here once again to thank you and to make an observation first thank you for adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the non-discrimination

044policy last year it has been nearly 20 years that Robert Rigby and I since we began speaking to the school board about lgbtq inclusion in policy and curricula I also want to thank you and fleak for the proposed changes to f pH specifically related to gender identity all these changes are good for students and staff thank you I speak to you tonight to let you know that there is plenty of community support for FPC FCPS to support trans students and staff as Robert Bigby said at your last meeting people who oppose these CH the changes being worked on need to educate themselves meet some trans people read about the issue research their concerns it seems that people who oppose My Views often come from a religious perspective so I need to make sure that you

045know that I am also a deeply religious person a member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax now in addition to being an advocate for the LGBT community I have been a laichi league leader for 23 years laichi league is an international organization of volunteers providing information and support to breastfeeding families llll as we like to call it has been considered conservative in an organization that supports the traditional family I swear there's a connection to the gender identity issue here in Fairfax until a week ago in our 60 years of laich League all of our volunteer leaders identified as women one week ago laichi League accredited its first transman leader imagine a conservative Bastion like La CH embracing a trans man who breastfeeds his babies I think the future is passing Us by you all

046know the right thing to do last my observation I spoke here a year ago on the same topic I appreciate your attention to the public comment speakers I take your role seriously and I know that I truly have no idea of the time and energy it takes to be a responsible member of the school board thank you for your willingness to serve our community there is a disturbing part though so here I go I feel awkward last year I attended the meeting at which you voted on including gender identity the vote was not unanimous that's a good sign the people feel comfortable disagreeing the distressing action was that immediately after the vote one Schoolboard member left the meeting in the middle I'm sorry I'm going to have to ask you thank you very much um

047Alexander Dixon to be followed by Chia mahanti Ortiz good evening my name is Alexander Dixon many of you on this board know me and for those that don't I want to introduce myself I spent my academic career here at FCPS from first grade through 12th grade graduating with honors in 2000 I came to FCPS after being kicked out of a PR private Catholic school for being disabled so you see I know what it is to be discriminated against and I'm forever grateful that FCPS made sure that I had a quality education tonight I am here to return the favor and to Advocate that all FCPS students gay lesbian bisexual transgender and gender non-conforming get the same chance I did last year this board took a courageous vote to update its non-discrimination policy to include transgender

048and gender non-conforming students I remember those meetings they were contentious and the board faced stiff opposition and yet the board did the right thing and voted to protect all our students now we eagerly await the regulations a document fleshing out that policy real trans teens and their parents need these regulations and staff need guidance and backup specifically we need to make sure that the following recommendations are implemented without delay one acknowledgement of a child's gender identity without a demand for medical testimony accessible and confidential record changes without a demand for a birth certificate as they do now which may be difficult or impossible to attain for students from other states or adopted children or other children for a variety of reasons access to Greater privacy for any child that needs it rather than insisting that

049the trans child be the one who has to have greater privacy access to facilities corresponding with the child's gender identity as the education department recommends and as the fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the Gavin Grim case last month robust training for all staff including teachers counselors administrators coaches support staff and bus drivers I end my remarks by reminding the board that a recent study of FCPS students suggests that 38% of LGBT students have seriously considered suicide when our transgender and gender non-conforming students get the supports they need that number goes down to the same level as straight students I am a person of faith my faith group Unitarian universalism lives by a set of principles the very first one is that we affirm the inherent and worth of all people the vote last

050year did that the work has started let's finish the work by giving the guidance needed to ensure that all our students are affirmed in their inherent dignity and worth treated with Justice love and compassion let us not waste another moment because Justice delayed is Justice denied thank [Applause] you Chia mohanti Ortiz to be followed by kyir Engelman hello my name is chia mahanti Ortiz I'm the member of a transgender male a senior at Robinson High School and I am also a member of FCPS Pride as well as the GSA faculty adviser at Northern Virginia Community College where I teach Spanish Fairfax County Public School District is one body made of many parts faculty Administration staff facilities parents board members Etc and the most important part of this whole is its students ironically the stakeholders who

051often have the smallest voice in determining their own success the body requires the health of every part every person in order to function well and healthily if one group is ignored or Worse mistreated the whole suffers last spring the school board voted to protect and validate every student within the school district when in including gender identity in its non-discrimination policy since then no procedures have been presented to be reviewed and adopted no training of faculty and staff has taken place each school has been left to its own devices which does not ensure Equity or best practice for all the district students I urge the school board and the superintendent's office to please continue the process to ensure success for all students please review recommendations in act policies for the equality of transgender students please include

052the education of gender identity and sexual orientation in Family Life education classes starting in the seventh grade as these are Concepts that need desperately to be understood and accepted please follow through with tile 9 in the OB Obama administration's recent mandates please make sure that all district students have the ability to learn in an environment of inclusion and equality please keep our district at the Forefront of history and Student Success thank you very much thank you Kyler Angelman to be followed by Phyllis Payne good evening I think you might have heard this topic a few times already but I'll try to make it a little different um so in addition to being an FCPS aluminous and coach um I'm also a trans man and when I was an FCPS student um I experienced firsthand the

053kind of harassment that children get from their peers when they do not fit society's view of what a male or female should look like I was often bullied and called homophobic slurs even though I had not yet identified as LGBT um just because of the way I looked as an FCPS High School coach I see that there is much work to still be done um to educate students about LGBT people and to to decrease the amount of depression suicide that currently occur occurs in the LGBT community including among kids um a Hot Topic lately of course has been the use of public bathrooms um by chance people and while there's not been one single incident of a trans person harassing one in the bathroom there have been many reports of trans people being harassed in

054the bathroom um trans people don't go to the bathrooms to stir up trouble they just go to do what they need to do and get out um and so I urge you to do what you can to make sure students feel safe in bathrooms um by one providing access to General neutral bathrooms when possible but also allowing them to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with um also trans students should be able to have their gender change on the records without demanding a birth certificate since some don't have access to it and also I urge you to support LGBT training for staff so that they're able to council students and to teach non-lgbt students how to respect their LGBT peers uh to make it a safer place for students thank you thank you

055Phyllis Payne Phyllis pay come on down um to be followed by George Alber excuse me sir excuse me sir it's not your turn um that's not appropriate no I'm sorry it is Phyllis pay's turn to speak phis pay go ahead go ahead we're running our meeting here go ahead phis I'm philis Payne co-founder and executive director of sleep I also serve on the school health advisory committee and I'm here to ask you to vote in favor of the student and staff health and wellness policy sha members heard from many many different people parents students principles teachers and other experts as we work to develop this policy we spent one year focused on student mental health and we heard students speak about the incredible pain caused by stress anxiety overwork depression and substance abuse we learned

056about changes that FCPS is working on and we researched policy wording that we hope will contribute to positive Health outcomes for students and staff it's great to be here with this board and this super superintendent and to see our school system recognizing how important health and well-being are to the success and happiness of students and staff personally I'm thrilled to see that all three pillars that support physical and mental health are included in the policy sleep physical activity and nutrition sleep leadership is pleased that Fairfax County Public Schools will continue working to align school start times with evidence-based best practices it's good to know that you will be working to improve the two early start times at the middle schools as well I'd like to thank Chris G the chair of sha who worked tirelessly

057researching not only what was required but also what is being done elsewhere and what would best serve children in Fairfax kudos to Chris a former sha member Mary Porter also deserves kudos for her extensive research and writing on this project it's fantastic and fitting that Ben press is um the student Schoolboard rep at this time for this vote because he served on Sha for two years while we we worked a total of three years on this policy and Ben was with us for two his sophomore and Junior years my colleagues on Sha have been and continue to be an inspiration to me and this year I've also had the privilege to work very closely with a number of the top department heads within the school system as we built consensus on our final recommendations for

058the new FCPS wellness policy there are many staff members to thank and I can't name them all but Bane lip's guidance and patience this year was incredible and Liz Payne's help in all three years was always diplomatic and thoughtful she truly encouraged committee members to share our perspectives this year's process adding small subcommittee meetings with key staff was an effective approach to build consensus between school leaders and committee members and I hope you'll consider that for other work um it's reassuring to find that it is possible to recommend and Implement positive changes the leaders who worked with us in the small committee meetings shared our concern for the health and well-being of our children and the teachers and staff who work in our school system and I am so happy knowing that this particular School

059Board all of you is going to be the one to vote on this policy recommendation I know each of you is very supportive of student health and wellness and I'm looking forward to watching the implementation of this policy thank you so much thank you George Alber to be followed by Aaron Fulp ikad good evening thank you for letting me speak with you tonight my name is George Alber I encourage you to adopt the student rights and responsibilities because of the great rights that it guarantees let's look for just one minute at chapter 1D of the regulation which reads in part students May exercise the right to freedom of expression through speech assembly petition and other lawful means and have the right to Advocate change of any law policy or regulation teaching our students to understand

060this right is an essential part of their education and personal development Justice thur Good Marshall once wrote freedom of expression and I quote serves not only the needs of the PO but also those of the human spirit a spirit that demands self-expression such expression is an in integral part of the development of ideas and a sense of identity for the past year I I've had the opportunity to see what that human Spirit looks like almost a year ago yes it's been a year I was introduced to five students from Jeb Stewart High School Cassie marcotti Abby K who you honored earlier an and Rowan Lydia Emanuel who was here and had to leave and Marley Finley they had been inspired by one of your teachers one of their teachers to understand that the name of

061their high school was not consistent with the values of FCPS their student body and their Community as a result they began to Advocate to change the name of the school they in the long advoc their long advocacy the students have learned to understand respect and value the right of freedom of expression and I have also learned a great deal by attending these school board meetings each one for the past year I have learned the value that you place on the development of our students not just academically but also in terms of their character and other qualities I have also observed that each of you in your own ways strive to model the character and qualities that you expect in our graduates therefore I urge you to adopt the rights and student rights and responsibilities and

062as you do to continue that model that behavior I I urge you to respect these students I urge you to listen to the voice of these students they have learned that the decision to change the name of their school should not be a pite Justice equality human rights are rarely served when they are subject to the whims of the majority they have also learned that the they have also learned that the decision to change the name is not a financial decision it is a moral question about Justice equality human rights and Reconciliation so respect these students by taking action tell them the status of your deliberations the process and most importantly when the question after a year will be placed on the Schoolboard agenda show moral leadership act thank you thank you Aaron Aaron F

063I extend I'm the senior pastor of Emanuel Presbyterian Church in mlan and I had two daughters come through FCPS schools and and loved every minute of that we all care about the wellness and well-being of our children we all care about their health and safety we care about their future and we take great concern to give them the tools they need to become healthy well balanced adults during the difficult years and transitions in middle school and high school there are few tools as crucial to our students well-being as Family Life Education inclusive family life education lessons and objectives are essential to enhance the wellness of our LGBT students and the wellness of all students in farax County as people of faith we don't talk about sexuality or gender identity very often we do know that

064from the very beginning God looked out on the amazing diversity of creation and God saw that it was good that's a good place to start affirming the sheer Beauty and goodness of God's diverse creation although we may not talk about the specifics of sexuality and gender identity very often we do talk about God's call to do justice a lot it's hard to open the Bible without reading about God's concern for the oppressed the mistreated the Forgotten that's why I'm here tonight last year the Fairfax County School Board voted to make our family life education curriculum ref ref the beauty and diversity of the world around us including people of all gender identities and sexual orientations I'm here to thank you for your leadership and your concern for all of our students I'm also here to

065encourage your continued care for the wellness of all of our children middle school and high school isn't an easy place for any teenager but it is an especially challenging environment for lgbtq youth 5 days ago 16-year-old Dan Barnum a transgender in Chesapeake Virginia wrote about the bullying he faces daily in his high school he compared walking into High School each morning to a walk of shame being greeted each day with insults including pedophile and Abomination it doesn't have to be this way and change starts with meaningful advancements in our curriculum like you made last year change starts with education your leadership is set an example for our youth and Fairfax County our students deserve a curriculum that tells them that they aren't an Abomination they are people of great worth they deserve a curriculum that

066gives them the tools they need to navigate their own Coming of Age knowing the terms and vocabulary knowing the resources available to them knowing that they are not alone thank you for your leadership it is already making a difference in the lives of our students students who will now navigate their adolescence with facts and resources instead of fear and silence I pray that you will continue to work for inclusion and support of all Fairfax County students in Family Life Education and in all curriculum again thank you thank [Applause] you okay that comp that completes our live citizen testimony we have two video testimonies uh who hi I'm we County resident since we have two video testimonies and that is the end of our citizen participation thank you hi hi I'm roxan Edwards a County resident

067since 1955 and a parent of three and a grandparent of seven I support you the school board in your role in educating our children to be good citizens and through fle to educate them on real life topics like gender identity this education includes first respecting others who are different from themselves it includes secondly using education to correct ignorance and fearmongering that is being spread about gender identity and to improve All Children's well-being it includes thirdly caring for and protecting 100% of our children not some lesser F fraction and it definitely includes leading by example we must teach our children that bullying fellow students is wrong whether from their peers or authorities or even their peers parents that privacy and dignity are for all people children included that advocating separate but equal treatment and Facilities by

068claiming it it protects your child is wrong I know parents are thinking I know what parents are thinking because I am one I too want my children to be safe to have the best chance to learn just like everyone in this room but there is no excuse for using this good goal as a weapon to discriminate there is a mistaken idea that saying staying ignorant about complex ideas like gender identity will protect our our kids it will not they will be learning about these and many other complexities from sources that are not tested for accuracy balanced reasonable or from a responsible and accountable Authority the internet in all its uncensored Glory will teach your kids and mine and that is what they will learn and believe I say to you ignoring this fact is foolish

069and destructive finally on the issue of private and school facilities I am an architect and for 40 years I have designed many facilities I'm also an advocate for sensible modesty and privacy I think open locker rooms and shower rooms that require exposure of minors bodies to one another is has been and always will be inappropriate during their most vulnerable periods of development putting kids in a mandatory place where exposing their body invites body shaming and embarrassment will create some of the worst moments of their school experience just ask anyone at your high school reunion stop calling out trans kids as the problem all they want to do is fit in and be kids like everyone else the real problem is our blindness over the stress we inflict through open locker rooms and shower rooms in

070this particular case we should face this directly as a facility problem for all of our teens and stop blaming the trans kids thank you hi my name is Julia Clark I'm a freshman at Jeb Stewart high school and I rep the name change because I want to feel respected and every student at this school should be respected I am not a Raider uh because our school was named after a Confederate and I don't stand for Confederacy at a school that's as wonderfully diverse as ours uh being named after a Confederate uh leader uh doesn't represent how good of a school we are who we are as a school or what our values are as a person of color I don't want to go to a school named after someone who fought so strongly against my

071rights I do not not feel proud when I say that I go to a school that is named after a Confederate I feel the name Jeff Stewart does not support us as a whole and with the name change um we'll become closer together we're seniors at andle high school and we're part of the Black Culture awareness Association we don't agree with the fact that your leader is a Confederate leader and that's how your school's represented and the last thing we would want is our school uh being represented by Confederate leaders I support the name change because a school so diverse shouldn't be named after someone that fought against diversity and I feel that our our diversity is what makes us a school and having our school named after someone who fought against diversity makes me

072uncomfortable to attend I don't want to be part of a school whose name is based off of racism because at sporting events I do not want to represent someone who fought for the right to own people's property and I do not support the name of Jeff Stewart because it's supports discrimination because the current name of our school is detrimental to progress and doesn't represent what we are the Great accomplishments that our school has shouldn't be weighed down by a name that's tied to a dark past and the racial tension that's still prevalent in our society today I disagree with the connections associated with the name of my school I support the name Chang because it's high time we stopped condoning our nation's discriminatory past I support the name change because I am not a Raider

073I am not a Raider and we are not Raiders okay item four item 3.02 student representative matters I call on Mr Press thank you madam chair you know it's very weird to be sitting up here and thinking that this will be my last meeting as a student in FCPS not my last meeting period we got the 30th for that one someone in the Schoolboard office is going to have to remind me bring a Sharpie next time in Cross off student on my name plate but I would like to take this one last opportunity as an FCPS student to say a few brief words as the school year draws to a close first off I want to congratulate the nominees finalists and winners from our FCPS honors event last night once again for their incredible accomplishments

074they were just a small glimpse into the amazing work that goes on in our system every single day serving every single one of our children and doing it with a smile if I've learned one thing this year it's that our teachers and staff are some of the hardest working uh people with jobs that go so far beyond the 8 a.m. to 4m contract and although we might not compensate them as well as we should the rewards they see in the success of the students they sent off to better things is truly a a reward for all of us I thought the words of Teacher of the Year Corey thornblad were particularly poignant in summarizing this and I'll paraphrase here as a teacher I don't have a thing that I can point to as a product

075of my hard work I have a person which leads me to my second point the students of this system are truly amazing and while I'll be talking a little bit more about that at the next meeting in my final speech to this board I wanted to take this moment to congratulate them on all that they have accomplished this system and this graduating class is home to world record holders Olympians American Idol singers and people who can trace their roots to every country in the world I think I think the amazing qualities of our students are particularly well exemplified by some of the winners here tonight and as a class of seniors graduates out of our system I'd like to pass on my warmest congratulations to all of them and caution them not to take this

076amazing education that they have received for granted this school system truly is world class and I really do believe you'll find yourself extremely well prepared for whatever Adventures might come after graduation and lastly I want to thank our non-school-based staff some of the unsung heroes of our system for facilitating the great initiatives resource access in diverse range of programs that make our system truly a leader in 21st century education your service has made this year one of the greatest and I know we can aspire to even greater Heights next year in any case I wish all of our graduating seniors the best of luck and I want to express my heartfelt thanks to all of our teachers and staff for another great year here thank you thank you thank you once again Mr press I

