001good evening everyone this april 25th 23rd excuse me 2015 regular number 18 of the fairfax county school board will now come to order please rise for the pledge of allegiance a moment of silence and the performance of the national anthem by the freedom hill elementary school singers under the direction of gretchen lechty lynch what's so is yet thank you so much freedom hill singers we really appreciate you being here parents we appreciate you sharing your beautiful and talented children with us thank you for coming out this evening tammy yes miss reed i was backstage and i had a chance to talk to the kids a little bit and i said are you nervous or excited and i think it was a little bit of both but they were just absolutely tremendous and again i also
002wanted to thank all the families who came out tonight to cheer on their kids and take pictures this is just one example of one of the many arts programs that thrives in fairfax county thank you next on our agenda is our certification our closed meeting in order to comply with section 2.2-371 of the code of virginia it is necessary for the board to certify that since the fairfax county school board convened a closed meeting on april 23 2015 to the best of east members knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the close meeting do i have a motion i'm looking at everyone miss strauss seconded by
003miss evans all those in favor that is unanimous thank you oh i'm sorry moon moon um reed heinz smith darren at kofax valkov mclaughlin stork strauss evans abstaining ms schultz thank you motion passes a few announcements before we begin tonight's meeting mr mcelveen is absent tonight um and he is out of the country he will be back with us soon if you would like to review a copy of the agenda and any agenda item that is being discussed tonight that information is on the table by the auditorium entrance you may access tonight's agenda and related meeting documents by going to the fcps website selecting school board and then upcoming meetings and agendas the meeting is also being streamed on in the fcps website homepage click on watch school board live i ask you to please
004turn off or silence your cell phones and i will now call on mr latif our student representative for announcements thank you good evening everyone quite a few announcements tonight we will be recognizing teacher appreciation week from may 4 through the 8th every day over 15 000 teachers in fairfax county public schools demonstrate their personal and professional dedication to providing an excellent education for the children in our community our teachers are committed to ensuring that all children develop their full potentials for academic achievement teachers are influential in fostering in their students both healthful self-concepts and a sense of civic responsibility favors county public schools values their skills creativity and professionalism that characterize our teachers we will also be recognizing asian and pacific american heritage month during the month of may americans of asia and pacific ancestry
005have made significant contributions to the history and development of the united states in many fields of endeavor such as science commerce the arts and the humanities the fairfax county school board recognizes that an understanding of these contributions should be an integral part of the year-round education of all students since 1992 the president of the united states has proclaimed may to be asian and pacific american heritage month and has chosen this month to pay tribute to the generations of asian and pacific islanders who have enriched america's history and are instrumental in its future success and on may the 6th we will be recognizing school nurse day school nurse day was established in 1972 to foster a better understanding of the role of school nurses in the educational setting this annual event recognizes the contributions that school
006nurses play every day to improve the health and success of our nation's children this year's theme quote the school nurse caring for others caring for ourselves reflect reflects the significant role that school nurses have in health care in their communities as in as well as in modeling health and resiliency school nursing is a specialized practice of professional nursing that advances the health and well-being of students and is an integral part of a quality school health program school nurses promote health safety prevention and wellness intervene with actual and potential health problems and provide case management services they're an invaluable bridge connecting healthcare care providers public health and families the school system works closely with the fairfax county health department to provide quality services to the children of fairfax county public schools and recognizes may 6 as
007school nurse day in fairfax county we also would like to welcome some boy scouts in the audience joining us from troop 50 based out of annandale he is working on his citizenship in the community merit badge welcome and we are happy tonight to have a rather large contingent of boy scouts from troop 1532 also based in annandale and they are all working on their citizenship in the community merit badge thank you so much for coming thank you next moving on to agenda item 2 number 2.04 a resolution supporting parents who host lose the most campaign and i call on mr stork well thank you madam chair i it's always an honor to to do this on an annual basis and it's also maybe most importantly one of the most critical things we do on an
008annual basis which is to remind everyone about truly the perils of drinking particularly by youth underage youth because they frankly don't know how to do it and when they do do it it ends many times in in catastrophe and really serious injury to to those around you and i there's a number of those issues and this time of year in particular i always think about it because um i've been associated with a high school that lost some wonderful students as a result of of a binge of drinking right around graduation time and as we approach graduation time we need to keep focused on that and be conscious of the fact that it that drinking particularly can be very harmful and and cause many problems for not only the the students and children who are doing
009that but for the parents and and loved ones around them we have a couple champions in our midst that i want to bring up up front here to because they've been championing this resolution and championed really the education process which is so essential to minimizing uh drinking particularly by underage youth and if sarah fined and and diane eckert could please come up sarah fryen's the executive director and diane eckert is the deputy director of united prevention coalition please come up to the podium thank you and these are truly my good friends of many many years and mostly and i would say most essentially great friends of fairfax county and in fairfax county efforts to to help educate all of us about uh how to how to be responsible parents and make sure that students aren't
010drinking because we know it particularly on an underage basis is leads to serious consequences so if you would um listen while we read this resolution and really honor the work that you've done really all year and for so many years and we i know we have many students as well that have been part of the united prevention coalition and and if there are any in the audience maybe they could come up and join you that would be wonderful i know we have some students who represent uh student groups at some of the high schools that would be awesome and maybe if you can identify yourself and then i'll read the resolution just maybe just say your name hello my name is virginia sun i'm a junior at thomas jefferson high school thank you hello my