077don't know what we will do without you item 4.01 confirmation of action taken in closed meeting this is the portion of the meeting where the board will confirm any action regarding issues that were discussed in the closed meeting this evening these issues may include action taken regarding student disciplinary matters board members have discussed each individual case and at this time will'll make several motions to confirm the recommended action um first I have a motion from Miss Strauss thank you madam chairman I moveed to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who brought illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia to school and who also used illegal drugs at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent I have a second from Miss PCH thank you um that motion's been U made and seconded

078all those in favor please raise your hand that is unanimous thank you um next I have have a motion from Mrs Schultz I move to excuse from attendance at school certain students who are identified in closed meeting pursuant to Virginia code section 22.1 d254 B1 second seconded by Mr Moon all those in favor please raise your hand darnette kofx mine Huff Strauss Corbett sand ERS Evans Hines Moon Wilson Schultz and pchi all those opposed those abstaining M McLaughlin a motion passes I next have a motion from Miss daret kofax I move to confirm that an annual contract for the teacher identified in a closed meeting will not be offered or renewed for the 2016 2017 school year second seconded by Mr Moon all those in favor please raise your hand um daret kofx no oh

079I'm sorry we are unanimous thank you all right uh item 4.02 the One Fairfax resolution uh this item has been rescheduled uh for a future meeting item 4.03 student rights and responsibilities regulation 26130 p uh board members I believe you have a blue sheet where the motions have been written I I have a motion from Miss Evans to start us off I move that the school board adopt regulation 26130 P student rights and responsibilities as detailed in the agenda item second seconded by mret kofax um I believe that we have I think we will do the the motion to postpone and the Motions to amend before we have discussion on this so okay I would like to call on Mr Wilson for his motion uh thank you madam chair I move that the board's action

080regarding regulation 26 1 be postponed until the June 30th board meeting second seconded by m Schultz um discussion Mr Wilson you may begin thank you madam chair and and thank you to everybody that's come out tonight uh very impressive group of people to come to a board meeting on an evening and some of you uh who are stalwart Watchers of the school board may know that the last time this board met here uh the very last thing I talked about was um the need for all of the board members here to increase their understanding of the issues surrounding the implementation of the gender identi identity policy changes which were made last year um as some of the speakers have already uh talked about this board has literally done nothing since passing the policy change last

081year and as a consequence we are really just sort of the next week following that decision now things have happened and the schools have been addressing the needs of students in their schools but we are really still I think at the very most basic level in terms of our board understanding of how the policy should be implemented and my desire was to promote and begin a conversation to that end I have reached out to uh citizens who have contacted me I have have set up meetings with principls I have contacted psychologist I have met with transgender students but this takes time the community needs time the Board needs time and we should do our very best to present to this community and to this school system an Exemplar set of regulations to implement the policy

082from last year and have real meaningful discussions about it it is not um the case of a simple solution uh to to a problem it's a complicated issue and I'm sure some of you here tonight know much better than I do exactly how complicated it is is so my initial motion tonight actually doesn't deal with gender identity at all because here's the situation when regulation 2601 was adjusted and updated this year by staff and presented to the board in April it was in correct what was posted and provided to the board was not correct subsequently when we had our work session on May 9th what was presented to the board was incorrect A few days ago I was asked if I would present the motion or second the motion to to support regulation 2601 and

083I went back to look at the document that was presented and it had been changed since the time we had met on May 9th so we didn't even have the opportunity as a board to discuss those changes let alone have an opportunity to go to our communities to involve affected parties so this is really a situation and and no offense to staff but it's really a situation where we need a doover we needed it presented as you wanted it to be written we needed to then have conversations about it that were substantive and invited members of the community with differing interests to provide their input we need to individually have chances to go talk and meet members of affected community so that they could understand because there are multiple issues that are involved of course

084the transgender children their safety needs to be protected that's that is something that we are doing right now through our bullying policy and thankfully for my conversations with transgendered students I think that's actually on a case-by casee basis been working out pretty well in Fairfax County Schools but there are also issues that belong to the community at large privacy issues concerns of parents these also need to be dealt with in all together in a compassionate and understanding way and so this motion is really to give this board a chance to do a doover I urge every member of this board to think clearly about this we're this is not an urgent motion school year is ending we have an entire summer to reflect upon and to implement the regulations that we desire as a community

085and as a board for Fairfax County Public Schools let's take the time let's use it let's not do it this way where we've got some members of the community feeling like they didn't have a chance to speak at all let's do it in a way that acknowledges that there are multiple opinions and multiple people with valuable things to offer to the [Applause] conversation thank you madam chair um Mrs Schultz would you like to speak to your second so we're a nation of laws and um as rule followers um we can't decide to pick and choose which rules um we're going to follow um when it's convenient for our um the the path that we're choosing to put forth and the problem is is that um in in very uh clear terms on April 28th so

086in April um which means that probably approximately a week before that the agenda was posted so mid to late April an agenda was posted that had the students rights and responsibilities document included in in it it had key points listed for the public to understand the changes that were being recommended by staff in it it had a presentation to the board in it and that was what was posted publicly um on April 28th staff came and made a presentation to the board the strikethrough document was there the key topics were there the agenda item was published and nowhere was the Equal Opportunity um access Clause um listed as a change to the students rights and responsibilities successive to that after the board's discussion on April 28th we had another meeting and that meeting's agenda was

087posted probably at the end of April or beginning of May going into the may work session which was an all day work session again in accordance with open meetings laws we published in advance the agenda we were going to be talking about at an open meeting that had the students rights and responsibilities it had the striketh through uh document it had the staff presentation to the board and it had all of the key elements that were identified again that change wasn't included I was the meeting manager for that section with one of my fellow colleagues so not only did I have the courtesy of the conversation at the board table the day of May 9th but meeting managers have a pre-meeting with staff to talk about the changes so I had an even more in-depth

088access to the material that we would be talking about so this is not somebody's fault per se but the bottom line is is that we owe the public a transparent and accountable set of circumstances leading up to substantive changes that happen in our regulations in addition to the fact that we did not talk about it uh at on May 9th all of a sudden the change was posted on the agenda for this meeting this week I didn't know in advance one of my colleagues found out and said is this the change that we talked about we had to go back and rewatch our work session and go back through our notes because nobody remembered even talking about it I know indefatigably we did not and Dr Garza agreed ultim that we needed to for process

089return to the language that was provided on something of this magnitude don't let anybody tell you well this is what we always do this is out of the norm and May 7th of last year we told this board minus the new people that are on it but the board is the board the board told the public committed to the public that we would would not make any changes in regulation and that the policy that we were changing was only words and that any regulation change going forward we would be transparent we would be accountable we would be open with what we were doing and it would come back to the board with a Consultants report and tell us in advance so that we could have and continue the public conversation that is so Paramount for

090all parties related to this if this gets jammed through tonight if we do not honor the process if we do not honor the rule of law if we do not maintain our transparency to the public we will break the Fidelity that you have entrusted us to serve you we have to postpone this and do things the right way not the way that makes sense for them okay um I have uh I have Miss I have Miss Huff next but Dr Garza would you like to respond now okay Miss Huff go ahead um well I won't repeat the overall process of how we got here since um that has already been done twice but I will speak to it um maybe from a different standpoint as well um we are changing the wording as it's proposed

091in a document for our students we're going to hold students accountable for wording that we have not been briefed on we have had a year and not been briefed not for lack of time but lack of clarity from the very consultant we hired to provide Clarity we don't have clarity as adults we are not ready for the report as adults and we are going to ask our students to sign something we haven't discussed how many gender identity definitions will FCPS Define do we know that answer I know there will be people who make this as simple as you are either a hater or you're tolerate an accepting but before we head there I ask all of my colleagues if we have reached out and sought input from the communities on the changed language in the

092srnr the document was posted for a month with the very intent of allowing Community input why at the 11th hour would we strip them of that opportunity I have spoken with many members from the diverse community on this specific Amendment um and I I wasn't I didn't think Mr Ry was going to be here but since he is I'm going is it still okay can I have a hand wve if we're still good here um I I did reach out to Mr Rigby today president of FPS pride and he has given me permission to quote him from the table tonight stating that he does not have a problem with the motion for a delay of vote this is how we work together this is how we lead by example for our students we may not

093all agree in the end but we have communicated in a way that shows respect and dignity to all I actually have a problem when people refer to this issue as an issue of Tolerance this is never the goal of my own children or any child I do not want my child to merely be tolerated I actually ask my kids to tolerate uncomfortable situations that should not be the goal for our children the goal I set forth is for them to be treated with love for each child student in person to know they were created out of love and that they are delighted in that should be the goal for our children and as adults we should be having adult conversations at a round table in a town hall at this board table in a way

094that includes everyone in a way that exemplifies what we all desire for our students to grow up to respect one another not just to tolerate one another we get there by listening to one another and asking good questions not by passing motions last minute and say it doesn't mean anything they're just words we're aligning do we know the consequence sorry do we know the consequences for a Muslim student requesting a same biological gender hotel room for a school overnight trip if this systemwide document is approved tonight this request will now be discriminatory and what will her discipline being for violating the new equal opportunity regulation we must be willing to have this conversation as adults before imposing rules and regulations on the very students we say we are here to help we have added gender

095identity for the bullying and harassing portion of the srnr this is appropriate and we should add every hair color body mass index ey shape color and anything else we think of because no student should be bullied or harassed but now we are adding language to a [Applause] regulation and now we are adding language to a regulation that has not yet been defined by our School Division and we are asking our students to navigate that when we have not done so ourselves in the name of protecting all our students let's please do this in the correct way with adult conversation with Community input with Roundtable discussions from people of all viewpoints so we can work together for a solution that's is healthy and supportive for all of our children um in an example um title n

096was brought up a lot tonight and the original intent was for protecting women in their Sports we actually spent time congratulating a group of students who did an amazing job discussing how there's a shortage of women in the stem Workforce and now I take you to Alaska this took less this took less time than many of us predicted in Alaska a transgender high school student born with male parts but living as a girl has qualified for the state track meet finals displacing a woman who was born with girl parts this is a consequence in the name of Title 9 we take away the rights of women protected under Title 9 agree or disagree I don't know but we haven't had this conversation last minute changes to something with so many questions of sloppy work let's

097do the same homework we expect of our students delay this and allow the staff to answer the questions and do this the right way Mr [Applause] Moon thank you madam chair I am not going to support this motion to postpone uh but please when I conduct a business meeting uh that I am pretty confused by a three of my colleagues speaking on this motion uh I know that Mr Wilson has proposed he hasn't gotten that far yet but he has proposed several different amendments and this very first amendment has nothing to do with gender identity or sexual orientation or non-discrimination policy because the main motion itself does not change because right now the main motion is the only thing on the table B motion does not change any of the languages pertaining to related to

098sexual orientation or gender identity perhaps what what my three colleagues who have already spoken were talking about were trying to address was Mr Wilson's Second Amendment not the first amendment I am quite confused about that I I am not going to support this amendment uh Miss mlin so in terms of uh Clarity here um from from what Mr Mr Moon has just stated um Mr Wilson's first motion was just to postpone the vote on the entire srnr until June 30th so the the issue at hand is that there is a pending U Amendment onto um this discussion and so it would be my understanding that we are going to first have the conversation of should we go ahead and um delay uh on the amendment and whether or not we needed to delay all of

099the student rights and responsibilties decision so I guess I would like a little bit of clarity from either the chair or from um Dr Garza um ultimately what are we trying to accomplish here if there is a delay on on the pending amendment that is going to be coming forward from Mr mlan then is it an opportunity to pass the srnr and his Amendment either um gets postponed and we we or we trying to do all of this on June 30th if I could um Mr Wilson has asked to postpone the entire conversation about srnr first and I we felt the clerk and I felt that that belonged first because um if it passes then we have no more conversation about the srnr if it fails um then Mr mavan has an amendment to propose

100and it's my understanding that Mr Wilson would like to postpone like to move to postpone the consideration of the amendment um and if that passes then uh the postponement passes then uh Mr Main's Amendment proposed amendment would be postponed and then we would go back to voting on The srnr as it is now it does does create some challenges because the srnr does have to be printed we can't wait forever we do have a deadline on that but that's my understanding of what we're deciding tonight I don't know that Mr Wilson asked for a date certain for postponement I didn't hear that so Dr Garza I remember um in years prior uh that the reason that we take up the srnr at this time frame is that we do have certain deadlines that that we

101to work with um with the printer and if the board were to postpone the O overall approval of the srnr in order to then on June 30th have its in its discussion and or potential inclusion of Mr mine's amendment that that would all be done June 30th and that does still give us enough time to go to print I'm not going to say it's impossible to get it done because I yeah I don't think that I don't think that should be a a a factor in your consideration tonight I will say it will be more daunting but I'm sure we can make it work did that answer your question well I guess I'm just trying to understand the the differential here because we have kind of two options in front of us one is just

102to postpone the entire srnr vote until June 30th the other potential op option is we go ahead and vet the srnr tonight vote on it but the board can still consider to hold Mr mine's Amendment until June 30th and then that would get added back in on like in other words so whether we do it whether we pass part of the srnr okay the way I hear way I heard what you just said um if in fact um you m you move forward with the consideration of the srnr as it's posted for your consideration tonight and you acted on it tonight and then reconsidered uh Mr mine's motion later in the month we would still technically have to hold the document so we're at the same place if that's what I heard you say if

103that if I heard your question correctly yeah I I think what you're telling me is it's proforma whichever way we go at it the whole thing's on hold under those two circumstances you that you described yes right if if I could though just clarify um the the final adoption and printing of the srnr is on hold but as I think if if we only postpone Mr Main's Amendment then conversation about that particularly would be postponed it's not that someone could not open up other issues in the srnr at that point because they could okay so sorry Miss hin what you're saying is we could decide not to delay all of the srnr here tonight we could get the 90% plus of it through knowing that we want to then potentially postpone one particular change and

104and have that discussion at the June 30th meeting okay or additional conversation all right well my my point was more to get clarity at this point anyone else um well uh seeing no other hands um I'm Sorry Miss Corbett Sanders I think we can all agree that we got here through a very messy process and um we're trying to figure it out but I would actually like uh a clarification from um Mr Foster about the partial adoption of a document I don't think we can partially adopt the srnr the way I read and for those of you who haven't seen it there are a number of different amendments there's an amendment which has just postpone the whole thing by two weeks there's another amendment which calls for the um possible adoption of an amendment to

105the srnr um then there's another adop amendment which is if the amendment to the srnr is adopted postpone the decision on the srnr by two weeks is that correct with your second amendment or your second proposal Mr Wilson I'm sorry you'll have to repeat okay I'm getting there's so many um it's almost a uh a sequential you have to look at how this is laid out and I guess my concern from a procedural point of view we cannot adopt just a portion of the srnr I think we have to adopt the whole srnr um so if we amend it we can amend it in a adopt it tonight or we can amend it and postpone the adoption of the whole srnr by two weeks why don't we ask Mr Foster for that clarification would it

106be okay for us to um adopt the srnr tonight without Mr Main's Amendment and then vote to add his amendment to make his Amendment on the 30th is that kosher you you can always uh amend at a later time a document um or more generally you know if there's an action taken you want to amend an action that was previously taken under Robert schores you can do that at a subsequent meeting thank you does that answer your question so may I add so correct me if I'm wrong Mr Foster so you would not need if you wanted to delay consideration of the particular motion you're technically adopting the entire document you could not adopt a partial but it's just like with any other policy or decision made by the by this board two weeks from

107now a month from now six months from now you can always consider a change to any previous action that you had taken correct Mr Foster okay thank you um well I I will speak to the motion um just briefly um I I I appreciate Mr Wilson's concerns um but I will not be supporting the motion to postpone the conversation about to the vote on the srnr because um I think I feel like there's a little confusion about this the srnr is not the implementation plan for the gender identity uh policy the non-discrimination policy that we passed a year ago um the srnr actually has a many other things in it there's a very small part of it um uh that that just basically every year restates the school board's non-discrimination policy and Mr Wilson is

108correct that um up until tonight actually unfortunately because of an oversite from staff and board members because we didn't notice it either the language that was in that part of the srnr um was not updated it had not been updated to reflect the new language that this board adopted this time last year overwhelmingly uh in an environment of considerable public input so to me there's not a question about whether our policy is clear and there's not a question about whether we have had public input on that policy the only question here is um should we amend the srnr to properly and consistently reflect the actual existing language of our policy at this point um I think we should I think it's um it's a small change it makes no difference to what we did um

109last spring in fact if we did not make the change our policy would still control the policy that we passed last spring would still control the school system because that's our policy it's not conditional it's not contingent on anything that's our policy so if we leave the srnr as it is we could do that but it would be confusing it would not uh be accurate and so that's why I think it's important that we go ahead and make what I really is is a housekeeping change that should have been made by staff so I don't I don't see postponing our vote on the srnr um over that so I see that I have a GoBack from Mr Wilson uh thank you madam chair um uh perhaps uh Mr Foster could clarify because there seems to

110be at least sort of interchangeably the use of policy and regulation so my understanding is that ulations by their nature or implementation of policy so when we say it's not the implementation of of gender identity uh anti-discrimination policy at least it's part of it I would say that as a regulation it is part the language that um that reads it says no student and FCPS shall on the basis and that it lists all the thing be subject to any discrimination under any education program activity as required by law car as require or activity as required by law carries I think that implies that as a regulation if nothing else is done then in each circumstance in the school system where it might come up then it would employ uh some sort of interpretation of the

111regulation and I think you're absolutely right the policy already States the opinion of this board quite well and I think this is an implementing regulation and and I would like Mr Foster to explain a little bit why um in this circumstance the board is voting on implementing regulations as opposed to voting on just policies the uh adoption of the srnr uh you're correct is a regulation um traditionally and is required by Virginia law the adoption of the student rights and responsibilities uh is approved by the board um to get to your question about reg the difference between regulations and policies sometimes regulations do Implement things but not always and it varies uh from case to case um I'll leave it to this board to to conclude uh whether this change in the language to reflect

112the policy uh is an implementation or simply a restatement of policy 1450 Madam chair I have a point of order yes um Mr f what is the open meetings law requirement for the posting of motions such as those that are under consideration at the table tonight the open meetings law simply requires that notice of the meeting be provided at least three working days prior to the meeting and there's no um uh open meetings law requirement for the posting of the Motions uh sitting here I'm not aware of one in fact um I've had this discussion with some of your colleagues on other issues uh there is case law uh and other guidance in Virginia that um additional motions can be added at the table and added to the agenda as new business they do not

113need to be noticed ahead of time it's not required under the under the Virginia open meetings law so the fact that the Motions that we were considering were added somewhere between 10:30 last night which means they weren't posted until the business day today and then the rest of them were posted on the business day today um is completely in accord with open meetings law as you see it as I understand it with the caveat uh again that I'm hearing this question you know for the first time but not had a chance to research it but again I was asked this uh a similar issue a couple of weeks ago by one of your colleagues the question then was um does the board need to or a committee of the board need to adhere to agenda

114that is prepared prior to the meeting or can it add new items at the meeting and the answer to that question is it can add new items at the meeting and so I think the logical conclusion from that analysis is that motions can be brought forward at the meeting even if they're not noticed ahead of time okay Madam chair and just just you know following up on that discussion I'm just making clear that we're trying to at the table sort out a whole series of amendments that none of us saw you know um you know not even 24 hours ago so Mr Wilson were you finished with your comment no Madam chair um Dr Garza U could you just just state so that everybody here understands when did staff make its final correction to the

115regulation that we're considering right now since you ask I'm going to go ahead and provide some additional clar clarification if I might um certainly I respect um this body um to make these kinds of important policy decisions but I really want to be clear so that we're not misleading the public as well this regulation that we're talking about tonight has nothing to do with the regulation that was actually brought brought up during some of the comments tonight we've not done that regulation we've not completed it with regard to access to restrooms and all of that that's something that we're working on and will be available at some point in the near future this has to do with how we manage discipline in our schools it's pretty straightforward you read the docu ment it's very straightforward

116our staff while I regret that there was a change at the last minute and certainly it it prompted a lot of this messy messiness tonight and I apologize for that uh my team last Thursday made the update to this document thinking that they were simply doing what we've always done and that is at the beginning of the document in the section where it's appropriate because we're talking about disciplinary decisions we are precluded from uh discriminating and so we typically have always posted our policy around discrimination at the front of this book the policy that the the active and current policy that was adopted by the board in May of last year number 1450 was inserted and my staff realized at the last minute we had not updated it it was it reflected the older policy

117so we changed it thinking it was a cleanup we regret that it causes uh level of angst after VIs with some Schoolboard members uh we did revert it back to the original language that that is not reflective of the current um policy on the books for this for this board so it was changed last Thursday we also didn't appropriately in my view send notice to the board members about the why it was changed and notice of when it was changed so I think those those questions that were raised were legitimate but it was really um thinking that it was a policy that was already adopted and trying to update the do okay but Dr my question really wasn't um uh directed towards that particular point I actually wanted to know specifically when did you make

118the final correction and what what was that final correction that you made because I don't think that's apparent in what was published on uh for the public to review I think I I think it was posted last Thursday or Friday I'm referring to the corrections that I sent to you last night and asked you to make what was that change that you that you made to the document that staff made a we had a you had asked for us to revert back to the original proposed language so we did that yesterday right I maybe maybe I'm not being clear so so I think my email actually said to you that the document that was posted on the website that had made not just one set of changes which put in the docu the the language

119that's now going to be part of Mr mine's Amendment but also uh was then taken out subsequent to that insertion the date on the document that was posted last night when I returned from the award ceremony still said strike through May 10th it still referred back to a May 10th date which of course it that is several several versions of the document late so the document itself still as of last night indicated in bold cap letters across every page that this was the strike through version from May 10th and that correction was not made until last night or early this morning and that's why I say we need to do over on on this document because it just wasn't done right I believe you answer your own question Mr Wilson thank you okay yeah I

120hope everybody will agree and we'll vote not to not to approve this policy or the the regulation as it's proposed thank you Mr Wilson I have Miss M miss mlock you know I I I don't want to Bel her the order with which um Mr Wilson's motions were put before us um I'm a little concerned um because I think the the macro level issue here is coming down to um the proposed language that we will have in front of us from Mr mine and um Mr Foster I apologize that you're uh continuing to be consulted here this evening um but I I am a little worried about some of the um some of the understanding that's being stated here tonight um first of all what we will be voting on is the student rights and

121responsibilities so beyond just discipline I mean it is what are our students rights in our schools and uh the amendment that we will ultimately be talking about um is very explicit it's not our policy where we said we do not discriminate that was something we voted on a year ago this one is is very more explicit in in what we are promising for rights for our students um specifically I want to just break it out it's saying that um on the no student in scps shall on the basis of and it gives all the the different categories sorry I'm sorry Mr mclin we don't have the amendment in front of us yet so I think we should not be speaking to it right now if you don't mind so if you can ask your question

122without speaking to the amendment yet that's not the table or save your question uh that's okay I guess it's just I'm as long as then there is a clear understanding because of again in the order of these motions what I heard Dr Garza saying and I think Miss Hines you getting clarification of we could we could go ahead and postpone on the next amendment that we're considering and still vote on the of the srnr yes I think that's cor and then take up the the amendment on June 30th and added back in and any other Amendment anybody wanted to bring okay so um all right see oh do we have one more go back from Mr Schultz so um I'm really glad Dr Garza that you brought up that the whole purpose of this regulation

123is to talk about how we discipline students because that's the enacting part of this document that is precisely why it is a regulation and not a policy it talks about how the division will go about addressing student Behavior because this goes into the hands of every single student and they have to sign that they will obey what is in the srnr and parents have to sign acknowledge that they they've received it and if something happens later in a disciplined case and everybody in this room regardless of what side you're on needs to pay attention to this this is why this is so important they will H be held accountable for having signed this document and any discipline action will be taken in accordance with this document and the students will rise and fall on what's

124in this document that is why it's so important some of the questions that I've asked that have to do with and if you want to just take this whole thing out because this has nothing to do with discipline so if you want to just strike this out and just talk about how we discipline students that's fine because we've addressed gender identity and bullying and so we've got that covered so under your definition there's no reason for this statement to even be here but the reason why it's important is I've asked things of general counsel and of you and of Dr Lockard earlier today as have some of my colleagues things as basic as what happens if a student decides not to adopt gender identity language will that student be punished like in New York City

125where they're finding people $250,000 that's an important discipline process if they elect not to participate in it if a transgender student is in a bathroom and is sexually harassed harassed what does the definition of sexually harassed mean what if a transgender student is in a locker room and sexually harasses somebody that they're physically attracted to that's the same biological sex what is that discipline these are gerain issues that have to do with how you and your staff go about and enact and carry out the policy of discipline and if we're going to go about talking about this these people these people these people and those people in the back all should have the opportunity to ask questions of what putting gender identity means in terms of the discipline of those students that could change the

126trajectory of their lives or IM IM um impact them in terms of their education everybody should have the right to be able to participate in a public discussion on what this means for their privacy for their discipline for their academics for their access to Athletics and so on and so if we don't ever have this discussion because things got posted in the middle of the night or on the same business day as we're actually having this then no one here has the opportunity to have this discussion and how 12 people got it I don't know but this is not our school system it's their school system it's the parents it's the taxpayers it's the stakeholders system these are their students who will be disciplined as a result of this enacting regulation thank you Mrs Schultz

127uh the motion on the table is to that the board that that the board's action regarding r2601 be postponed until the June 30 board meeting all those in favor of postponing of the motion to postp sorry madam chair Madam sh I couldn't hear you could you could you R redo the motion okay I I apologize the uh the motion is that the board's action regarding r2601 be postponed until the June 30 board meeting all those in favor please raise your hand in favor is Miss Huff Mr Wilson and Mrs Schultz all those opposed darnette kofax mlan Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Hines Moon and PCH uh any um abstaining Miss mlin okay um all right as that motion has failed um we have an amendment to be uh proposed by Mr M thank you madam chair

128I move to amend the motion by replacing the first sentence of chapter 1 section J with the following no student in FCPS shall on the basis of age race color sex sexual orientation gender identity religion national origin marital status or disability be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be subjective to to discrimination under any education program or activity as required by law second seconded by Mr Moon um I think we will go to um Mr Wilson's motion to postpone consideration of this amendment before we have discussion thank you madam chair I move to delay consideration of Mr mine's motion until the June 30th board meeting to allow public notice of a significant sub substantive change to regulation 2601 to give time for board discussion with staff at a work session on

129issues related to Mr mine's proposed changes and to provide time for the board to discuss proposed changes with each other and our communities second seconded by I'm sorry oh miss miss mlin okay I we will have discussion on this I would ask board members in the interest of time not to repeat discussion that we've already had but uh Mr Wilson uh thank you madam chair um you know one of the one of the um guiding principles that I have as a board member is to um to try to shed more light than heat um and and so um I appreciate um the comments that folks have made tonight and and I understand the emotions that people feel about this issue uh but again as I'd like to reiterate what I said initially it is critical

130that in or to to remain civil and open-minded as we have conversations that people feel passionate about and and and that is is critical to implementing effective and well well-considered regulations within our school system and I was encouraged tonight to hear many of the speakers mention things that I believe in um you know for example I like one of the speakers affirm the inherent dignity of every human person I advocate for the well-being of all people particularly the most vulnerable especially at a young age and in our schools it is important that our children understand the depth of God's love for them and their intrinsic worth and Beauty children should always be and feel safe and secure and know that they are loved those families and those individuals who are dealing with the struggles of

131having a transgender family member or maybe they're transgender themselves they they have are in a difficult situation and deserve everyone's compassion sensitivity and respect but all of these things can be expressed without infringing on legitimate concerns about privacy and security on the part of other young students and their parents so I made this motion to delay the to delay the board's vote on Mr mine's Mine mine's Amendment because we haven't had those conversations we haven't had those discussions what we've had are a lot of folks who seem to be talking right past each other and we need to do better we have to do better and I don't know whether June 30th is enough time to have some of those public conversations and to get the input that we need to make good decisions as

132board members but we're not going to get it done if we vote tonight because we've heard suggestions from this Podium of changes that need to be made but that's the first I've heard of them I haven't heard anybody else make a suggestion from staff not a single one nothing we haven't had a single conversation as a board there is no reason that this urgently needs to be voted on tonight and I ask this board to consider that and disc decide to delay the vote on Mr Mel mean's Amendment the policy is in place this board voted on it we are charged with implementing it and this srnr includes this provision I'm not sure I agree that it should be in there but it's there so we need to then have a discussion that is civil

133and cooperative and we listen and acknowledge to everybody's opinions and we bring in all constituents that have an opinion that's that we should hear let's not invalidate groups of people from having opinions are Mr Wilson no please continue thank you the last um one of the last speakers who spoke um spoke about moral leadership what a profound statement that's actually what we're supposed to do to provide moral leadership it's not a one person's decision it doesn't happen because there is a a letter issued by a governmental body that happens when the community believes in its leaders and its leaders try to help the community move forward so again I ask this board to vote to postpone the amendment okay m [Applause] mclin uh first as many know um from my vote last May um that

134I support and I will continue to support non-discrimination of any of our students including our transgender students in our schools and my heart goes out to our transgender Youth and their families for courageously speaking up and for fighting for equity for all at the same time I also firmly believe that we need to be as Leaders of this school board those who will bring our community together to create Unity not further divisiveness as leaders and governors of the school system it is so important that we do due diligence and that we also ensure due process to date going back even a year ago this board promised that while we would absolutely speak in support of non-discrimination we recognize that there would be some regulations or changes or practices that might come with it and that

135we would ensure that we would be transparent and enable the community to be able to understand what of any changes would happen in our schools to date we haven't had that opportunity uh our we our board has not been briefed by h a nationally recognized consultant to tell us what would be the best practices and so for my colleagues what I would say is simply this Mr Wilson's motion simply enables this board to take at least at this time um a couple of weeks to ensure that we can get information from Dr Garza and from the um expert and better understanding the issues that are facing our transgender gender students and what would be educational best practice that we can work with her and her leadership team to explore what then if any regulations will

136need to take place and how they would be implemented and then bring forward that information to our families and our constituents to share with them um what we believe is the best thing to do for all of our students and allow them the opportunity and demonstrate um the respect to hear from everyone in our community um my concern uh otherwise is that um when you read the language from um Mr mline and um one of the things that I was beginning to ask Mr Foster and um and was asked to wait is that this language here isn't simply a reiteration of the non-discrimination policy it it actually um Mr Foster um it's saying that we are telling our students that um this the school system is committed to ensuring um that uh all students will

137be able to um will be protected against any exclusion from participating in um or being given the benefits of of every um educational program and activity is required by law and that's a very um detailed and and Broad uh statement there that we have not had the opportunity to again talk with um the school system to understand then how will we handle um some of the the issues um even a year ago when asking about uh questions Miss Huff brought up what's going to happen with sports teams um we've not had that guidance and understand understanding um we don't have uh specifically laid out practices um we've been doing it right now on a Case by case basis and and I believe it's been very effective I mean we haven't had complaints um from the

138community to say that what we're doing currently um is problematic um but we did promise the community that we would lay out for them beyond the policy of saying we don't discriminate then how does that translate into our day-to-day practices is and I I I have concerns that that Mr melan's amendment is not simply a statement of policy of non-discrimination it goes much further explaining than what will that mean so I I would ask my colleagues that if we want to do our very best work simply postponing for two weeks would enable at minimum the 12 of us to be better informed through our division Council and through our superintendent to make sure that all 12 of us understand the language um that Mr mine has put forward tonight and therefore I I do think

139it is beneficial for us to Simply postpone for two weeks and better understand what this means Miss Evans thank you madam chair I spent much of the day uh trying pondering this whether it made sense to um to postpone because uh certainly we we didn't get to where we are tonight in in an ideal way and I thought well perhaps if this would um give give uh a bit more time just to post and do things in the the way we we typically like to do um and prefer to do that that perhaps that would that would be warranted um I went back to the original language that we adopted a year ago and saw that Mr mine's um language is in fact act what we adopted a year ago it is um now I

140realize it's not an it's not ideal how we got that got this way and I do understand Mr Wilson's concern about the the process I uh I I appreciate where you're coming from and I do want to say I Mr Wilson has been thoughtful on this issue you know this is not a a matter of of US versus them I'm not seeing it that way at all so um that that's not where my uh feel feelings on this come from but we adopted this language a year ago verbatim uh and it does refer to shall not be uh will not be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity as required by law that's what we adopted a year ago so when I realized that really we are we are just uh putting in

141a second place the language that we adopted a year ago after much discussion after many comments before this board after many uh filled board rooms uh which we all remember we adopted it and so to put it into our srnr um makes sense to do now I I also realize that we will have to have more conversations about this this isn't the end of this conversation you know we are going to have to look at how we implement the non-discrimination policy in a compassionate way and a sensitive way that respects everyone's needs um so this is not the end of this conversation but for tonight I see no reason to postpone it so I will be voting against the motion to postpone okay Miss Corbett Sanders thank you um feel a little bit like the

142person who walked in after the um intermission in a play and I'm trying to catch up to figure out how we got here um and this is a really tough situation because um I do agree with my colleague um Mr Wilson from a process perspective this was not a good process but I think everybody up here agrees that this process was not clear it was not um done well but um it was done with the best of intents that I am sure of um no I don't believe that there is any uh Mal inent in this but you know I've been called naive before um my concern is that there is a policy that the previous board adopted and it is a policy that is Fairfax County public school policy so the inclusion of that

143policy in the student rights um and responsibilities is the appropriate place to include it and it is verbatim so I have a slightly different question which is if we adopt Mr mine's Amendment which is a essentially a confirmation of what the board adopted last year um and then postpone the adoption of the Sr are to allow people to talk to their communities what would be the impact of that and I'm just throwing that out right now okay um I I think that I I think the impact would be just that we would wait two weeks to adopt the srnr is what the impact would be so you you know if if if you want to make that sort of amendment at the end of our conversation you're free to do that and we can discuss

144it is that it miss Corbin Sanders or did you have okay I do want to say that um I appreciate the um very thoughtful and um compassionate manner in which Mr Wilson is addressing this m daret kofax thank you madam chair um I too pondered this today and I miss Evans was one of the people one of the many colleagues that I spoke to and as we talked it through and we talked about um stating that this is the language we adopted one year ago this is a reinstatement of the policy adopted um because it is students rights and responsibilities this document um it is the proper place to put in this addition um is to Simply align um with the policy that we have already passed and um I think this is one um

145where we many of us spoke passionately um earlier um some of my colleagues where you talked about um respect and um making sure that that was the reason this policy was passed last year it was passed so that all of our students and employees are treated with dignity and respect and I think when you talk about students rights this is just a reinstatement of that policy in this document which is so it which is a very important document we um the board that I was elected to um you know four years ago that board that sat at that time that was one of our major things which we looked at to ensure that that students rights were were protected and they understand understood what their um responsibilities were so um again I I wouldn't po

146I wouldn't accept the motion to postpone um I will be supporting Mr M's motion M St um thank you uh in the student rights and responsibilities first I I am sorry that it was an oversight that the policy that was um adopted a year ago it would it should have been updated and put it the it's sort of the boilerplate on the student rights responsibilities but to be specific we do not have regulations in place yet dealing with the larger Global conversation um and we heard very passionately about folks asking us please would you hurry up and do the regulations that support the policy and we don't have those yet on the other hand what is in the student rights and responsibilities to be clear and the section that it says acts for which students

147may be disciplined in other words this is specifically how students are to behave bullying on any basis is not tolerated discriminatory harassment which is harassment based on a person's race color religion national origin gender disability personal or physical attributes or matters pertaining to sexuality including sexual orientation gender identity or gender expression in other words no harassment sexual harassment in other words this is activity for which students students anybody can be disciplined sexual harassment definition which includes unwelcome sexual advances regardless of sexual orientation requests for sexual favors and other and other inappropriate verbal electronic or physical conduct of a sexual nature that creates an intimidating hostile or or offensive environment that's what's in the srnr that those statements that is the kind of behavior if students exhibit they can be punished in some way that's it