011name is angel delgado and i'm a senior at mclean high school excellent well thank you both for being here whereas underage youth say they can easily get alcohol from family and friends even though it is illegal in virginia to a for a person under the age of 21 to consume or possess alcohol and it is illegal for an adult to provide alcohol to a person under the age of and whereas alcohol is the most commonly used illegal drug by fairfax county students an underage alcohol use is associated with other drug use traffic crashes and fatalities rape depression suicide educational failure violence and gang involvement and whereas the 2013-2014 fairfax county youth survey reported that 36 percent of high school seniors and 18 percent of 10th graders had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days and
012maybe more importantly and 19 of seniors had engaged in binge drinking in the last two weeks whereas united prevention coalition of fairfax county is an independent nonprofit organization of over 60 collaborative partners including school officials county government agencies concerned residents students and community groups and has been instrumental in addressing underage drinking and binge drinking and is now in its ninth year of a campaign known as parents who host lose the most don't be a party to binge teenage drinking to educate parents and to increase awareness of and compliance with virginia underage drinking laws and whereas prevention efforts including parents talking with their teens and modeling appropriate behavior are critical particularly during prom and graduation season now therefore be resolved that the fairfax county school board supports the united prevention coalition of fairfax county and recognizes
013the month of may 2015 as parents who host lose the most month in february county i so move seconded by ms evans all those in favor the vote is unanimous with mr michael macovian absent thank you madam chairman and uh i just wanted to first off show some of the information then we'll come up and get some pictures and then i'll email me have a moment to say something this is some of the information the literature that's that's sent out and parents are these are available i know online as well as i know they have copies of it here it does matter parents how you talk with your teen it does matter that you share with them and that you exclude them from many adult parties because that is it's too early it's premature we
014want to keep them safe we want to keep them here a long time thank you maybe we can all come up for pictures all right thank you so is okay yes youth speak much more eloquently than we do and they are heard by their peers and this particular group of students has been in our classrooms doing teaching and mentoring more than any group that we've had we're very proud of them thank you chairman kaufax and board members for allowing me this opportunity to speak about the unified prevention coalition of fairfax county and its youth group or youth council excuse me my name is uh angel delgado and as i mentioned before i am a senior at mclean high school and an active member of upc's youth council i like to talk about the parents who
015host lose the most campaign and the upc's parents who host lose the most public awareness campaign is beginning its ninth year with support from country government and fcps as students we know it is important to recognize the need for parents to supervise teen parties in their homes and not allow underage drinking by providing a non-emergency phone number on the parents who host banners and fact cards upc hopes to increase the partnership between parents and the police in keeping teens alcohol free youth council members provide invaluable perspectives when participating in upc campaigns or when implementing projects that we develop here's a brief summary of some of our activities this year first we worked with the fairfax county park authority and live healthy fairfax to encourage smoke-free play areas throughout county parks by participating in park cleanups
016at burke lake and ottawa parks we also created and implemented a tobacco facts game used by children in the facets after school program we thank you for joining this effort by designating all fcps school playground and athletic fields smoke free last fall the youth council created a video on why we oppose marijuana legalization the link to the video was sent to northern virginia delegates and senators along with a letter explaining our concerns we know that marijuana use is viewed by some of our peers as a safe drug which it is not and that marijuana and alcohol are often combined initially masking the depressive effects of alcohol finally i want to note that youth council members will be working in june with sixth grade students at two elementary schools when we pilot a program teaching them
017refusal skills and from skits that we have created we are excited about being role models to younger students as youth leaders and mentors we see and hear far too much about alcohol tobacco and marijuana use we believe we can make a difference and want to see a change in our generation when it comes to these issues we want parents to join us in supporting alcohol tobacco and marijuana free lives for their students thank you for this opportunity to speak with you i'll now turn this over to virginia's son thank you angel good afternoon my name is virginia sun and i'm a junior at thomas jefferson high school i would like to update you on a few additional activities that the youth council has been implementing this year last july the unified prevention coalition sent eight
018students an adult mentor to a week-long alcohol and drug abuse prevention leadership conference at this conference students listened to motivational speakers met students from all across the state and created prevention plans for implementation during this school year the angel just mentioned right before me to teach refusal skills to sixth graders was created by youth council members at this conference furthermore the youth council and upc staff are so excited to share with you our pilot stress less be your best week at holmes middle school this project which is taking place this week was designed by students for students this week has included a nutrition health fair attended by all 981 students high school students sharing valuable time management skills and discussions on the importance of hobbies sports and time with family and friends please see the
019student tips and materials we have provided for you stress luck sweet stress last week was created because of our deep concern about the impact of stress on students and how can lead to substance abuse and depression youth council students believe that education about managing stress needs to start at a much younger time than high school in addition during this week upc and the holmes middle school parent resource center sponsored a program for parents called keeping you and your teen calm helping your child manage stress the youth council thanks dr thomas mrs astro the teachers and staff at holmes middle school for doing everything to make this week a success furthermore fairfax falls church community services board has also been generous enough generous enough to provide a grant which supported both stress less be your best
020week this week and the sixth grade refusal skills projects that will be implementing later in june we are also proud to announce that youth council has just won for the second year in a row the one thousand dollar first place geico award from the washington regional alcohol program we are collaborating directly with both our county and state partners and welcome partnerships to ensure community-based efforts truly involve the community we hope that parents know how much they influence our choices and that their expectations are very important to us we want to make the right decisions to teach students how to deal with stress members of our youth council high school students like angel and me seek to be role models for our peers and younger students so we can live healthy drug-free lives thank you for
021your time thank you for your time our students this year as i said have been inspiring with their activities and their focus to all of us they really understand the need to work with younger students and to be role models i just want to note to you that angel showed up on a very cold spring day to help the facets students go through the park on a scavenger hunt and they simply adored him um these students have been in home school all week long the stress last week we hope will be a model that other schools can implement thank you might not just add students you were wonderful thank you so much it's so obvious that the future is in very good hands isn't it with the wonderful leadership uh that we have in young
022people today uh and willing to dedicate and give of their time to support and encourage other young people in in such positive ways so we're very impressed and and proud that you're part of fcps and thank you for your work in this important area thank you so much we really do appreciate you coming here you are inspirational to us thank you next on our agenda is agenda item 2.05 recognition of better hearing and speech month and i call on mr valkov thank you madam chair since 1927 the american speech language hearing association asha has celebrated better hearing and speech month every year in may the theme this year is early intervention counts a campaign to make people aware of the warning signs of speech language and hearing problems and the positive effect that early intervention
023can have to reverse and even prevent them this annual event provides opportunities to promote services that can improve the quality of life for those who experience problems with speaking and listening an estimated 42 million people have communication disorders and they impact 1 in 10 families and i and members of my extended family are among them currently fairfax county public schools provide speech and language services to more than ten thousand students audiologists and special education teachers also serve more than 500 deaf and hard of hearing students in class-based programs via base school itinerant services and in early childhood programs fcps annually observes and celebrates better hearing and speech month and encourages all citizens in our community to recognize the efforts dedication and skills of the speech language clinicians audiologists and teachers of students who are deaf
024and hard of hearing and so with that i would like to invite everybody in the audience involved with speech and hearing to please come forward for a photograph with the school board thank you thanks for being here okay exactly okay all right like this an audiologist miss schultz would like to say something before every every clinician leaves i do want to thank as a board member who has a child who has received speech and language services from the earliest days through the both the county before he qualified to be in fairfax county public schools through the fcps cat b preschool program up until a couple of weeks ago on continuing iep services i'm really grateful both as a board member for what you do for our students but also as a parent thank you our
025next item is agenda item 2.06 and before i call on miss heinz for recognition of school nutrition employee week i would like to acknowledge miss penny mcconnell director of the office of food nutrition services who's retiring at the end of the school year after 50 years of service to fcps penny's a little shy as you can see and and um but penny we are going to have another opportunity to honor you this year but tonight we just wanted with all of your employees here before you we wanted to recognize your service and thank you for those many many years we do appreciate you and now i call in miss heinz thank you yeah i don't think we can recognize 50 years of service to the school system often enough so i'm glad we'll have another
026opportunity as i look out i see lots of cheerful bright pink shirts and it makes me so happy um and you all are people who i guess have been up since before dark this morning and preparing and serving tens of thousands of breakfasts and lunches and as someone who has prepared breakfast and lunch for just two children i am just amazed at what you do every day and you are the smiling face in the lunchroom for a lot of children and i've taught in elementary school i know the very important role you play in just the life of a school so thank you so much for being here and for all that you do i have a recognition to read caring trained thoughtful professional dedicated these are just a few words that describe today's school
027nutrition professional school nutrition employees in fairfax county public schools demonstrate daily their professional commitment to providing students with nutritious menu choices that reflect current research and meet the dietary guidelines for americans which is not easy to do school nutrition employees must balance many roles and follow numerous federal state and local regulations to ensure safe and healthy meals are available in schools they are trained sanitation and food safety experts and must manage financially self-sufficient programs school nutrition professionals also provide nutrition education to students as well as healthy catering services to the community they use their creativity to make the cafeteria a fun and welcoming place all year long and perform their jobs each day because they care passionately about the children they serve fcps school nutrition employees are committed to imparting food and nutrition knowledge and
028skills to students using the school cafeteria as the nutrition laboratory and are influential in preparing students to learn i'd like to invite all of our wonderful school nutrition people to come down front and get a picture with us oh sorry oh actually i come up to the stage there's so many of you come on around to the the stage are come yeah some people have to come this way hey nice oh thank you hey guys okay thank you yes that the next order of business the next order of business is citizen participation speakers are requested to limit their remarks to not more than three minutes and to provide at least 16 copies of their presentation for distribution to the board the school board will not hear statements involving issues that have been scheduled for public