148so on the one hand we have one group in our audience that are asking us please clarify the policy that we passed a year ago a lot of questions about that we don't have the regulations for that either so we're not able to answer that question I think we have other folks that are are are concerned still with the policy was passed a year ago in other words clarify exactly how this is going to work have to be honest we have't but in the srnr the only behavior for which students would be disciplined has to do with sexual harassment bullying and um uh actually also deals with pornography and profane language that's the clar clarification for students so when they sign the srnr that is what they are saying is that they will not bully

149anybody for any reason they will not discriminate harass sexually harass anybody and they will not use vulgar language or engage in pornography that is a specific clarification for behavior that we require of students that's what's in the srnr thanks yeah and it's already there those are no changes but people wanted to know the purpose of the srn is to tell kids what Behavior if they misbehave they could be punished for these are the things and that is it that would have anything to do with sexuality in other words we don't approve of any inappropriate sexual behavior period for anybody in our schools kids are here to learn they are not here to engag in sexual misbehavior of any kind by anybody and if they do kids can be um disciplined thanks Miss Huff okay um

150um thank you and um I do know that M Jos you're making the point about bullying and harassing but that's not all that this is about um I also see a part that says that no one can be cannot be excluded from participation in be denied the benefits of or be dis subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity so this is straightforward as it was stated earlier and it's about discipline so I have some questions that probably should be able to be answered then so the first question I have is how is gender identi defined in the proposed amendment um if I could when we get to the proposed amendment um I think we'll be ex we're discussing whether or not we should postpone it so if we can answer all these questions

151then maybe we don't need to postpone it but if we can't then maybe we do well I'm sorry but I think that we've done it in the order that we have so that if there are people on the board who want to discuss the amendment then you would vote to not postpone the conversation the postponing of the conversation means that we don't discuss the amendment a point of order Madam chair um I wonder if there's a parliamentarian that could answer the question of because the substance of my motion is the amendment so if we cannot discuss the amendment then we cannot discuss the motion that I'm making so I would if there's a parliamentarian that could answer that question I think that be appropriate I I I think it's pretty clear that if you are

152moving to postpone the conversation of something that you're not going to talk about it excuse me Madam chair I think I had a point of order for the parliamentarian I think that's Mr Foster everybody's looking at me I I don't think I have ever formally been appointed the parliamentarian but I um I will nonetheless um uh answer answer or try to answer the question um and so under Robert's Rules the the chair has the perogative to determine whether questions are in order or out of order um I think that the chair had either started to make that ruling or had made that ruling um an appeal can be placed to the chair to appeal her ruling that an item is out of order um and a member simply does that by saying Madame chair I

153appeal your ruling and so I hope I provided some guidance um thank you you have I do think it's out of order because I don't think we can have it both ways either you want us to talk about the amendment or you don't so if you want us to talk about the amendment what I want to talk about is whether or not we need to postpone or not okay we can talk about that but I a question to the maker of the amendment on the The Madam chair I have a point of order excuse me I have a point of order Madam chair excuse me excuse me no I have a point of order Madam chair that needs to be recognized under Robert's Rules made a ruling that the question Miss Huff was asking was

154out of order I'm not asking the maker of the motion I'm asking staff can you can you maybe restate your question again maybe I something Madam chair I've been I need to be recognized for a point of order go ahead um I'm sorry but the the question of uh of uh Miss Huff is whether or not the I the definition of gender identity is Germaine and this is in fact Germain and if Mr Foster wants to comment on whether Sor Mr if you disagree with my ruling my ruling you appeal I'm Sor Madam chair I have the I have the floor Madam chair I have I have the floor for a point of order no uh and that's not debatable ask a point of order I am I'm asking I'm asking Mr Foster on whether

155or not gender identity is determined to be germine to the question that she's asking for the amendment that's before us and the question of Germain is a point of order and I can ask it I'm sorry I'm not I'm not sure what the what the question is or what I'm being asked to aine on I I'm sorry whether or not the definition of gender identity is gerain to the amendment that Miss Huff is asking for Clarity on okay so the amendment as I understand it is Mr mine's amendment to add uh language to paragraph J is that cor no the the amendment that we're discussing now is the amendment is the postponement of the discussion of the amendment okay so we're we're talking about Mr Wilson's motion to postpone thank you okay so um the

156question is is Miss Huff's question on the definition of gender identity gerine to the motion to postpone is that the question um it is not the motion to postpone is a procedural motion uh seeking to move consideration of the item to a date certain in this case June 30th so to the extent on being being asked for a ruling uh or guidance as the parliamentarian my guidance is that the question is not gerine to the motion to postpone okay Mrs H would you try again with your question maybe we can make it work so I can ask the question well tell me what you want to ask again I've kind of Forgotten what it was I wanted to know go back to my questions um how is gender identify and gender identity going to be

157defined in the proposed amendment I would like to ask staff that so I'm sorry you were asking how gender identity is defined in Mr Main's proposed amendment or how is FCPS going to define gender identity it is not defined in the amendment oh okay so staff had originally put it in because they thought that it was correct for it to be a line they pulled it because there wasn't enough time for Community input so at some point staff feels like that this should be in because the words are aligned so I'm just trying to understand the wording that we want in this regulation so I know how to proceed with postponing motions giving more time to answer questions and how the board wants to proceed with that okay well we the motion on the floor

158is to postpone and not discuss the proposed amendment so that's really what we're supposed to be talking to now is whether or not we want to discuss Mr moline's Amendment okay so I will try another rout this point uh I feel like there are a lot of questions still to be answered and it does not make sense to be discussing a motion when those questions haven't been able to be raised as evidenced and thus the questions cannot be answered um given that uh we were not eled because people wanted to listen to us talk to each other we were elected because the voters wanted us to listen to them since this opportunity has been stripped I guess the route I'll go is to speak to the words that they have sent us and over the

159hundred emails I received in eight hours today emails are literally still coming in I cannot read them all but the community deserves to hear what others are saying if we as a board are going to deny the opportunity for conversation I will try and present some of those words but this is the exact reason we need to be delaying the discussion of this amendment until the community themselves can speak for [Applause] themselves are you finished please please keep going we're not going to wait for Applause so of the many emails I received there was a great great sentiment that this feels like it is being rushed through again that if we are going to consider it um believe the wording was considerable Community input last May having a topic presented a year ago as new

160business and then voting on it two weeks later which allowed for a total of 20 speakers out of 1 million people does not constitute considerable Community input please tell me please tell me we all believe this is complex enough for roundt discussions for town halls and for real conversation and I'm going to read one email I received um from a parent and she said first of all let me say that this message is not prompted by partisan feelings and I do not identify with either political party second we appreciate the work that the school board has done third we have three children who went through FCP death and who self-identify as bisexual some of our young friends are transgendered regardless of how we feel about fairness and sensitivity the proper process that is the hearing

161should be held the Consultants that are tax dollars paid for should be allowed to complete the recommendations noticing of meeting agenda items is almost certainly a procedural process in your policies and those should not be under mind on worked around in order to manipulate the goals of some members of the school board similarly The public's input should should be encouraged and not manipulated or controlled such that only hand selected voices are heard the school board is supposed to represent us us the voters if a business person use the tactics that some members are using to cut out others both Schoolboard and the public that person would be fired for unethical Behavior so we can continue to say that this is not about needing to wait for the consultant's report we can say that this isn't

162enacting anything but the fact of the matter is there are questions that putting things in a regulation that we ask our students to sign is an enactment there are going to be questions and we do need to answer them before we pass this amendment Mr Schultz Mrs Schultz sorry I couldn't hear you so um I'd like to go back to what my good colleague from drainville Mr said that this document is only used to discipline students it's only used to discipline students there's two RS students rights and responsibilities it is not just used to give discipline it is also used to convey the rights that we confer on students when they go on our buses when they are on our athletic teams when they go into our buildings when they go on trips representing our

163school system all students and to say that this is not in acting is nothing short of folly it is nothing short of folly for all students and everybody in this room better listen to me because when I say all students I'm sure that everybody in this room is just as concerned about the rights that their students that they're supporting have and have access to in this school system which in 399 days this board hasn't had a single discussion about what was passed last May that was a policy we said from here I didn't say other people said said from here they're just the words that are reflecting our values of what we already do this is not reflecting values this is conveying rights and holding children accountable as a responsibility and then if they don't

164we're going to punish them I think everybody in this room wants to know if if there is a boy who identifies as a female will he be barred from playing on the Girls Athletic team will he be permitted to play on the girls out team will he be barred from playing on the boys athletic team will he be permitted to play on the boys's athletic team if you have a girl who identifies as a male the same questions apply those are rights and anybody here who wants to shorten the discussion cuts off your access to influence those rights and you do not want to do that in the name of speed because poorly done policy is done fast there is no consideration there is no consideration for anybody's privacy when there's no consideration for some

165people's privacy there's no consideration for anyone's rights when there's no consideration for some people's rights and the public whether you're over here in the middle over there watching at home watching on the TV watching on the tele on the on the internet you haven't had the opportunity to say when we enact something that says that no student fill in the blank will be denied the benefits or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity is required by law the dear colleague letter is not law it's not law it doesn't guarantee anybody anything it actually is nothing it is a suggestion do you want any rights for any of your students to be confirmed or denied by this board you haven't had that conversation you haven't weigh in we haven't talked about it in

166399 days and they're saying all we're doing is just rememorize REM memorializing what we did last May then why haven't we talked about it in 399 days are you finished you can you can parse the words all you want but our board cannot be in a position of doing harm delaying this two weeks doesn't do anything to anybody and it affords everybody a lot it affords us conversations the people at this board table haven't even read the nine and a half pages of questions that I've submitted to the school system my colleagues deserve the right to see those questions you deserve the right to see those questions they deserve the right to have questions in response to my questions that's called dialogue that's how you make good policy and we are not in a position

167right now when Facebook has 58 genders and New York City has 31 genders I don't know how many genders we're going to uh uh Define how many we're going to protect how many we're going to support don't you want to know I do I've asked that question I have no answer for that I don't know what gender identity even means according to the school system I know what some people interpret it to mean and different websites have different definitions you have a school board that is accountable to you and you have heard tonight professed that we haven't talked to each other in 399 days or since last night there are multiple amendments on the table that we're having difficulty clearing up right here at the table and when is common sense going to Prevail and

168say if we wait two weeks and allow the public an opportunity to comment and we reasonably prudently answer people's questions and continue the dialogue in respect that everybody's rights are preserved predominantly your first amendment's rights okay next is Mr Moon uh thank you madam chair I am not going to support Mr won's motion to postpone but I'll be as a second I'll be supporting Mr M instead uh a colleague of mine mentioned the about that we are elected to represent people yes we are elected to represent people and we all ran in November election that's why we are sitting here and we all got elected uh a very few of us last year did not support policy 1450 and few of us during the course of a campaign were critical of the B adoption of

169policy 1450 I do not expect people who are critical or who did not support policy 1450 to support Mr MC's amendment I just do not so I understand when they are again critical when not supporting uh Mr mackin's Amendment uh when you look at srnr as another colleague of mine pointed out it has both rights and responsibilities let's look at the rights what it contains some of thewi right of expression probably philosophical po broad policy statement right to distribute literature right of adult students and their parents and right to complain they are all in there srnr and we have for many many years also had right to equal opportunity and we already have a language in there and what Mr Melvin is trying to accomplish tonight is that particular language already in there to be

170aligned with the policy 1450 which was adopted by the board last board by the vote of 10 to2 after extend iive discussion we're not changing anything and my colleagues my colleagues I believe I believe do well understand why we have not had regulations in place yet if they say they don't understand why we have not had regulations for 355 days I think uh that board member should perhaps have a further convers assciation with our division counsel therefore as I stated at the beginning I am not going to support Mr won's motion but i' be supporting Mr mcin okay I have some Gob backs um miss mlin one of the things that I I really hope for everyone to understand is that tonight's conversation is about the community's understanding of the board's work and um while

171there's been um efforts to clarify that um the amendment before us is simply a reiteration of what we already have in our policy um for the public because of the suddenness of the amendment it's creating a misunderstanding in the public that we are doing something different that we are taking greater steps to change our practice within the system and so the value of the postponement is not necessarily our own personal Clarity but it is about helping ensure that the public feels we were transparent and that we really were allowing full engagement and my concern is that by dismissing this opportunity for two weeks it prevents us this opportunity over the next two weeks to to actually help educate our community and reassure them that this is a board that is deeply committed to accountability accountability

172transparency and public engagement so the motion I believe actually enables our board um to reflect its commitment to those three principles um to reassure the public that uh while the language might look new to some it is identical to our non-discrimination policy and that uh we were instructed a year ago by our division Council that um under um Federal uh laws we needed to be providing this um discrimin non-discrimination protection to all of our students so a year ago I voted in support of that policy I believe we shouldn't discriminate and also knew that we needed to follow the law um but there is some misunderstanding in the community that um this language before us because of the way in which it arrived at so last minute it's creating a a a false perception in

173the public that we're trying to do something um under the radar um that they you know we don't want them to know about and sadly that isn't true I mean this is a board that I do believe is committed to and so as a result I I believe that the merits of postponing for two weeks is really to enable the board to better educate um the public who is viewing this as are trying to do something um that is less than transparent Miss Corbett Sanders thank you and thank you Miss mclin for your uh raising the point that this policy that's before us is one um that was adopted last May and that um it is verbatim of what was adopted last May as um the non-discrimination policy that was adopted by the board and

174one of the critical pieces of it is as required by law and so the as required by law is the piece that is going to require additional clarification as the law becomes more crystallized and clear because that is what is happening in um courts and elsewhere across the country and so the policy which the amendment um that Mr mine put forth is just a restatement of what has already been adopted and what is existing policy for Fairfax County Public Schools um I do think that the going forward and creating a better understanding of the implementing regulations is going to be something that needs to be done in a very transparent and open Manner and one that um should engage all stakeholders but the the piece that is so important here is that it is as

175required by law and this is um something that the school board already has as existing policy and what the role of putting it in this document is to make sure that every student who um comes into to school and all of their parents understands the policy and regulation um as far as non-discrimination and opportunities Miss Evans I just want to address the the idea that uh we haven't had a conversation about this we had had a very lengthy conversation about this a year ago we had a convers excuse me Mrs Schulz I am speaking please do not interrupt me we had a very lengthy conversation about this topic a year ago we had many many speakers we had a filled Schoolboard room we had hundreds of emails a year ago this is not a new

176conversation this is a conversation that we had a year ago we took a stand a year ago against discriminating against transgender students that was the that was the stand we took a year ago we made that our policy it was a 10: one: one vote it was overwhelming tonight we look at it again only because it was inadvertently left out of another piece of our srnr but it is not nothing new we have had many conversations about this we we a year ago made a decision and we are going to stick to our decision tonight and it is time to get on with it and vote I'm going to give Mr Wilson the last word and then we will vote oh I'm sorry Miss pchi hasn't spoken yet you go first and then Mr Wilson

177thank you I will be brief I was going to wait but I just wanted to read a letter from a constituent I received today as your constituent I write to ask you to please support Ryan mine's Amendment this evening to ensure that the student rights and responsibilities correctly reflects the FCPS non-discrimination policy the board spoke clearly last year with nearly unanimous support and said that it would protect the rights of all students teachers and faculty regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity I hope you will do so again to make sure that these policies are reflected in this important document and while I was not a member of this board last year I was in the audience in support of this policy and will'll do so again thank you okay Mr Wilson last for thank

178you madam chair uh just a just a couple of mentions uh that I think relate um and are pertinent to this discussion the first thing I'll mention is that the policy we're talking about which was enacted a year ago um and there there obviously was a contentious discussion uh in this room about that policy um is currently still subject to a lawsuit that challenges the authority of this board to implement this policy and the dear colleague letter issued by the Department of Justice and Department of Education is currently being challenged in the federal courts I don't think that we need to rush a decision when the state of law is uncertain we may have had a conversation a year ago but it's pretty stale and I'm not sure we got to the granular level that

179this community expects I'd also like to um read from an email that I received today uh this this board received it says I wrote to superintendent Garza on May 25th requesting information about how Fairfax County public schools intended proceed regarding the guidance on May 31st I received a response from a senior staff member stating prior to the issuance of the Department of educations and Justice guidance on transgender students the school board amended its non-discriminant discrimination policy to ensure that no student will be discriminated on the basis of his gender identity Fairfax County Public Schools is continuing to review and monitor the current federal and state court cases related to transgender individuals as those decisions will guide our future work on the approval of the related regulations just as a caveat I think this regulation is

180a related regulation when I asked about the report that was supposed to be created regarding how the changes to the non-discrimination policy would be implemented so I could review it and participate in the public review period I was told again that we are waiting on the decisions from the court cases before we submit proposed regulations for review by the school board and our community this is senior staff for example Fairfax County Public Schools anticipates that the court of appeal in the fourth circuit will provide Virginia schools with binding legal inter interpretation of the requirements once again once we have legal this is this is from the staff once we have legal interpretation the central staff will work with the consultant legal counsel and the school board to determine next steps for the regulation this proposed

181change to the regulation regarding gender identity while the policy was passed a year ago was presented to today senior staff a week ago was sending emails to the community of Fairfax County saying that we are going to wait to act on regulations pending clarification of the case law this this isn't a conversation that's helpful to develop a good policy this is this is literally confusion being circulated in our community I I thank please hold your applause um there is no rush on this as they've has been mentioned several times it was last May that the board enacted the policy the srrs last year could have reflected this language the board that voted for that policy decided not to incorporate this language in the srrs they had the chance they had 11 10 one to one

182votes they had Community participation apparently but they didn't do it they waited a year now on the day we're voting on it the language is inserted we're asked to vote on it without any further conversations without any instruction from staff about how regulations will be implemented how this affects individual students students individual teachers in terms of their decision making and we should wait have some discussions and do this the right way thank you thank you Mr Wilson so the motion on the table I I will not uh reread the full motion uhu but it is the motion to delay consideration of Mr Main's motion Amendment until the June 30th board meeting and then as described in the agenda item all those in favor of uh the motion to delay please raise your hand Miss Huff