029hearings such as capital improvement program budget and boundaries or personal attacks on any person complaints regarding individual students or school-based employees should be directed to the appropriate school principal or other school official 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 11 citizens have signed up to address the school board stephen greenberg tina williams bob marshall andrea laverty adam hyatt chris harrell robert rigby jr manny sullen karen salin george pasera and david larocque mr greenberg dr garza chairman darren at kofax steam school board members around mr latif my name is steve greenberg i'm president of the fairfax county federation of teachers i represent 4 500 educators who care i'll be speaking tonight on agenda item 4.01
030goal 2 and 3. first of all i'd like to thank mr kevin sills who presented at our member workshop today and assisted our teachers in learning more about their rights and due process considering how understaffed hr is currently his efforts in making the time today impressed us in fact this entire school system is on the verge of losing its ability to take care of its employees and its students properly whether it's in terms of keeping reasonable class size pay for employees or supports for students our county supervisors and our state officials are to blame for all of this the fact that they would assert they care about kids and teachers then leave them hang out to dry it's despicable i think i saw there might be some state delegates here tonight and i hope they've
031come to help us with our funding as opposed to posture intolerance before elections word out to all politicians you come into this room and you use this microphone between now and november i'm going to be waiting for you i am joined tonight oh by the way let me add fcft absolutely completely supports the non-discrimination changes that you have on the table and would appreciate you passing those i told you i'm joined tonight by the leaders of the scft sustainability committee who will address you next as i reflect upon all of their great work over the past few years and pondered their wonderful ideas and proposals for making our schools more eco-friendly and our students healthier i actually became a little depressed to think that our scps educators and students are limited in reaching their potential
032that troubled me to know that our teachers can't make learning as productive and exciting as they'd like or be able to provide those important special opportunities for our students all due to a lack of funding that's devastating as you listen to the passion and conviction of the educators tonight understanding how much they care for our students and how much they care about being great teachers remember this they have options they can work elsewhere of course teachers can also stay here in fcps and make a point of holding those responsible for our financial problems please know that i'm not going anywhere nor have i forgotten my promise mason district education begins soon your teachers are completely grossed out a hurricane approaches i'd like to now introduce three fairfax county educators to you they are members of
033the fairfax county federation of teachers and members of the fairfax county federation of teachers sustainability committee amanda hurwitz who's not here yet she may show up a little bit later sue straits tina williams who's the chairperson today they will be sharing about their committee and their involvement in advancing sustainability education for our schools i appreciate the time and attention that you'll give to them this evening thank you so much miss williams good evening school board members thank you for this opportunity to speak on student achievement goals two and three as we celebrate earth day this week it is truly an honor to speak on matters rooted in promoting environmental sustain sustainability and educating citizens who will live locally and think and respond as global citizens i am tina williams i am a school counselor at
034sanctuary elementary i am the chairperson for the fairfax county federation of teachers sustainability committee with me today is sue straits she is a physical education teacher at saint at kent gardens elementary and a member of this committee our committee consists of educators community leaders business professionals and concerned parents these interested parties share resources knowledge experiences and collaborate to promote the life skills of making healthy and safe choices reacting as responsible citizens and being globa global and environmental stewards our initiatives promote healthy food choices and energy in areas such as fitness nutrition and foods schoolyard gardens recycling reusing reducing conservation renewable and efficient energy green and healthy school buildings chip certified construction projects sustainability curriculum and that coordination programs that we're active and support are earth day real food for kids food day and culinary challenge
035green apple day of service nova outside and get to green kent gardens elementary school has been renovating its courtyard a place where teachers students parents come together to help students learn about the environment this spring all grade levels will plant organic heirloom seeds to grow nutritious vegetables children are keenly attuned to the challenges of the world clean air and water energy and waste consumption poverty and hunger we and they need greener schools being a member of the sustainability committee for three years has given me an opportunity to visit green schools learn breakthrough thinking and best practices attend conferences present at conferences and talk with others about how we can make our schools healthier elaine tolin and allison culhane fairfax county public school get to green coordinators provide a website and emails with weekly valuable updated
036information for administrators and teachers the how-tos of recycling for our students and the annual nova outside showcase at george mason university which our students attended green schools make a difference in everyday student learning green schools can be cost efficient to build and maintain we've seen it from college park elementary school in virginia beach to manassas city schools we're asking you to please review the attached links that demonstrate model green schools we want your expert opinions on how green school building development and redevelopment can happen in fairfax county with a commitment to chips guidelines and striving toward leads we believe fairfax county public schools can lead the way in providing healthy energy efficient cost-conscious schools but it'll take work we're ready to roll up our sleeves with you thank you thank you mr bob marshall hi
037i've got copies of my testimony met him chair thank you i'm state delegate bob marshall commenting on policy 1450-56 in the absence of express statutory authority from the general assembly three democrat attorney generals two republican attorney generals and the virginia supreme court disagree with the opinion of mark herring that local governments may unilaterally add sexual orientation or gender identity to local non-discrimination ordinances seven attorney generals from 1982 through 2010 in eight opinions all concluded that the general assembly is the only body with authority to establish or change public policy to define classes of individuals of for forbidden discrimination in that time five attorney generals publish six formal opinions dealing with local governments including school boards all six use language as follows gerald bellows 1982 democrat dealing with the fairfax human rights ordinance concerning the legislative
038powers of local governing bodies boards of supervisors have only those powers which are granted expressly by statute or which exists by necessary implication any doubt as to the existence of a power must be resolved against the existence of the power to the extent that the amendments either enlarge upon the definitions of a protected class of persons as presently defined by state statute or declare particular acts to be unlawful under local ordinance i am constrained to conclude that the amendments are invalid because the board of supervisors does not presently have the authority to enact them william brought us attorney general a 1985 democrat in accordance with the prior consistent position of this office it is my opinion that the city of alexandria does not have the authority to enlarge upon the class of protected persons as
039defined by applicable state statute by enacting an ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual preference in 2010 former governor bellows reaffirmed his 1982 opinion while commenting on an opinion of attorney general cuccinelli in which he differed in part mr belisle said the attorney general's recent opinion to presidents directors and visitors of virginia's public colleges and universities correctly states as a matter of law that only the general assembly can create legislatively protected classes for purposes of non-discrimination lastly the virginia supreme court affirmed the 1997 opinion i received from attorney general cullen that arlington could not add domestic partners to the classes of recipients eligible for health insurance coverage without prior approval of the general assembly that decision has not been overturned is still good law notwithstanding mr herring's novel conclusions mr herring claims he's over
040overruling just a single 2002 attorney general opinion but he failed to acknowledge five other examples from attorney generals of both parties and the supreme court of virginia has contradicted his conclusions in light of the above and in possible light of local citizen uh litigation i urge the board to reject the addition of gender identity and also to remove sexual orientation from your non-discrimination policy since the fairfax school board according to these authorities which have not been overridden have not been granted such authority by the general assembly thank you very much andrea lafferty followed by adam hyatt i'm andrea lafferty president of traditional values coalition resident of fairfax and a mother of a school-aged child on behalf of thousands of children parents and grandparents i speak in opposition to changing policy one fourteen fifty your policy
041will adversely impact preschool programs through 12th grade we have great compassion for those struggling with self-hatred and gender identity issues there is a way to accommodate transgender students and still protect the other students privacy rights and the rights of parents children need and deserve a psychologically stable and emotionally secure environment in which to learn your policy threatens that in the public discussion on march 12th uh the issues you covered uh were um were not relevant to parents and there were real issues that are going to be faced that you didn't talk about some of them are bathrooms changing areas impact of teachers in the classroom as well as privacy rights of students and parents do not deceive the public no court has ever interpreted title ix to require schools to give students access to opposite
042sex changing areas no law requires public schools including fairfax to allow boys into girls bathrooms or girls into boys bathrooms providing such access is a safety issue it endangers children and violates the rights of both students and parents we've seen this over and over whether it's in tucson or in kansas where real girls are told to wait after someone who is struggling with their identity gets to use the bathroom in washington state a police report stated that clay scott colleen francis was sitting with her legs open with her male genitalia showing how are you going to handle that in fairfax county and then of course we've had a recent incident in stafford county where again girls were told to wait uh late to later mr moon you stated at the march 12th meeting that technically
043legally speaking we already have our policy suffices our need to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity by your own admission the policy change is unnecessary so why are you guys rushing to make this change let's be clear under the policy gender identity is being added as a protected class therefore parents will be prohibited from transferring their child out of the classroom of a transgender teacher mr mcelveen touched on the fact that you are doing this because their populations tend to be very highly at risk for suicide or other issues other mental health issues and so you are going to put people with serious mental health issues that are at a risk for suicide in our classrooms i'd like an extension of time to finish my statement ma'am i'm sorry we typically do not allow that
044you'll have like i'll give you like 10 more seconds so you can wrap it up so you so you're going to put people that you acknowledge are suicide risk to be teachers in our classroom you didn't deal with gender fluidity fluidity gender they their gender doesn't change does change their one one day they want to be a boy one day they want to be a girl all this is in my statement even um think uh progress which is a liberal group has said many trans people never undergo these procedures so what you're going to have in the classroom are she males people that are half female mammograms will be on the ten seconds that you would protect our children they deserve to be protected and do not change this policy thank you adam hyatt followed
045by chris harrell hello my name is adam hyatt i'm a resident of fairfax county and a parent first of all i wanted to give a big thank you to the faculty staff and board members of the fairfax county school system for their tireless efforts to make the school system a great place to educate the next generation the efforts made today are especially important because today's children determine tomorrow's future the destiny of our school county state and nation i want to cite the attorney general mark herring's letter dated march 4 2015 in which he says i further note that determining that the fairfax county school board in fairfax county have no authority to include sexual or sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies referencing the 2002 opinion he concludes it is my opinion that without enabling legislation
046the fairfax county school board has no authority to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy the recent november 2014 article by the alliance defending freedom organization specifically addresses this issue the article describes how such a policy as this could pave the way for any person any age to enter any genders bathroom this scenario has already happened in stafford county school virginia uh i quote from their article more specifically it has people wondering what giving members of both sexes open access to the other genders bathrooms will mean for men women and especially children impacted by such laws it is a growing problem it has been it has happened in minnesota rhode island and wisconsin among others the adf letter explains that contrary to what some mistakenly believe no federal law requires public schools to allow boys