183Mr Wilson M McLaughlin and Mrs Schultz all those opposed darnette kofax mlan Strauss um Evans Hines Moon and pulch do we have any abstaining Miss Corbett Sanders abstaining the motion fails um now Mr Wilson has another motion to postpone is that correct yes thank you madam chair this um this final motion that I have tonight actually I think because I was having to write my motions while I was putting my tie on this evening to come to this meeting I wasn't able to to Really spend enough time to actually discuss it with my peers to review it in any any detail or even to discuss it with the clerk we did not have time I sent her what I was thinking and she drafted it and here it is on my chair so um this

184is not perfect but I have tried to adjust it slightly um in in substance it is the same so my motion I believe the numerous questions raised by Mr mine's Amendment raise unique and complex questions that require considerably more study and investigation than it's possible tonight thus I move to postpone Mr Mel means amend the vote on Mr Mel mean's in uh Amendment indefinitely for an indefinite per period of time to allow to so that it can be referred so that we can prer the proposed new language to a special committee to study and uh to investigate with staff these questions I propose that the committee be made up of several board members including but not limited to Mr mline Mr Huff Mr Corbett Sanders and myself second okay um Madam clerk I don't think

185that is the language that exactly that we have in front of us on the blue sheet so is there any way that we could get the language up on the screen that Mr Wilson just said so perhaps we could take a two-minute break while Mr Wilson writes down his actual language and we will come back in two minutes with that on the screen behind us is that possible Madam clerk thank you two minutes I'm not sure I'm that fast e e e board members please come back to the table if audience members would please sit down that would be helpful okay we are reconvened please come back to the table okay Madam clerk as soon as great thank you sorry don't mean to rush you e I'm sorry okay Mr Wilson would you check the

186language on the screen and let us know if that's correct okay we we are we are still um we're still in session we're not in recess um I will walk away from the table for a second but we are not in recess e Madam chair if you could please return to the DI so we can get started um so I apologize for the delay it kind of reminds me of the cross country uh uh trips my family and I used to make where I wasn't allowed to leave get out of the car to go to the bathroom for several hours usually between something like Omaha and Denver uh okay so um this is the motion um again I'm I believe the numerous questions raised by Mr mine's Amendment rais unique and complex questions that require

187considerably more study and investigation than is possible tonight thus I move to postpone the vote on Mr mine's Amendment for an indefinite period of time so that we may refer the proposed new language to a special committee to study and investig with staff these questions I propose that the committee be made up of several board members including but not limited to Mr M Mrs Huff Mrs Corbett standers and me I'll second it again okay uh thank you madam clerk thank you Mr Wilson um uh I will start with Mr Wilson for discussion and once again I would just ask board members in the interest of time to try not to repeat statements that you've already made Mr Wilson thank you madam chair um and thank you for everybody who stayed tonight and participated in this

188conversation with us um uh my apologies for the board that we couldn't do it in a uh little more mannerly fashion at times um and I think I have failed in my quest to produce more light than heat um but I I believe that our conversation does clarify one critical point and that is that the discussion and the board members involvement in that discussion with the community and with staff with the LGBT community and with concerned citizens in Fairfax County needs to happen and I think that a special Committee of this board That Could set aside time to meet to discuss to bring in the consultant that we've already hired to find out the consultant's opinions and to to consider uh all of the issues that people have talked about um would be very valuable

189for this board and I think that um I think we've heard that it is possible uh in the future to to vote on the language proposed in Mr mine's vend Amendment so I urge everyone on the board to support this motion thank you okay Mr Schultz um Mr Foster is um the dear colleague letter enforcable by law and if so which one miss Schultz we had a discussion as you know uh earlier on some legal issues in closed session uh your question is appropriate for closed session I am not going to answer that question in an open session unless directed to do so by a majority of this board okay so um well I can I pretty much answer that because there's a footnote at the bottom that says it's not enforcable by any law

190so um maybe maybe I suffer from the same diseases Mr Wilson that sometimes I ask questions I know the answer to um trying to reasonably get information on the record for the public um one of my colleagues um Miss mclaughin earlier tonight referred to us as leaders and um governors of the system um that's that's true but when we think of ourselves as leaders and governors um we put ourselves in a position that is above the public um I prefer to think of ourselves as public servants and stewards um because you're you've entrusted us to run this and when I can't tell any student what their status is in terms of their rights by a document that we're attempting to pass and I will give you a very specific example code of federal regulations tit

19134 part 106 allows for the Discrimination of students based on their vocal range or quality that may result in chuses or chuses chor or chuses of predominantly one sex predominantly one sex we've been told in the dear colleague letter that sex is gender we've been told by certain community members that sex is gender what this says is that your federal government is allowing us to discriminate against you based on sex well what sex are we barring transgenders from choruses I don't know the answer to that that's your right to know the answer to that before we pass and tell you what your rights are so it it's a novel concept to say that this merely reflects what we did last May Mr Rigby has asked no fewer times than have I what the status is

192of the report from the consultant in terms of what best practices are in treating all students with dignity privacy and honoring parental rights of their minor children he's asked no fewer times than have I neither side has the answer but we are memorializing if we do not refer this this to a committee or delay or engage the community on what the students rights and responsibilities are and if we proceed past this amendment we are going to hold our children more accountable than we're going to hold ourselves for answering the public on what we what we're passing even means federal law prohibits or allows us to prohibit access to contact Sports who gets to play what sport Athletics are very very important in Fairfax County extremely important in Fairfax County that is a value that Fairfax

193County has in terms of the mental health and wellness of students the physical wellness of students I can't tell you what anybody's right is everybody saw the Alaska story this week we have a discussion before us that we don't even have the regulations yet according to my colleague Miss stuss from drainville if we don't even have the regulations and we don't even know what they mean then why would we pass a regulation that says the students have rights and responsibilities and access to any education program and any activity that is a reasonable thing to defer to a larger community group to met out what these issues are so that everybody's rights and everybody's privacy can be respected this is a reasonable thing to do on a complex issue that you don't solve in a single

194business day shooting from the hip which is exactly what we're going to be doing tonight if we move past this motion we have an an o a responsibility to all members of the public to enact the rights and responsibilities well so this is a next step in an attempt to eek out some common sense at this table and again we're not doing any harm by referring this and including inclusive being inclusive including more voices at the table so that the end product represents better or at all what the community wants and what individuals need in terms of a confirmation of their individual rights uh under our policies and it's not a policy it's a regulation and last may we said we wouldn't enact any regulations so let's not go ahead and break our word from

195last May okay um seeing no other com oh I'm sorry um so as Mr Wilson mentioned this amendment has not been discussed the first time I read it was actually when he just read it out loud um but as I think about it and um this is how we get to significant Community input and conversation for clarification purposes the definition of conversation I just looked up is a form of interactive spontaneous communication between two more people typically it occurs in the spoken language as written exchanges are usually not referred to as conversation the development of conversational skills and etiquette and is an important part of socialization discussion the act of talking about something with another person or a group of people a conversation about something receiving emails and listening to public speakers and then 12

196people talking about it is not extensive Community conversation Miss mlin I I know we're trying to be brief and and move through the meeting I just wanted to extend the courtesy to Mr Wilson to let him know that while I greatly appreciate um his um efforts to really look for opportunities on how we could um be as engaged with the public on this issue and also to enable the board to better understand um how our policy decision last year impacts um the work that we do and Dr Garza and her Administration does um I don't actually feel that this motion here uh is going to be the best vehicle for that um I I believe as I supported the prior motion that we would benefit from at least a two- week um postponement to have

197uh strong Community engagement as well as stronger communication among the board and with the administration on on this amended language and so um Mr Wilson I just want to say I very much appreciate all your uh efforts to um identify the best ways uh but on this particular motion I won't be supporting it okay Mr Wilson thank you madam chair um so one of the questions that was raised when I reviewed um the amendment proposed by Mr mine is regards how an even the appropriateness of adding age as a basis for discrimination amongst children since the age discrimination laws in this country protect the elderly that's one of the pieces of Mr mine's Amendment and I realize that it's a parting of the policy anti-discrimination policy that Fairfax County has but again I think it

198reflects the last minute nature and the and the lack of ability to have conversations among the board and staff as far as I know we do discriminate against three-year-olds even if they are brilliant from starting kindergarten and I think we tell 32 year olds that they can't sign up as ninth graders in our school and I think everywhere in between we do use age as a method of discriminating between students in terms of what they're allowed to participate in and what how they access and use our school system I don't think that's the most important question that we've raised tonight but I do think it is reflective of why we need to slow down and do this the right way and again um it may not be a perfect solution as Miss mlin has pointed

199out but it is the only solution now that we have left other than deciding to either approve of the amendment or to disapprove of the amendment and and so while it's it wasn't my first motion it's the only one that's left and I urge this board to consider voting in favor of it at this point thank you okay seeing no other discussion uh the motion is the one hopefully still printed above us here okay which is to um postpone the question in order to send to committee I'm summarize that those in favor of the motion please raise your hand that would be Miss Huff Mr Wilson and Miss Schultz those opposed Dar kofax mlan Strauss um Corvett Sanders Evans Hines Moon mclocklin and pchi that motion fails all right so we are now at um

200Mr Main's motion to amend Mr M M would you please reread your motion and then you can speak to it thanks Madam chair I move to amend the motion by replacing the first sentence of chapter I section J with the f following no student in FCPS shall on the basis of age race color sex sexual orientation gender identity religion national origin marital status or disability be excluded from participation in being denied the benefits of or be subjected to demonstration discrimination under any education program or activity as required by law so last year after a a vigorous public debate the Fairfax County School Board board made history and amending our non-discrimination policy to include gender identity our board voted to respect and love all of our students and employees for who they are our Fairfax County

201Public Schools always are held up as places of Love diversity and inclusion and I was so proud to join my colleagues to ensure that remains a reality I'm honored to serve with colleagues who had the courage of conviction to make that change and I hope my colleagues again will uphold that courage tonight to put it simply there's one sentence in our srnr handbook that restates our non-discrimination policy unfortunately as we have heard quite a few times tonight due to an oversight by our staff that new policy language was not included in the srnr document that the board will adopt tonight there has been concern expressed that this change was added at the last minute however the school board did not learn until yesterday afternoon that our adopted nisp Iration uh policy language would not in

202fact be part of the srnr as a result when I learned this and conferred with the chair I put forward this amendment as soon as I learned so tonight I am proposing an amendment to the srnr to replace the old discri non-discrimination policy sentence with the approved policy language the goal is to ensure that the board's policy is consistently and accurately represented now I have one question for Dr Garza just one since the not the non-discrimination policy language already was approved last year will any of our current practices change by making this change to the srnr no it would not because that's the current policy on the books thank you Mr Moon would you like to speak to your second I think I've spoken enough do we have any other Mr Press thank Madam chair

203I appreciate very much Mr mine's amendment to regulation 2601 and support it wholeheartedly with the greatest belief in the rights of all students and in good governance every student that comes to class in FCPS has a right to feel safe at home and welcomed we do an excellent job of that already I hear from students every single day about the great environment we provide at school they feel safe they feel welcomed they feel happy that is in large part due to the fact that they know that this board this leadership team and the school leadership that they have value their comfort but let me be clear only protecting the rights of 99% of students to me is an abject and outright failure that means that there are nearly 2,000 students that this board and leadership

204team are not actively working to protect if there is one student whose rights to safety and a meaningful education are detracted from then we have set them and ourselves up for failure whether based on color sex Creed marital status or any other category everybody in their in this system has a right to be their authentic selves Dr Garcia you mentioned that nothing would change in practice and while that might not that might be the case I would argue that the student rights and responsibilities is the definitive place that our students and our families and our community members go to when they have questions about their treatment and their rights as members and part and parts of this system we owe it to them to put into this handbook the policy that this board voted on

205last May because if we do not do so we are being dishonest with them because that is the current practice by not reflecting the current practice in our handbook we are not being honest Brokers students have rights they have the right to address their grievances with Administration they have the right to express themselves they have the right to be safe when they come to school and they have the right to equal opportunity all students do by outlining the rights in this document Mr mine's as Mr mine's Amendment does we provide students an explicit explanation of how our schools which are constitutionally obligated to serve all students will protect them we outline the fact that we will stand by them rather than cowering behind bigotry and misunderstanding we must take this action and I urge this

206amendment's immediate passage thank you U yes Miss Huff okay so now I think it's time for the questions um so as I asked earlier how is gender identity defined in the proposed amendment and I guess I'll ask the maker of the motion I would refer that so either Mrs lip or Dr Gara as has been stated earlier we are crafting a a regulation that more explicitly and will include a lot of definitions but I would say that this policy again is your policy around non-discrimination we don't necessarily anywhere Define define the terms gender identity nor do we define race color Age religion national origin just like I mean there many others that are specifically denoted within our nism non-discrimination uh policy so then who decides if the right of a person I'm not sure how

207to say this how do we decide if the right of a person based has been discriminated based on gender identity if there's no definition that's probably a legal question in terms of the courts it's just like a harassment claim just like a non-discrimination claim and I'm not an attorney but one has to when there's been discrimination or harassment or anyone's been treated unfairly they would have to make a claim and there would be a process to judge with whether or not that claim is valid or not but we're asking our students to sign this and we're telling them we don't know if they're in the end going to have discriminated against somebody we our students will be disciplined based on regulations that we enact and we are putting this policy wording and this is the

208problem when we said that the policy was passed and nothing would changed that we needed consultation we are taking that and we're putting it in a regulation I I see this book three times in my kids' book bags every fall and we look over it and I have them write their name on it they can't sign yet they're in elementary school but now there's something in there that I don't know the definition of I can't explain to them if they have if they are violating it we can't explain it to them we haven't talked about it yet we are going forward and saying we're going to hold them accountable to it so I still need to know what we're holding them accountable to what will be the definition for gender identity that we will explain

209to our children when we ask them to sign the book again this is reiterating our current policy I don't know that this is the proper place for us to have that definition um I understand your question now it would be the same way like a harassment claim you would protect students from harassment but we Define harassment I can explain to my child what harassment is I can't explain to them the definitions of gender identity we haven't done that as a school system I our school system is a defined harassment are you finished myself was is there an answer because I'm as being asked to vote for this and to put it in our manual I believe I did answer the question I understand you don't like my answer necessarily but I already did answer the

210question okay um Miss Miss Huff you you have asked your question and got answer do you have another question okay yeah so I guess my other questions don't matter because we don't have a definition for gender identity that we're going to uphold our students to um what does it mean to discriminate based on gender identity under any education program or activity um I perhaps Mr Foster if you can field some of these questions as best you can in the moment okay um you know with respect to the srnr um we already in the srnr provisions I think as you know is of um that provide that bullying for example based on gender identity is a is is a violation so that would be one example of discrimination based on based on gender identity um you

211know uh anyway I I hope I've at least answered the question no I know that we that our children are not allowed to bully or harass I can I can explain that to my children I have definitions for bullying and harassing I don't know what it means to discriminate based on gender identity under any education program or activity yeah it's going to depend on the particular um actions of the student um that determine whether that amounts to discrimination in that particular um case so I can't you know I can't address cases that are not before the board or before me um as has been noted previously this policy uh in the srnr that's before the board is reflecting what was adopted a year ago um and uh you know I think that that uh that

212that's what's before the board so at this point there's no meaning behind discriminating based on gender or identity under any education program or activity I'm sorry I don't understand the question this because I don't understand what we're trying to pass and this is what I'm saying our students are going to be asked to sign something we as adults need to explain to them what they're signing I need to know what it means to Des discriminate based on gender identity under any education program or activity does that mean that um any student can play on any sports team the the reference that many of you keep referring back to into the current uh policy on nondiscrimination be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of and it goes on that has always been in

213the non-discrimination Poli policy in this division for a long long long time the only thing we added last year was the words gender identity and previous to that uh sexual orientation some months back the rest of that language was exactly what it's been uh for many many years um we've never uh explicitly defined in any regulation or anywhere what does that mean well I know what it means to not discriminate based on race under any ation program or activity I know that whether you're black white brown any color any race that you can participate in any education program activity I don't know what it means when it's based on gender identity do do we um M Huff to again tie up this is a division Council for the purposes of the record so to tie

214it back to the um srnr that's before the board this evening um this uh I direct your attention to page 27 of my document which is the glossery glossery of the srr uh and this defines discriminatory harassment and as I understand that this definition was um amended a year ago approximately to uh include gender identity so discriminatory harassment is defined as verbal electronic or physical action that denigrate or show hostility toward an individual because of his or her race color religion national origin gender disability sexual orientation gender identity genetic information or any other characteristic protected by federal Andor state law harassment May create an intimidating hostile or offensive learning environment Andor interfere with an individual's academic performance so um for the purposes for the purposes of the srnr um this definition uh does lay out

215what constitutes discriminatory harassment discrimination I understand discriminatory harassment so is it discriminatory harassment to not allow a certain gender to participate on a certain sports team is that discriminatory harassment that isn't a disciplinary issue as I understand it I mean it could be if a student who I don't know is a female on the track team is saying I actually disagree with the fact that a male identifying as a female is on my track team and I just lost my spot because that transgender female is faster than me are they now discriminating against as a student by by asking that question they are now discriminating I think based on gender identity under any education program or activity we would have to look and work with the you know particular uh director of Student Activities please

216I'm trying to speak and your laughing is distracting um we would have to look work with the DSA for the particular school and the principal and those who are involved on a case-by Case basis to determine the scenario and hypotheticals that you are laying out would qualify as discriminatory harassment under the uh existing srnr Miss Huff if I may um I I think I know where you're going that you don't feel like you have enough information to support this language right now um and I I I hear you saying that I don't know how worthwhile spending it more it would be for us to spend more time having you ask specific questions of council which really are I if I could finish um I think really fall into legal advice probably so he is probably