047into girls restrooms or girls into boys restrooms in fact by opening all bathrooms to both sexes school officials could be opening themselves to legal liability for violating students privacy rights and placing children in potentially unsafe conditions they describe an alternate policy which i've included with my statement today schools have a duty to protect the privacy safety and dignity of all students as adf legal counsel any safety and privacy policy should respect the needs of all children because every child matters no policy should be tailored to a few students at the expense of every other student schools can accommodate a small number of students that have different needs without compromising the rights of other children and their parents says adf senior legal counsel jeremy tedesco no child should be forced into an intimate setting like a
048bathroom or a locker room with the child of the opposite sex our model policy provides a solution without exposing schools to liability and children to threats to their safety and privacy for many americans the very ideas that these kinds of legal challenges are upon us is hard to fathom the privacy and safety implications of giving people of the opposite sex ready access to a gender designated public bathroom a place in which individuals feel particularly vulnerable and isolated is so obvious is to hardly need elaboration in conclusion end of quote any exploration or confusion of one's own sexual identity or gender has no place in the public school system or policy these are intimate and religious issues which are best taught in the home we have such limitations for alcohol drugs drinking and even seeing r-rated
049movies and children's brains are still developing until age 26 we should allow children the time they need without such policies as will endanger children safety and override parents thank you chris harrell all right robert rigby jr good evening school board members it's much easier to speak to a room full of 30 freshmen than 12 people and see let me tell you that my name is robert vigney i've been a teacher in fairfax since 1999 and am currently a latin teacher at west potomac high school i'm also the sponsor of the gay straight alliance at westpo i was a member of the group working in 2001 and 2002 for the inclusion of sexual orientation in the anti-harassment policy and the school systems non-discrimination policy hello mrs strauss we succeeded in the former but not the latter
050i was pleased to learn this fall that the school board added sexual orientation to the non-discrimination policy and i support the motion to add gender identity to the policy as the sponsor of the gsa two schools over the years and from hearing from students and parents i can say that harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation have decreased during my time working in for fairfax however transgender students and students who do not display traditional gender expression that is students who may not be typically masculine or feminine to varying degrees continue to experience a great deal of harassment the friends and family members also hear some amazingly negative comments many staff may not be aware of how to treat students with different gender identities and expressions and quite frankly some have had some fairly negative impacts
051on students over the years our whole community our staff and our students need to be more conscious of the concerns of students who are different in this way the school board has the authority and the opportunity to make a crucial difference in the lives of our students to take the first steps and only the first steps towards making school a tolerable place for transgender students it's hard enough being a teenager it's hard enough being transgender without harassment and discrimination and we can do something about it um as a brief note i would if you receive negative communications anchored on the bathroom issue which you have i would say they're a red herring to my knowledge there's never been a bad actor relied of relieved of responsibility based on gender identity claim such negative statements amount
052to scare tactics a sort of modern day blood libel and the issue isn't really about bathrooms it's about how you wear your hair or how you dress or how you act rather than rather than that red herring i have a couple of suggestions my students will tell you i always have suggestions first you may want to change the anti-harassment policy as well as the non-discrimination policy in the sr and r you may have done so already and i missed it you may want to modify the new policy statement from gender identity to gender identity expression i realize that's not the language mr herring used but it is a broader policy with clearer protections for students who may not have identified as a different gender my time is up thank you for listening manny sullivan yeah
053hi uh i apologize i i don't have a written statement i kind of heard about this at the last minute i am speaking for myself but i have involved i've been a step parent in the county uh currently i look around i'm probably the oldest person in the room anyway i've been involved in these issues for a long time i don't speak for these groups but i'm currently on the fairfax county human rights commission and on their committee if they send to this school board would i recognize several of you from coming there thank you for your work and for an excellent school system and i have to say i don't embarrass you jane i think the last time i was here you were here you were the only one that was here but you
054still look good anyway the last time i came here it was because uh my wife drags me to these things but it was something about a sex uh education course and some of these people who i kind of recognize uh if not them their priest their precedence were thinking the world was going to come kung was going to end and i found out it was a one-hour course i think and they could opt out so the you know the sky is always falling and years ago as a graduate student i was involved as a crazy new new new yorker who was at university of texas i got involved in in integration and some of the same arguments that were used that the world is going to end if we end the discrimination of blacks i
055hear today and frankly i'ma start to get passionate it really bugs the hell out of me uh the world is not going to end and what i think is i think of these kids and in a sense you know they may not be my kids but in a way they are my kids they are all our children and i'll take the low statistics they claim a half of one percent may be transgender but i think you'll would know we have maybe 200 000 students in fairfax county that makes a thousand kids i'll split the difference they say 40 to 60 percent attempt suicide maybe 50 percent kill themselves that's 500 kids are going to die and one of the reasons they're going to die is they get this hatred and misunderstanding from some people now
056some of the people i can understand they're concerned frankly i don't quite still maybe understand being transgender but to me one of the worst things could be two things one having alzheimer's which i may get and being locked in my own mind the other is being locked in the body and you think it's the wrong gender your brain is telling you hey i'm in the wrong body i can't think no i love these people that they're nice but to have that feeling and not be able to get out and express yourself as a hell on earth and i think we as owe it to ourselves to these kids who are our kids to go and speak up for them thank you very much speaker number nine karen salon he must want me to cook dinner
057make wine for him tonight i'm it's my spouse and i'm very proud of him i was not prepared to speak tonight so i don't have 16 16 copies of what i want to say what i did know that i wanted to bring to somebody was a copy of bob fry's robert fry's words from i believe robert rigby and i think it was about 2001 2002 and i remember we've been here a long time this is not a new issue robert frye you can look him up but he was a member of the first he was three times member of the fairfax county school board he grew up as a young black man in washington d.c and he testified as a school board member back in or spoke to us in two thousand one or two
058about what it meant to him to see the words on the jefferson memorial that all men are created equal he urged these board members in the audience to understand that words matter and putting these words and he was advocating them for adding sexual orientation to the county which obviously didn't happen until this past fall but he wanted you to understand that just having these words does matter and he said they gave me hope and his voice cracked as he spoke that these young people these transgender young people need or struggling with their gender identity and trying on expressions whatever they need to do they need hope they need to know that you realize they're going through whatever they're going through and they need your support and i urge you to put those words in there
059and i agree with with robert rigby that expression would be wonderful to add because very often that's that's the beginning of their understanding of who they are um one of the things also on the jefferson well let me also just briefly say that my my i wish i had some kind of big credential other than the pins that i've carried around for about 20 some years but i have been a fairfax county resident for over 40 years my two children went through the system and graduated i've done very well but i also provided child care and was an early childhood educator in the county i'm on facebook with many of these kids now turning 30 and going into their their 30s they were a diverse group of kids i worked with low income and children
060with disabilities and so on you know low-income families working for families and what i quote that i love from audrey moore audre lorde i'm sorry was that children need to learn and i say adults need to learn as well but children need to learn that they do not have to be like each other in order to work together for a future that they will all share my concern is primarily for these young people struggling with their identity it has to be as my husband said in some ways the hell on earth if they don't have some support somewhere um secondly um okay uh the other the other concern i'll finish with this is for all of the other kids that we need to create a climate in which these children understand as part of their
061civic responsibility that they do not have to be like the other kids in order to respect them and treat them with dignity and that's what i want you to do with these little words they do matter thank you so much george becerra um good evening uh superintendent school board member sorry i didn't plan on speaking tonight but i don't think i'll be here for the may 7th school board meeting and i want to talk with that i mean right before your work session on the strategic plan so my comments are going to be on the strategic plan i don't know if you had any chance to read the new budget guidance for next year that the board draft the board of supervisors drafted so i wanted to read you parts of it when maybe ms
062quinn and dr garza can pass around consistent with the direction from the jordan board decision committee concerning meeting joint priorities the board of supervisors and school board should also collaborate on identifying multi-year plans for closing the minority student achievement gap and enhancing korean technical education programs these plans should identify both long-term and interim goals suggestion suggestion funding allocations and programmatic priorities designed to reach the ultimate goals the board suggests the 10-year plan to end homelessness be used as a model for development of these plans so in hindsight here i know we're we're still in this budget here but this is what your guidance is going to be for next year and how maybe if you want that seven or eight percent uh compared to the three that was guidance this year and at the end
063of a 3.2 um in part in that closing achievement gap again 2.0 plan into the strategic plan right now you have fluff in there i think you have a good start but you do not have what has some meat behind it and i think as i make my rounds with the board of supervisors when i advocate for school money i also will make this as metrics as we've got mr stork i miss uh miss smith who are running for board of supervisors i think this is some of the things you're going to be judged on with when you have to set your uh budget for next year uh so i'd uh i would look for the school system look at this this plan again before you adopted in june uh second point tonight uh wow
064i'm surprised with the people who come out here every time for single issues again we meet twice a month here hopefully you can come back again not single issues we are a system with that said i appreciate um i appreciate the delegates who will be speaking here tonight no offense or anything i applaud or applaud you for you after the public service but at the end of the day prince william and william counties uh in loudoun county aren't really uh this is this not them we're here in fairfax so mr uh mr marshall mr larocque i appreciate you coming and speaking please visit our restaurants please visit our gas stations and do some business but then today you don't speak for the fairfax county residents if mr albo is here a little different mr sassa
065was here was different we can hear them out because they do represent us and with that said again you heard my comments last year on the sexual orientation i have to repeat that it applies to gender the gender identity again i appreciate your time and have a good evening david larocque thank you again madam chairman for extending me the courtesy of speaking even though i didn't follow your guidelines i really do appreciate that and thank you to all the board members i know that you're here not because of the of the privilege of doing all the hard work late nights dealing with contentious issues like this is not all fun uh and i and i really appreciate that i heard a little bit of the presentations that took place here and obviously you're doing some
066things really right there's some great kids and and i applaud you for that this is a very important issue i'm here to speak on the proposal of adding gender identity to the non-discrimination policy 1450 and um in looking into this looking at the ag's opinion and looking at the the code of conduct handbooks and looking at the laws of virginia three dominant themes i think are worth bringing in in front of you i'm sure you're very aware of them but i think it's a good time to maybe reflect on them one is the need to protect individual rights i know that's a difficult charge perhaps the most difficult of the three that i'll mention because in that group of individuals the rights are very very different we've heard different speakers here talking about the rights