217somewhat um uh disinclined to answer very you know fully all of your questions right now this might not be the opportunity for that so I think the message is clear that you think you don't have enough information to support this is that fair well I I agree I don't have enough information information to support this but it seems like everyone else feels they have enough information to support this so maybe someone who feels like they have enough information to support this can answer the question okay maybe someone will do you have anything else can anybody answer for me how we're going to what is the consequence for a Muslim student requesting a same biological gender hotel room for a school overnight trip this is a systemwide document is approved tonight this request will now be

218discri atory and she and what will her discipline be for violating the new equal opportunity regulation m i I have a suggestion okay um if you have uh questions of that nature um that really get to I think how we will implement the gender identity part of the non-discrimination policy and that's um we're still as we've said tonight a few times we're still working on um but I I have a feeling that um we're putting uh Council and staff on the spot tonight perhaps Fair are if I finish if I may finish if there is another board member who feels like they can answer your questions I welcome anybody to try okay I'll I'll just wrap up we are putting them on the spot that's absolutely correct they've had zero time to think about this

219because we've had zero time to think about it that's the exact point we can't answer these questions I I came up with these questions today I haven't been mulling over them because this hasn't been being required of the students that I am here to protect and help educate and now I'm being asked to hold them accountable to something we don't have the answers to thank you okay any other Mrs Schultz so does gender identity Mr Foster include would it would would in our school's vernacular under this would gender identity be applicable to males who identify as males you know Miss Schultz I um you don't know I I hearing this question for the first time I I don't know the answer to it and it wouldn't it wouldn't it wouldn't serve you well and it

220wouldn't serve the rest of the board well please let me finish okay it wouldn't serve you and the rest of your colleagues well if I just tried to shoot from the hip and answer it okay and so I'm not I'm not going to do it okay I'll ask Mr mine M Mr mine under your definition here with gender identity for um this purpose be males who identify as males Mrs Schultz I don't have an answer to your question and I don't think this line of questioning is appropriate uh you're asking me to protect children's gender identity and ensure their rights ensure their rights with this document does a transgender student get to pick their own pronouns do they have the right to that do they have the right to have a teacher respect them that's

221not memorialized here Mr Rigby you can shake your head all you want but wouldn't you like that memorialized here wouldn't you like to know what their rights are in in in physical education classes in physical education classes excuse me second the mo excuse me in physical education classes those in favor of calling the question please raise your hand excuse me I have the floor Madam chair Madam chair he cannot call the question while I have the floor point of order I am sorry I am sorry I have the floor question please raise your hand those I'm sorry I have the floor you may not yield the floor for me while I have the floor and I am not yielding the floor when I have the opportunity to ask and make questions about a significant document

222Madam chair me for just a second um Madam clerk is it permissible to call the question while a um and you can take a moment to look this up while a board member is still speaking we'll give a second to you or Endor Mr Foster to tell us if that I believe I've been admonished tonight to not interrupt How could somebody make a motion which interrupts me while I have the floor while they're looking it up I can just keep talking finish and finish if you'd let me finish we would already be finished but please let's wait Mrs Schultz because if the question if the calling of the question was well it's C It's Curious that we're only going to extend the courtesy to allow people to finish when convenient to allow them to finish

223not when they actually have the floor we have a parliamentary question we're getting answered we will yeah but okay I'm referring to uh page 191 of Robert TRS aborder um 10th edition and what it says is uh that calling the question is out of order when another has the floor thank you Mr Foster go ahead finish Mrs Schultz so part of the question would be um under the rights and responsibilities that we're conveying to students um for example our students participate in physical education standards which are then reported to the Virginia Department of Education for the Virginia Wellness report would students be able to have the right to participate in educational standards for physical education in a different gender identity under this um language than than is their biological sex Mr Schultz are you directing

224that question to Mr M um you know um I I guess maybe I'm maybe I'm just uh pontificating to to be perfectly honest because these are the kinds of questions that are reasonable that have to do with students Health Wellness their ability to achieve in our schools their ability to interact with adults in our schools and we haven't again with very real you know whether it's chorus physical education contact sports are we going to allow um uh girls boys who identify as girls onto contact aort football teams and what what what um what does that pose in terms of a danger to them physically and to other students physically are they prepared to handle you know concussions uh the same way do we have the same equipment these are rights that we're saying we're conveying

225to them in terms of access to any educational program and any activity when we separate sexes in Family Life Education and and and students are with their biological peers taking physical I mean uh Health and Family Life do they have the right to be in a class with the people that they gender identify with or with people who they're biologically the same as these are rights and responsibilities that we're asking our children to be held to and we can't even Define explain or have any narrative about it and I know Mr Foster this is a frustrating position I'm sorry that we've put you in this position it's not fair for us to have put you in this position because you can't answer you shouldn't be expected to answer not in a professional capacity not in

226a collegial capacity and certainly not in a legal capacity but this is the problem by what we're trying to do tonight is there are actually reasonable questions which this document now is going to convey because this vote's going down you know you know this is going to pass but I'm going to have my say while I have the floor before somebody else tries to the microphone away from me um against Robert's Rules of Order this is the problem with Messy policy done poorly without proper engagement and to address my colleague and I was rude earlier to have interrupted her when she said we had an extensive conversation earlier and I apologize to Miss Evans but the conversation that I was saying that we haven't had in 399 days which is absolutely true is we had

227no conversation about regulations about engaging and putting into place the policy that we passed regulations enact the policy and that is what what has gone 399 days without one single board conversation about what it means to enact the policy this what we're passing tonight is a regulation it enacts the policy and I can't tell these people what it means and I can't can't tell these people what it means I can't tell those people in the back that are still here what it means I can't tell you what it means because staff can't Define it because we didn't give them the time because this is becoming a political agenda to certify oh well it's just instituting the language we did last year and any other time if it was just a word like race you know

228what for Millennia we've understood what race is for Millennia we've understood what sex is we get that this is new this is novel and this is significant and it takes time to do something like this well and what's about to happen is all going to be done in a single business day if we get done done in the next 59 minutes and it won't be done well Madam fin call the question okay the question has been called do I have a I need a second to call the question yes seconded by miss all those in favor of calling the question um Daren i kofax m Strauss Evans hin Moon P that's one two three four five six seven so the the question has been called which means that we uh stop debate and we vote

229on the motion um yep point of order call to question requires two3 Mr Foster I'm sorry I don't recall does a call to question require two3 vote two3 oh okay all right then we we have not okay then it's those opposed to those opposed to calling the question please raise your hand Huff Wilson mclin and Schultz do we have any abstaining okay well I I think we don't have the two-thirds majority so I have Mr Wilson to speak Mr Wilson I had you on the list uh yeah I do want to speak are you performing is that me no I'm just signaling oh but you want to get on the on in the queue okay good okay you want to get in the queue um and um it's getting very late and I think that

230um it is getting difficult to continue the conversation I do um want to mention a couple things that that um I think add to the conversation the first um is something that Mr mline mentioned in his introduction of his Amendment and that is that um that his Amendment uh relates to modifications that due to staff oversight in the preparation of the edits to the srnr manual they weren't included in fact the changes he proposes were inserted by staff after our May 9th all day work session and then they were purposefully removed by Dr Garza yesterday after long conversations between her her staff and numerous board members including myself and Madame chair this hardly reflects simple oversight by the staff and Madam chair I would remind you of something that you said to me yesterday in

231an email which was that after reviewing the video from our meetings on 428 and 59 you wrote that I don't think the board has had enough opportunity to discuss and vote on Mr mine's change I want to know what changed between yesterday and today and and why we can't delay this I would like someone to give a good reason why we can't delay this I understand that this reflects what was voted on last year but why as a board member do I have to be on a yo-yo of changes being made that aren't accurately reflected in the document itself which did not keep up its Version Control so that I knew which version I was looking at the date remained the same 510 and that now when we're asking questions members of this board are

232asking to call the question to cut off debate which apparently has been so robust and prolonged in one evening that now we don't need to discuss it anymore thank you madam chair okay Miss Miss mlin um first I do have a a clarifying question um as stated a year ago I voted in support of the non-discrimination policy and I'm proud of that vote um but I'm also aware that within a few weeks later our board did vote on the srnr and we didn't make this update then and then a year later the second time were to um vote in support of the srnr with this change um in policy already in place um it it didn't come again in the draft until one of our colleagues noted it during a work session and so I

233was just for the Public's sake because I think a lot of this conversation has to do with the public trying to understand what Mr mine's Amendment meant and and its arrival of when it came and and I really care about the success of our school system and the board and I feel that we are communicating um something incorrectly here so Dr Garza do we is there just a simple explanation for why after we voted for our non-discrimination policy last May that this simple change of having identical language not go get put into place with our srnr last year as well as in the draft this year I mean there's no there's no explanation it should have been addressed last year at the time it just was not caught by by a school member nor a

234member of the staff I'm not suggesting that's right or wrong but it should have been addressed last year okay and it was not it was brought to our attention we realized the oversight we tried to make that uh correction um and in doing so has made this process messy and I regret that uh but it was simply trying to update the the document so what happened then this year within just the last few days is that questions were raised about whether or not this updated language was proforma or if in fact it was language that the community hadn't had chance to vet and understand since we had the srnr posted about a month ago and so the language was pulled out a few days ago and Mr mine then stepped forward and said he would

235put it forward as an amendment is am I correct in that series of events that that as of a couple days ago this was actually in the srnr yes it was the the the it was changed about I guess it was last Thursday to reflect our current non-discrimination policy policy 1450 after as Mr Wilson suggested after some discussion with a number of board members who found fault with the process and the way it was handled and I think rightly so the chair and I made the decision to go back to the original proposed language and then should a board member wish to entertain a motion to update it to reflect the current language they could do so um so that's that's exactly the way the process happened okay uh so I do want to share

236with the public and including those in bradic District who have been writing to me um all day today and trying to understand what this meant I'm going to Simply offer a humble apology um it's regrettable that what you've heard after hours and hours of debate is that essentially Mr mine's amendment is simply proforma updating a student rights and responsibilities uh document that includes identical language to what this school board already committed to doing in which we were told last year was necessary to comply with federal law so sadly what's happened here tonight is a lot of public consternation board consternation over as you've heard Dr Garza confirm it's pro-or a language we're not going to be doing anything differently other than having the srnr reflect what already exists as school board policy and so I

237I do want my colleagues to understand that last year I believed it was number one the right thing to do and number two it was to comply with federal law this amendment from Mr mlan should have been put in last year to the srnr it should have proforma been put into this year's language my comments tonight have all been about about public transparency that the public has been left confused all that being said I wanted on the record for everyone to understand I voted to postpone this for two weeks till we could meet on June 30th because I wanted to help the public better understand what had transpired to avoid the Public's concern that something was being done in a less than transparent way but the reality is I still was elected to have to

238govern and to have to make the the best decisions possible and this is pro-or language and so I will be voting in support of Mr mine's Amendment only because it is proor language there's nothing different in it than what I voted for last May there's nothing that will change that's different other than that yes we are having it reflected in the student rights and responsibilities do I regret how this is being um handled tonight without question and will I have to try and spell this out as carefully as I can to the bradic district Community absolutely but I have to also honor the the policy that I voted in support of last year and this is proor a language that reflects that Miss Evans I I just wanted to answer uh your your question miss

239mlin about uh the Sr R last year I'm not sure why it was so early but we took final action on the srnr the same night that we approved the non-discrimination policy the non-discrimination policy was 4.01 we approved it and then immediately went to the srnr for final action 4.02 so there was not time to turn it around unless someone had immediately created a new Amendment so I believe the timing on that was was why it was not in last year if it had been at this time it probably it would there would have been time to incorporate it um Miss Huff has a Gob back um I think I would like to just speak though first um so just in response to Mr Wilson I do appreciate Mr Wilson that you have been working

240hard to try to have a longer conversation about this um but I uh my my comments were really about as Dr Garza said that the the the board's process and the ability of the board to together process this um Amendment to the srnr um was uh we did not take that opportunity when we had it on uh May 9th at our work session and we could have any one of us could have said wait a minute this language doesn't reflect our policy and we didn't it went over our heads too all of us um so so I felt like well here we have language if we put it if we ask staff to take responsibility for making that Amendment um then staff's going to be on the hot seat probably unfairly because we could also

241have made the change ourselves so I felt that um we as a board should take some ownership for making that Amendment and we've now had at least two hours of conversation about it so I feel like we have discussed it as a board my own feeling is that uh it is housekeeping that this is exactly the language that we passed last year with significant public participation so I don't feel like we need to relitigate that policy and I don't think that's why I don't feel like we need additional uh public participation for tonight's vote um if a board member wants us to reconsider and and uh our policy decision of last fall last spring any board member can bring that forward uh can bring forward a proposed amendment to our policy can do that at

242anytime and we can have that conversation but that's not what we're doing tonight so miss Huff yeah I guess I just I'm I'm a little confused maybe Miss mlin got some answers to her original questions two hours ago where we were talking about women and sports and activities and gender identity and we don't have to rehash it but I'm actually really quite confused because we have not answered any of the questions we have for what this means for our students except to say that it was a policy that we're now we're putting into regulation we should have done it before regardless of whether we should should have done it before because we always put words from non-discrimination policy into regulation does not mean that we continue doing so when the language gets a whole lot

243more complicated and we can't even Define one of the words in the regulation and so again I I don't know where you got more clarification in the last two hours but I know I didn't miss mlin would you like to respond yes I appreciate Miss Huff asking the question for getting greater Clarity because there may be others who are trying to understand it as well what I do understand is that this language and this amendment is simply clarifying what the board has already said as policy which is that um and the key word at the end is it says as required by law now miss Huff you brought up the question about sports teams and you're absolutely correct that as a school system we now need to talk about the regulations of if we're committing

244ourselves not to discriminate and also to not deny benefits and not to exclude from participation um that was a policy we voted on last May in identical terms and now it's it's saying this is the students right as well so it's our policy that we that we protect for this and it's their right to know that they are protected for this you're correct Miss Huff we still don't we don't know then as required by law what does that mean and I plan to speak to it at the main motion about the srnr in terms of maybe some of the concerns that you had voiced about what is gender identity as I understand gender identity it's the identity in which a student it's the gender in which they identify with so I actually don't have the

245same um lack of clarity about what the school system means by that I mean it's how a student identifies with which gender that is what gender identity means means in terms of application of the policy that we voted on in support of last year in terms of application of what these rights and responsibilities are which is again identical language we are still in need of everything I spoke of in the very beginning of the night that we need to have the consultation with the national consultant we need to have Dr gar and leadership team bring to us and bring to our community how they will Implement through regulation these rights as well as this policy protection so if I felt that Mr mine's language is doing something differently than than what the policy is but

246has been pointed out earlier this evening everything we voted on last May is exactly what his Amendment saying it really is peroral language and it's unfortunate that both you and I and many other board members as Mr Tom Mr Wilson quoted Miss Hines even as our chair was not certain necessarily that there was Clarity from the board so you and I voted in support to propose postpone the motion so there' be Clarity for the community and Clarity for all the board members what Clarity I did get tonight is this language looks exactly like what we already put in place and nothing's changing now it's a matter of we're still a year later and we don't know how any of this is going to affect the implementation piece and we are still needing to have that

247but as required by law is what this amendment saying and I do believe in doing things as required by law okay I just want to finish answering thank you and thank you for the clarity but you know and I appreciate your definition of gender identity as something someone identifies themselves as either gender but there is a gender identity where you don't identify as any gender and and it goes on and on and to protect our children's rights and our students rights we need to be able to Define that for our students as we hold them accountable to their rights okay seeing no other comments uh we will vote on Mr Main's uh proposed amendment uh uh as detailed in the agenda item I will not reread it all those in favor of amending the srnr

248as Mr mlan has proposed please raise your hand daret kofax main Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Hines moon mclin and PCH those opposed Huff Wilson and Schultz the motion passes so now we are back to the main motion which is to adopt the uh students rights and responsibilities as amended I'm hoping there's no further convers well I shouldn't say that is there further comments yes Miss mlin so as I alluded to just briefly earlier to um my colleague Miss huff and I do want the community to hear this we're over a year now that that we assured the public that what we were doing was by law and also by principle the right thing to do that we don't believe in discrimination however we now are a year later and as many of my colleagues have

249raised there is language in both the the policy update as well as in the rights and responsibilities that we we need to have Clarity for the public to understand we need Clarity for the board to be able to understand so what does that mean in terms of how we are going to handle anything including what Miss Huff brought up earlier how do we handle our sports teams um earlier I mentioned to our general counsel what is the Virginia High School League's policy on the participation of students in terms of if they identify as transgender and it's my understanding that the Virginia High School league does it on a case-by casee basis those are things that are really important for us to be able to have somewhere available on our website so that our entire Community

250can understand this is new we're wrestling with something tonight that the country as a whole is wrestling with we have 11 states that have filed a lawsuit against the federal government this is not our finest moment in terms of how the country is is not under understanding what all of this means um and so I do hope Dr Garza the reason I wanted to speak to this is I really implore you as our superintendent and I'm imploring my colleagues on the board tonight we have got to at our soonest available opportunity to clarify for the public when do we anticipate that this school system will help outline what does this policy what does this right right and responsibility change mean in terms of our practices because a year ago we were told we handle things

251on a case-by Case basis and if that's still the case then we need to make that clear for our families but I as a Col as a Schoolboard member I am getting questions from people saying Megan what does it mean for your bathrooms what does it mean for your locker rooms what does it mean for your sports team participation and I think it's really important that we'd be able to speak intelligently to that so so miss Hines I apologize I wanted to explain that I am support the srnr tonight and I'm not even going to get into the can of worms of some things I think still need to be improved in the srnr that's for another year um but I really do I wanted it on the record tonight that I think because this

252amendment is there it's really time that we commit ourselves to Bringing information to each other and to to the community okay Mr Wilson thank you madam chair so this board has not been included in any conversations with staff about the development of regulations with regards to gender identity that I know of this board has not been allowed to review information that may have been provided by the consultant hired by the school system as far as I'm aware aware of I'm not sure why the board or the community would expect that they would be adequately involved in the development of subsequent regulations and in fact I guess I would say that if the community wants to know your best bet is to look up the dear colleague letter issued by the justice department and refer to

253it as exam of policies and emerging practices for supporting transgender students and read through it because I think without any involvement in the community by the community or frankly this board the development of regulations is in fact staff responsibility that that's that's where we're headed I I I see no light in this process and and frankly given the fact that my colleagues were're not even willing to delay a couple of weeks to allow a conversation with our communities to have a conversation with staff I see no reason why we should expect a robust open conversation going forward uh which leaves frankly the only thing us to to look at is what has been produced and that's been produced by the justice department and the Department of Education uh through the dear colleague letter and examples

254of policies and emerging practices maybe you know we we haven't discussed that either so I don't know what we can rely upon if we if we vote for this SNR RNR as amended I don't know what that we would have any expectations and so I would urge our my colleagues to vote no because now the only way we can assure that is if we don't vote for the SNR as amended I would have preferred that to just delay the the amendment itself but now we're in a situation where we sort of have to throw the baby out with the bathat in order to have conversations I I don't agree that the language is pro forma frankly I think the discussion tonight proves the point that it's not proforma and in fact often times we will

255discuss what appears to be an uous language in work sessions and people will dig into it and and have the kind of questions that we need to answer I raised earlier the point that this language reflects age discrimination and our policy not to not to disallow students from participation in in school activities because of their age we we we didn't discuss that it the only thing I hear is that it's it's proor it's picking up the language from the policy from last year that this board approved I still don't see any compelling reason to fear a conversation to bring in constituents to bring in expert policy makers as people have pointed out this is a conversation taking place around the country we we may not have all of the brain power that's available on these

256questions we may actually have to talk to each other it it's just very disappointing because as a new board member you know one of the things I was hoping to accomplish was to improve the process because it's the process frankly that matters right when we observe our Congress who who do nothing for an entire year and then produce an Omnibus Bill that no one can read because it's 4,000 Pages it's the process there may be a lot of things in there that we agree with but there's no process because no one can participate so we feel like we've been disenfranchised of our government and you know we are charged to provide good governance the supporters of this of of voting in favor of adopting the snrs as amended have repeatedly said the process wasn't right

257the process we shouldn't do it this way we made a real hash of it well let's wait we're here it's 11:30 at night clearly there's enough energy in the community that warrants that we delay pick it up next board meeting have a couple of conversations we got hundreds of emails today about this conversation I'm I'm just you know left dumbfounded that that we can't we can't seem to to do it and and so I don't offer any optimism to members in this community that we are going to have adequate input from stakeholders from professionals from our consultant from board members on how these regulations are going to be developed the answers to our questions we will know when the regulation is promulgated apparently thank you okay um seeing Oh Mr moon this is a repeat

258of what I said I'm so sorry uh this evening I did not expect those who voted against our non-discrimination policy to vote for this anyway those were who had been critical of non-discrimination policy I Had No Illusion of expecting them to vote for this uh and those board members who may be saying that that we should have had regulations way before it has taken way too long they know exactly why it has taken this long I'm going to support the main motion as amended okay um I'm going to go ahead and um Mr mlen if you don't I'd like to call for the vote is this all right go ahead I I just want to clarify something that Mr Moon said um as if in case it might reference something from my statements I'm I'm

259not calling for why we don't have any new regulations uh my statements were that the public wants to understand what does our policy update from last year mean in terms of our current practices and um the public I think still wants to understand um as we update the srnr what does this mean in terms terms of our current practices so it's not about asking the superintendent to draft regulations um when we know that there is um still a lot of uh legal uh considerations that are going on but right now the The public's asking us what do we do right now what have we been doing over the last year and that's information I think would be helpful to all of us since we are governors of the school system we should be able to

260answer how we're handling it to date that's all okay um I will call for the vote and um the vote is on the uh srnr so the motion is that the school board adopt regulation 26130 P student rights and responsibilities as amended and as detailed in the agenda item all those in favor please raise your hand darnette kofx mlan Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Hines Moon mclin PCH those opposed Huff Wilson and Schultz the motion carries Madame chair may I have the floor to make a quick motion I I would like to make a motion that that it's very very late we have a lot of work ahead of us to adjourn for the evening and pick this up at a subsequent meeting um I think we have a significant document that we need to consider

261in the wellness policy uh it is approaching midnight uh and I I would like to delay this and and uh adjourn for this evening um that is not that is not something we ever do um and as chair um actually I'm I'm going to um uh I'm going to point of order the motion's been seconded right but I think that is in the discretion of the chair so I uh I am able to say no um we can go ahead and have a vote if you want I just think it will waste time honestly and we're already at 11:30 and we do have other business to do the point of Robert's Rules of Order is to allow and facilitate the board's work I am asking um our parliamentarian so can you put your mic on

262okay I'm referring to Robert Rules of Order as I mentioned earlier 10th edition this is at page 227 um it provides that a motion to adjourn is um out of order while business is pending um and it lays out three conditions where it's out of order one is when a time for adjourning is already established and I understand there is a time for adjournment established already on your agenda at the end if I'm correct is that correct Madam clerk okay okay but it it's established um in the the agenda so I think that the chair would have the discretion to rule the um motion to adjourn out of order I am going to rule it out out of order um so the next item to be considered is um [Music] 404 student and staff health

263and wellness policy 58 I call in Mr M yes Madam chair I move that the school board adopt policy 58 student health and wellness policy is detailed in the agenda item seconded by Miss Evans um Mr mavan would you like to speak to your motion yes uh I do agree with my colleagues that it's unfortunate we um are dealing with this um such a late time tonight because um this has taken extensive work on behalf of our staff and our Shack uh and we greatly appreciate their work um and aligning this with the the work that's been done on um um at the national level on the healthy hunger free kids act um and in compliance with other laws um and as we've learned from our committee itself this is um very much a model

264um piece of work uh that other districts can draw from particularly in um the sections on um uh on wellness and on um uh physical activity and things of that nature of course um you can we can always work on our healthy food and things things like that so um with that I I wholeheartedly support um this wellness policy okay I neglected to mention that Mrs Schultz has some amendments so probably before we get to further discussion I should allow Mrs Schultz to um propose her amendments go ahead Mrs Schultz I'm sorry are you asked me to propose all the Amendments at the same time um I think you can do them one at a time okay so you're asking me to read my first amendment yes okay so the proposed amendment the first amendment

265is that I move um the motion by adding the words respect and collaboration with parents parental engagement to the policy and item 1 C as follow follows encourage positive impacts created through continuous Improvement of the inter relationship of a schools environment respect and collaboration with parents parental engagement student health and learning for the ironic motion of the evening okay do we have a second a second seconded by Miss Huff Miss uh Mr Schultz so I provided the explanation in advance to all of my colleagues um the um entire purpose of this uh policy never actually mentions parents and when it's students health and wellness I think that the parents are a pretty significant um partner um as the primary educators of their children uh the first part of respect and collaboration with parents would be

266the division's responsibility and then parental engagement would be the parents responsibility you can't have health and uh Wellness of students without the division working with um and being respectful and collaborative with parents and you can't have health and wellness of students unless the the parents are engaged okay uh Mrs Huff would you like to speak to your second no I think it makes complete sense and I hope we can support it okay Miss Evans um yes I want to thank uh Mrs Schultz for um trying to to add um uh the the uh more reference to parents in in uh the wellness policy I'll note that uh a couple of U Mrs Schultz's proposed amendments were adopted by staff um before tonight as as being um in keeping with uh the the intent and so

267those were Incorporated so um I had no problems with those that that the staff included on this one and I did write to m M Schultz about my U my own view of her uh five different amendments on this one I have no problem with the intent but I don't think it reads properly so you know my um recommendation was to add home environment after school environment um I think the way it reads the amendment reads now it simply doesn't um it doesn't it doesn't work that way um so I would gladly accept that as a friendly amendment to my Amendment okay um um well I I will propose that then that rather than the um shall I shall I make this a motion Madam chair if are you making a friendly Amendment go ahead

268I am making a friendly amendment to to say home environment um so another rather than the words that are in here now to say uh inter relationship of uh a school environment comma home and home envir and home environment and then take it out let's see if that parses yeah just adding and home environment after school environment Mrs Schultz would it make sense to say inter relationship of school and home environment either one either one whatever floats your boat SCH School environment and school and home all right school and home environment that's that's the my final answer Miss mber can we make your job any more difficult no not on UNF friendly Amendment I'm sorry thank M Mr Moon reminds me that we don't have friendly amendments all right um so M Corbett Sanders is

269seconding the friendly amendment in the event that we need a second school and home environment I think will do it so just add and home miss mberg right now it reads between the of a schools it's just not it's just not loading okay well at least something's Technology's fault tonight okay I think we know what it is um and so are there any other comments to the um on the um Amendment as amended well the amendment to the amendment uh are there any other comments on the amendment to the amendment seeing none let's go ahead and uh vote on the Miss Evans amendment to Mrs Schultz's Amendment all those in favor of Miss Evans amendment that seems to be un unanimous thank you okay any other comments then on Mrs Schultz's Amendment oh did you

270want to speak more we will We Will We we yes we would vote on the amendment as amended any other conversation okay all those in favor of the amendment as amended um darnette kofax mlan Huff Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Moon Wilson Schultz those opposed Hines the motion carries uh Mr Schultz you have another amendment so the next amendment that I have is um you know what in the interest of time and collegial collaboration I'm going to pull amendment to um based on my um exchange with Miss Evans so we're and I respecting the people in the truck I'm very very sorry um proposed amendment three which is now Amendment two um I move to amend the motion by deleting the words access and unavailable and adding the words assist with to the policy in item

2714 D1 as follows assist with information and access or referral to Primary Health Care and Behavioral Care will be made available to all students is there a second second seconded by myself um and the reason we had um at our board work session this was a somewhat of a muddled conversation and it seemed like we wrangled with it a little bit at the table and really the question is whether or not we're providing access to Primary Health Care um and Behavioral Health Care and we really aren't it's not um being impeccable with our words really what we're doing is we're assisting students and fam amilies with the information or access to in terms of getting them and referring them and getting them into the right hands we don't provide and we don't create the access

272and so I think that this is a greater degree of clarity and um in in intelligibility of the words and what we're actually responsible for Miss Miss Hub thank you I appreciate Mich bringing this forward this is actually something I had brought up at the work session um because it's not just are we providing the access but is that within our purview as the school system um there are opportunities provide access and we do so when we have those opportunities and when they're appropriate and we should be doing that but as as a health care professional I see people who have access to health care and who don't have access to health care but we provide that um that Healthcare but as a school system our job is to assist with that as a appropriate

273I work with social workers all the time as a therapist and and that is what their job is they're excellent at it we have counselors that do that in their school and if a child needs help with um filling out a Medicaid form or a parent needs that that we can help assist with that access but I do not feel it's in our purview to say that we are going to provide access or ferral in all circumstances thank you okay Miss Evans so I I also made this suggestion to Mrs Schultz um um I I don't think the the beginning of this sentence is is what's intended I I don't think it quite reads smoothly perhaps if it said um uh you know access comma information or referral to primary healthare that would work or

274the word assistance rather than assist because it's assistance will be made available I'll take assistance as another friendly Amendment but I'm hoping that we don't have to go through the friendly Amendment and and I can just propose I made a mistake I I actually meant to write assistance so so it's just yes hey Miss mulberg can you help us great Common Sense okay with that I guess I I did um have a a question I don't think this um I think this helps the intent I I would be interested in uh since this is something that went through a three-year process if staff wanted to to um let us know if they thought that this would be um a significant difference in what was intended by staff and sha when they wrote it okay um

275I don't know if we have anyone from staff right now who can well I think um Dr lip might be able to help I mean I Dr Li I hate to put you on the spot but I you know if um oh I was distracting her so you'll have to ask the question again I apologize it's with with u Mrs Schultz's um Amendment about to change access or referral to assistance with information and access or referral if that would change the intent of that section or if that's clarifying okay so I'm seeing it's it's fine okay yes that would be okay to do it's it was mainly the int of the committee to make sure we had access to resources and there were were ways that our staff could help with referrals and to support

276services any other comments all right all those in favor of making uh the Mrs Schultz's initial proposed amendment number three please raise your hand that is unanimous with Miss darat kofax and Miss PCH away from the table Mrs Schultz you may continue so my previous proposed four which is now my proposed three I move to amend the motion by deleting 4 E3 in the policy as follows uh four policy e health and safe School environment Mentor three mentorship programs will be encouraged as a way to help students develop strong safe and trusted relationships with with a respected adult is there a second second second by m so this is really the only one this evening that's not I think clarifying um I'm I was concerned um about the nature of this and I and I

277don't mean to put either um uh Mr Duran or Dr lip on the um uh Dr Duran sorry on on the um Spotlight but when I asked them at the end of the work session um we sort of kind of completed the work session a little quickly what this actually meant um we we didn't there wasn't a lot of clarity to really what this meant and what Shaq intended and the reason I have a concern about this is mentorship programs for whom um at what grade level what grades who is going to be doing the mentoring when is it going to be happening during school after school where is it going to be happening um and to see you know with a respected adult a respected adult who's a staff member um is this in

278concert with you know parental authorization um this is just a very nebulous statement and I'd be more than happy to um have this pulled out and brought back to us later with a clarification from Sha but there wasn't time um but this is somewhat convoluted and I think leaves it very open when we're exploring something new like a health policy to just put out there that we're going to create mentorship programs for your child with a respected adult and not really go into any any depth of explanation of what that means and and um I I think this is just too murky um to put out in a policy without um a a good level of discussion and clarification with us as a board I have some um board members who would like to speak

279Miss Huff M yes Miss huff and then miss Strauss and then Mr mine thank you I I think that it makes sense to pull it out as a regulation it was something we we had a dealt with a similar one at the at a work session on this where it does just make sense where we separate what's an enactment of what our ideas and our policies are um and I don't know if Dr Garza has a comment on this or not M stuss this one I would rather keep been um I've supported all the other all the other amendments that Miss Schultz has brought which I think were all very sensible this may not be the best place to put in a policy but I know that people that worked on this the idea of

280mhip programs we have traditionally had a lot of them in the school system and they have been appropriately implemented and for an awful lot of kids the the ability to have an adult um Mentor has been very important so I understand the the intent of of the people who worked on this wellness policy and I I do support the intent so I don't support taking this language out thanks Mr M so I concur with Mrs Strauss I think there was there was work that went into this um to have it there and uh in addition um as my colleagues will recall we just heard from our student leadership development program participants that um mentorship um is something that they want to um improve in our school system and so we need to continue to focus

281on that Miss Evans yes and as I uh said also to to Mrs Schultz on this one uh my my default position for most of uh the wellness policy because of the three years that went into it is to um support what was done unless there is a a really good reason to um to change it or remove it so I'm not going to support this removal Miss Corbett Sanders yes um I too would prefer to keep the uh mentorship I would maybe use the mentoring programs will be encouraged as a way to help students develop strong safe and uh trusted relationships with a respected adult because uh it is a extra adult in a child's life providing a positive influence that we're encouraging here and so um this one I do believe that we

282need to keep in and it's a policy it's not the regulation giving the specifics of how Mr Press thank you madam chair um I will Echo the support uh for U well actually not to support the opposition to this motion because I believe that um this is a critical piece of uh what we should be doing as a system I think Mr movine was right on uh our students feel very strongly about this this is a framework that they have been looking to put in place for a long time um and while I agree that the nitty-gritty details of this should be included in the regulation I think in the policy we have the prerogative to include it and therefore I do not support removing it I I I you know would be cognizant of

283the fact that you know three years of work were put into this document a lot of deliberate thought and uh I think that this document really does reflect the will of a broad representation of our community that's out on Shack uh and any other public comments that were included thank you okay Mrs Schultz did you want to go back just um just a quick go back you know when when we were talking and um uh Dr D Dr L if you care to comment this really is regulation level um this isn't policy um Pol policy is you know what what we want to do regulation is how we do it and um you know I don't want to out you but you know we sort of tacitly agreed with one another that this is really

284a little bit more regulation um so I I don't know if you care to comment it's late I know but it is more regulatory in nature the committee did have an extensive conversation about this and we did see that some members of the committee did think it should go in regulation but as the committee really delve into it the majority of them wanted it to be in policy so that it could be guaranteed that we would have some form of mentorship but there was an extensive discussion some of the committee some of the staff felt it should go in regulation but the majority discussion wanted it voted to have it go into the policy and did the and did the committee contemplate at what ages or what grades mentorship programs are appropriate I mean you

285know I mean are we talking about you know Elementary School students um I mean I'm just wondering why it wasn't codified in any way about something being educationally or academically curriculum wise appropriate there was beginning discussions on that but because this is just the policy the committee decided to make make sure this statement was in the policy and then when we get into regulation to do exactly what you just asked so no it did not extensively do it at this time I mean I guess if I had known that I guess if we had had time I may have said something added something to this that would have said at a great appropriate level um and so if this doesn't pass I may re reintroduce this at a great appropriate level or if somebody wants

286to um comment now that they're not going to go there whatsoever then I'm sorry well if nobody's going to if nobody will contemplate it and I don't care that it's late because we had the opportunity to walk away from this and everybody said they wanted to stay so we're staying M MCL um I I basically support keeping it in because when I look at uh really many of the policy sections they all sort of read this way it's sort of high level here's what we're recommending and so it's that that mentorship program is we're saying it's encouraged as a way to help students blah blah blah and then how we actually Implement and provide mnship opportunities through the system will be the the regulation approach so um I I would support um Miss Schult if

287she decides to just do a friendly Amendment change uh or you know that basically just has the language so it's not that we delete it and move it it's just that the language should just say mentorship programs um that yeah age appropriate mentorship programs will be encouraged okay the the motion on the table is to strike it completely um the maker of the motion can withdraw the motion I assume or she can also accept my friendly Amendment of the motion can withdraw the motion and and I guess she can substitute it with something else if shees is that correct okay so I will I'm sorry I'm I'm sorry I just want to make sure that's correct I want to do this correctly can the maker of the motion withdraw the motion and then replace it

288with something else right away is that what you want to do or do you want to just leave it on the Miss mlin if you don't mind I'm sorry I'm trying to get an in late I'm trying to get an answer to this question Mrs Schultz this is your motion do you want us to vote on it or do you want to change it and then I'll find what you can do yeah I think we have precedent from um a motion that we just did earlier I'm I'm happy to have a friendly amendment to my motion which restores the language and adds um age appropriate so not right a mentorships will be recur encouraged as a way to U no I'm sorry age appropriate mentorship so just adding that those two that phrase at the

289beginning of the sentence so I think m Schultz has just substituted her motion with another one which is um age appropriate mentorship programs and then the rest continues okay so that is the one is there a second I think we have to probably have a second for the substitute M mlin seconds can we go ahead and vote on that okay all those in favor please raise your hand Huff Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Moon Wilson mclin and Schultz um those opposed Hines with Miss Dar Kofa and Miss pic and Mr mlan away from the table Mrs Schultz you have another amendment y Madame chair I hate to be delayer but I think that has to be voted one more time so there was a substitute motion to Amendment now that becomes an amendment so we need

290to vote again otherwise okay okay so now we will vote on the amendment itself is that right Mr Moon okay all those in favor of the amendment please raise your hand and um Huff Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Moon Wilson mclin Schultz those opposed Hines with darnette kofx mlan and pchi away from the table go ahead previously my amendment five proposed now my Amendment four I move to amend the motion by adding the words voluntary and with parental consent to the policy item for F4 Roman numeral 4 F4 as follows for policy F School counseling School Psychology Services and school Social Work Services four the use of insert the word voluntary student surveys with parental consent and other data sources will be used to inform Suicide Prevention efforts is there a second seconded by Mrs Strauss

291Miss Schultz would you like to speak to your Amendment yes um this uh is again speaking to the nature of the role of parents as the primary educators of their children and um ensuring and we had a a pretty big misstep as a division last year um with you know with one student survey and it was unintentional but um this is I think important in a health and wellness um survey to memorialize that um student surveys are not going to be compelled um uh that any participation by a student would be voluntary and that it would also be um due to the nature of the content and the fact that a vast majority of our students are minors um that it would be done with parental consent Mrs Strauss yes I support that our current

292policy and practice is that surveys are only uh they are voluntary and there is parental consent and with the opportunity for parents to see what the survey is so that is the current policy and reg if there's a mistake in the past there's been a mistake but this reflects what is currently done Dr grosa did you want to clarify yes yes I would like to clarify just so that the board has um all the information we currently do not require paral consent we allow for parents to opt out and I think I think that's what you mean but there is there is a distinction because we don't require an affirmative approval uh we do notify parents and they can opt their child out and I I think that's I just want to make sure if

293you if before you give the if you before Dr gar said before you give the students a survey you notify the parents and the parents have the opportunity to opt their children out that is parental consent because if they've chosen not to opt their children out they've given consent okay if we could just kind of maintain order um Dr gar are you finished with your um we yes I I just want to make sure that we're clear that that the board does not intend for us to get permission for every survey I understand the parent opt out um that's currently in our policy okay thank you I just wanted to make sure thank you I have some other speakers um Miss Evans um yes this does give me some concern for that reason um I

294I would not want it to be construed that way also I I do want I do have a question about a student who wants to um confidentially uh go to someone for help and perhaps does not want to involve their parent would this prevent them from doing that I would not want students to be um in any way inhibited from from seeking help without without parental consent so so um so that's that's one question I have um the youth risk survey do we ask for parental consent or is that an opt out as well or or neither it's an opt out it's an opt out so I do have a problem with with saying with parental consent to to my eye that suggests um affirmatively so um I would not support the language I'm sorry

295Mrs I will give you a chance to speak I would not support the language as written for those reasons but I if anyone has an answer about what this might do to a student who wanted to seek um this talks about um Suicide Prevention efforts I certainly want wouldn't want to in any way inhibit a student from seeking help okay M you will have a chance to answer that question but I have Miss privilege I have Miss Corbett Sanders who's been waiting to speak point of personal privilege i' i' I'd like to amend the language to Prior Al notification in light of Dr G's I'm sorry um I have to ask the parliamentarian again uh I had a speaker waiting to speak um do I do I interrupt the flow of the business because um

296Mrs Schultz asked for a point of personal privilege to amend her motion no I I really if there's a person way to speak I want them to be able to speak I think the question is whether Miss um M no Mrs Schultz's point of privilege is a point of privilege she's asking to amend I have to say that um my quick perusal of my bound volume didn't find anything on points of personal privilege an internet search indicated that points of personal privilege are typically used um to address uh issues of the environment of the meeting not to amend an existing motion that's not to say that it's not appropriate but the examples I'm finding are for example if there's too much noise outside and you want to go address that you would raise a point

297of personal privilege so I don't know if that answers your question Miss Hines but that's the guidance I've done so far yeah that's my recollection as well thank you so I'm going to disallow the point of personal privilege Miss Corbett Sanders would you like to speak I was just going to suggest that we could actually amend the language of Mrs Schultz would allow it to read um with uh parental opt out um so that it just encapsulates the existing policy and one that seems to be supported by all okay I do have one additional which is I have a little bit of a question as to whether or not you need parental consent for access to other data sources and does that create an impediment to a child who needs um who goes searching for

298other data sources in a time of Crisis just a question of how that works okay um so um Miss Corbat teners can I take your question first and would you restate it and we'll see if there's anyone who can answer it right now um when we as written it with where it says with parental consent it reads the use of voluntary student surveys with parental consent and other data sources will be used to inform Suicide Prevention efforts so my concern is that if a child is in crisis and needs access to other data sources um do you first as written here does it require parental consent first and that is a a concern of mine because obviously with um if they're at suicide risk then that um would be an impediment so I just want

299to know clarification on that Dr ver um just wanted to um to reiterate something I know that the board already is is aware of because I believe the intent Miss Schultz is trying to make is already codified in policy um with regard to the opt out of any survey so um whether or not you approve or do not or not this amendment we still do require notification and the ability for parents to opt out particularly on issues that um have to do with mental or psychological problems of the student or the family which would cover suicide prevention type surveys so we currently allow for opt out okay all right Mrs Schultz so um while we allow for op out and it may be memorialized someplace else this is the health and wellness policy and that's

300why I thought it was important um I don't think that opt out is necessarily the right phrase because it might not be opt out it might just be notification which is why I was attempting to say I think if we changed it from parental to consent to Prior parental notification it covers both the cases when we're getting consent and the cases when they're getting opt out and doesn't necessarily compel us to get consent or limit us if we're in opt out so I I think it would be reasonable to address Miss Corvett Sanders and Miss's um uh concerns um and the other data sources we're not these are not data sources that the students are being are using as I understand it this is that the staff will use voluntary student surveys with parental consent

301and other data source to inform them of Suicide Prevention efforts it's not to inform the students it's to inform staff so I think in all respect Miss corvy Sanders I think the the latter part is relatively moot I mean if you want to insert a comma okay but I don't think it really provides anything in terms of clarity so if I was um back to the point that we were making before which is I think it's reasonable to amend Miss mulberg you're going to I I don't I I don't have enough money to pay pay you overtime for as hard as we're working you tonight but um if you wouldn't mind um I'm submitting a uh I don't even know what it is anymore um uh a I am I am I am amending my

302own language prior parental consent I'm substituting my language I'm not substituting the motion I'm sorry we don't have to on it change could I I just want to be clear you the phrase with parental consent that have in there now you want with prior with PRI changing parental consent to Prior parental notification with prior parental notification okay that I think is a substitute motion is there a second for the substitute motion seconded by Mr stuss can we have it before we start talking about it is it up behind me okay thank you any discussion on the substitute motion Miss Evans so I appreciate the um uh amendment I I still am not going to support this because I just don't want to see any any barrier to a student seeking help for suicide any other

303comments yes Miss mlan Miss Evans um I know it's extremely late but I wanted to make sure there's just a little Clarity here none of this has to do with with services at all I know the title might make it sound like it um but all this this one number four is saying is it's the use of surveys and other data sources um to inform student prevent Suicide Prevention efforts so this particular number four has nothing to do with students getting access to Behavioral Health Services it's just only about the use of surveys that's it Mr press did you want to add something or I'm sorry you had your hand up I'll comment on the main motion I'm still a little bit unclear as to what the substitute motion is or amendment is doing um

304so I will hold off on my comments for now unless it's okay thank you um Mr M I concur with Miss Evans on this oh I one more go back Miss MCL well I I mean given that my colleague um Mr mine concurs with Miss Evans I think we should just ask um Dr lip would you mind just clarifying that number four for this this amendment is specifically just saying it's the use of surveys and other data sources to inform Suicide Prevention efforts on behalf of Staff in the school system that was the intent yeah so there's nothing here about students accessing Mental Health Services it's our school system staff using surveys and other data sources to inform their work on suicide prevention efforts it's a really good addition and I hope people will support

305it I will say for myself that I don't think that's clear though in the language I think it's possible to read this to say that for individual students the efforts that we make to proect to protect an individual student from suicide would be limited by this so um I'm I'm concerned about making this change at this point after again you know the the committee spent a long time working on this language and I I'm afraid that this does complicate and confuse me some so I'm probably not going to support it Mrs Schultz one last go back if that's okay so I'm I'm sorry I'm still looking at this language the first one says the division will create the second one says the School Division will the third one says school officials will then it says

306the use of surveys do are people that conflicted that we need to add school officials will or the school or the School Division will because you've just heard from our system superintend tenant of special services that this is intended to be talking about staff so miss mulberg I'm putting you into quintuple overtime I'm going to ask you to please insert the School Division in confirmation with what Dr lip just said because we're intending that the School Division be informed by the voluntary student surveys and other data sources to help the School Division prevent vent suicide we can't we're not we're not asking the kids to prevent their own suicide through their participation in a survey and data sources we're informing we're informing staff on how they can collect information to better help prevent suicide and

307if if that Clarity will help my colleagues I will yet again substitute or add language which is the school division which would comport with and you could pick I don't care if it's the division in number one the School Division as it is in number two or school officials as it is in number three so I picked number two by random okay so if I understand what we're doing here um Mrs Schultz has offered another substitute motion and I'm not sure what it is yet is the language behind us on the screen the School Division will use students voluntary student surveys and other data sources to inform Suicide Prevention efforts and leaving prior parental notification in there leaving prior parental notification in there okay so does that mean that the school system can only use

308that data with prior parental notification because that's how it reads prior parental notification chairman Hines has to do with the use of voluntary surveys so put in the commas where you want if it helps you make sense but the idea is that you're not going to survey kids without the knowledge of their parents and whether it's opt out or notification or whatever but the the prior parental notification is a modifier if you will to voluntary student surveys okay is there a second for the new substitute motion second second about Miss Huff okay um any conversation Miss Huff would you like to speak to it anyone else no I just think it should be clear that parents are notified when their kids take a voluntary survey okay well I would say again I don't think this

309clarifies it for me um I think the fact that we already do uh allow parents to opt out of any kind of survey um kind of covers Us here and because this just for me this continues to confuse me um I'm not going to support it uh any other comments yes Mr Press thank you madam chair I want to Echo your comments I think that this provides a great deal of ambiguity uh I'm I'm still confused about what exactly the problem is we're trying to solve um I think the fact is this isn't going to change anything in practice I think the initial language was fine I think it prescribed exactly what we're doing already I think the parental notification piece is for the most part being done anyhow uh parental opt out is in

310policy and I don't think that this is making any substantial change and if it is I oppose it so I I don't support this substitute motion I don't support the motion that this is substituting I don't propose the original motion that that's an amendment to okay well let's stick with the substitute motion that we have on the table thank you Mr press though let's go ahead and have a vote then of those who um those who support the this last this latest substitute motion I'll uh if you support it please raise your hand it will be Huff um Wilson mclin and Schultz those who are opposed Darna kofx mlan Strauss Corbett Sanders Evans Hines Moon and PCH so that um substitute Amendment fails then I as I understand it Miss malberg um Mrs Schultz's proposed

311amendment five fails correct we don't have to go back to because she has substituted motions we don't have to go back to any of the original MO motions okay all right Mrs Schultz thank you I think that was the end of your um proposed amendments so I will read um I move that the school board adopt policy 50008 student health and wellness policy as detailed in the agenda item and as amended uh is there any further discussion Miss Evans thank you I this um is a uh I know it's late at night but I I can't let this pass with out comment this is a Monumental piece of work that has been done over the course of three years um the the breadth and depth of what is accomplished here is amazing I think this

312will move student health physical and mental health forward very significantly so it's a phenomenal piece of of work um and will make a huge impact on the on the health and lives of our children uh so I want to congrat ulate uh both staff and Shaq for and Mr press I know you were very involved uh both um as a member of Shaq and and also as a member as as our student representative so I I know this is um a big day for you too uh it's it's great coming as it does at the end of your term um I of course am particularly grateful of the recognition for the importance of sleep to student physical and mental health and as well as as the um the uh stated desire to have the school

313system uh continue to work uh to make sure that our school start times are as uh uh as as helpful to uh student physical and mental health and to to learning I think um we can all appreciate that uh this is included in our wellness policy and that this is something that we will continue to strive for um so I just wanted to say congratulations and even though this is um not going to take us very long to pass I didn't want us to not mark this because this is a real milestone for our school system thank you Miss Evans you are right about that Mr press then miss mlin thank you madam chair I get the distinct honor of being the first person to violate this policy as it relates to the sleep and

314uh and rest component being here until 12 12:30 in the morning um no ditto Miss Evans I think you you hit the nail right on the head this really is a Monumental moment for the board and I could not be prouder of the work that went into this not only from the Sha but from the community stakeholders the medical experts who made their voice heard on this I think this really does Mark um a crowning achievement for something that this board has been working towards for a very long time I think this policy will go a long way into showing that this board leadership team and FCPS as a whole is committed to the health of the whole child and not just the the child that we see from 8 to 4 um so I

315want to thank all of the community members who made their voice heard on this uh for Shack for their extremely hard work over this these three years for staff for for putting such great time and effort into this and and overcoming the hurdles that came uh your way um and I want to again thank this board for considering this and I I hope it is passed okay Miss mcclin I just do want to thank everyone who worked for three years on this and uh everything that we know from brain research and um mental health is that uh if we um do not um make a concerted effort to work to reduce student stress um anxiety and lack of sleep they will not be able to perform at optimal levels so this um health and wellness

316policy is absolutely essential and in keeping with what I believe is um the belief system of this board and certainly has been um a leading effort on our superintendent so I'm encouraged by tonight's opportunity to finally memorialize it okay the motion again is um to adopt policy 58 student health and wellness policy as detailed in the agenda item and as amended all those in favor please raise your hand that is unanimous okay okay item five our consent agenda are adopted rules of parliamentary procedure Robert's Rules provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through Board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request

317of any board member prior to the meeting 5.01 approve the minutes of the January 21 2016 regular school board meeting 5.02 Award of contract boiler replacement at Stone Middle School this item has actually been removed from the agenda 5.03 award the contract for the automatic temperature control system replacement at Woodley Hills Elementary School to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder Advanced power control Inc in the amount of $395,500 and authorize the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 5.04 award the contract for the boil replacement project at brenmar Park Elementary School to Centennial contractors Enterprises Inc in the amount of $ 25,920 6.01 appoint individuals to serve for one-year term ending June 30 2017 on the audit uh on

318the adult and Community Education Advanced academic programs Career and Technical education human relations minority student achievement oversight school health and students with disabilities advisory committees as listed in the agenda item approve the appointment item 6.02 approve the appointment of Michael Burke to the erfc Board of Trustees for a one-year term beginning July 1 2016 item 6.03 approve the reappointment of Susan Quinn Kristen Michael and Marty Smith to the erfc Board of Trustees for a one-year term beginning July 1 2016 and ending June 30 2017 item s superintendent matters I call on Dr Garza I pass thank you okay thank you um uh board committee reports we have one report from Mr moon on on governance thank you thank you madam just quickly uh two days ago now it's two days ago Wednesday June 8th the

319governance committee met to discuss uh work and nature of potentially new advisory committee to be known as human resources advisory committee uh we also discussed about upcoming school board retreat in July uh we had discussion on I think this is like a third or fourth time discussing uh discussed about naming rights and sponsorship policy thank you madam chair thank you Mr Mo so um next on the agenda item nine is board matters um in the interest of time I would ask board members unless there's something an announcement that's of of sign significance and time sensitive um that we try to be very quick so I will begin with Miss pchi I will pass thank you Miss McLaughlin um if anyone's still awake I just just want to um tell my families and uh the students

320who will be graduating um as well as actually prom for many of my bradic district high schools this weekend please um help your children stay safe make good choices and uh know that we're looking forward to celebrating um this remarkable and wonderful milestone in your children's lives over the next uh week or two Mr Moon Madame chair I'm in a position I'm in a no position to compete against my colleague Mr M in number of graduations he attending he's attending 24 I cannot do that this year Miss Evans yes I did want to um uh announce that uh we do have two vacancies in the facilities planning advisory committee one for the drainville district and one for the Providence District so for those of you who are up and watching us tonight in drainville and

321Pro Providence you are the people we're looking for so please do apply um and um we would we would welcome your application um and other than that I just want to congratulate all of our graduates Miss Corbett Sanders yes I want to Echo Miss mclin's uh remarks about all of our students that are preparing for prom and graduation um to uh make smart choices but also to enjoy these wonderful um celebr ations of life that you're going to be involved in uh they will make lifelong memories positive I hope and secondly I would like to uh give warm wishes to the 50-year reunion of Groveton High School this weekend M Strauss I'll pass thank you Miss Huff pass Mr mlan pass M Dar kofax congratulations to all our graduates and good night okay thank you

322this meeting is adjourned for