067of of transgender and and the need to protect them and i don't think anyone in this room would disagree with that all of us respect all people as human beings how they're treated in the context of a school in the setting of a school is really what this board is charged with with making a decision on the second that i find again is dominant in the in the virginia law is the need to of the school board to promote to form policies that are conducive to learning and free from distractions attorney general herring in my opinion formed an opinion of his own that is um defies common sense i don't think that well i'll just pose the question rather than insert my opinion can you form the kind of policies that are being contemplated that
068would eliminate consideration of gender in school policies meaning just non-discrimination in a civil rights context and in a literal uh definition are slightly different but basically what they amount to is that in this case gender identity cannot be taken into consideration in a way that differentiates those people or gives them it gives them different treatment can you possibly do that with with consideration to the third charge that is dominant in virginia law and that is that all policies again be respective of individual rights maintain an atmosphere that's free of distraction and is conducive to learning and is respective of parents consideration and and their own individual rights and personal beliefs i listened to the school board meeting audio i appreciate those being online very convenient and what i heard was pretty much unanimous i know
069maybe not absolutely unanimous but but a very broad acceptance of a policy that hasn't been formed yet this policy would would obviously bring with it a whole variety of changes and other policies that would affect all of these things they would affect individual rights not just of the gender uh children who are transgender they would affect their parents and from what i gathered maybe maybe i'm misinformed but i didn't hear that there was a consideration for input from the parents who would be affected by this again i'll just conclude by thanking you for giving me the time to speak ask you to please consider these three things and again i urge you at this time without the policy before you to not vote in favor of it and please distribute it to parents and invite
070collaboration from the community before voting on it thanks very much speaker number six who was chris harrell did you arrive no all right thank you thank you to all of our speakers who came out this evening next we move on to our action items and oh excuse me i skipped over student representative matters mr latif i'm very sorry i thought you liked me okay i'm sorry ms goddard you'll remember that all my written remarks they were under five minutes but i'm gonna have to stray from them after what i've heard today hate it has caused a lot of problems in this world but it hasn't solved one yet said mile angelo discrimination on any minority threatens every minority and indeed it threatens us all this is the 21st century and high school is very very
071difficult without being discriminated against for simply who you are and i cannot comprehend being discriminated against for merely an aspect of my identity or aspect of my lifestyle or aspect of who i am i urge the school board to be proactive let's fair let fairfax county be proactive on this topic unlike you know back in the 60s i believe we already talked about this at the forum work session we were not proactive at all so i think we can lead if there is no i don't like listen to the arguments today but if we can be a first i think we should definitely be a first the times are changing and if you talk to students at the student advisory council today i mentioned that we added sexual orientation to the non-discrimination policy back in
072november and students were very pleased to hear that and i imagine they'd be pleased to hear this as well so please act looking forward not in the past moving on thank you back to my remarks back to our regularly scheduled programming welcome to the fourth quarter i'm still planning on coming to meetings however shocking that may seem for a senior who as of 8 30 this evening is one month 20 days 13 hours and 30 minutes away from graduation but as you may have guessed there is work yet to be done this morning i attended the very final and bittersweet meeting of the 2014-2015 student advisory council i've gotten to know many delegates from each corner of fairfax county public schools and i have had the pleasure of knowing some of them since i was
073first elected back in february of 2014. i thank the members of the student advisory council for their service and for their work to make fcps a better place to learn i thank dr garza for taking time out of her schedule to meet with us today and as she was at many meetings throughout the year and field some questions from our sac delegates i think they hey held their own it was pretty impressive last wednesday april the 15th i visited annandale high school where i spoke to their student leadership class we covered a broad range of topics but as was the case at many schools i visited no other issue produced a greater response or discussion than the different grading policies that exist at high school high schools across the county we preface this by saying
074that fcps is working on our grading policy but i still think it's something important to highlight this is why we're doing what we're doing the way our current system works student at students at different high schools in fairfax county do not live and work under the same rules everything from what goes into a teacher's grade book when a student does not turn in an assignment to what options student ha students have when it comes to retaking exams they perform poorly on are not standard across the county in fact after speaking with students and teachers from many different schools it is obvious that these policies can vary quite widely i'll focus on two schools tonight which many people agree they lie on opposite ends of the spectrum that being oakton and my home base of langley
075at langley if i were not to turn in an assignment an ap gov worksheet for example my teacher would input a zero into the grade book at oakton if a student were not to turn in that very same ap cup worksheet they'd get a 50 into the gradebook back at langley if god forbid i were to score a 35 on a quiz or test it would be the grade that my teacher would put into the grade book but at oakton that 35 i earned would bump up to a 50 whether my teacher when my teacher put it into the gradebook although both a zero and a 50 percent are less than 64 and therefore considered a failing grade on the current fcps grading scale does not take a math degree to know that when factoring
076a 50 into the overall grade versus throwing in a zero very different effects when it comes to retakes student students at oakton as long as they're in good standing are guaranteed at least one retake on every test that they take regardless of the original score of the assessment not in every case can you go back to 100 but in many you can there's no requirement at langley i think miss aaron cooper of oakton along with many students at oakton when i visited for giving me a lot of information some may argue that this is a fair system since at least all the students at oakton are on a level level playing field with their peers and all the students at langley are on the level playing field with their peers but let me tell you
077a story from my friend ben press who other than being the next student representative is a junior at james madison on why this is completely inequitable last year ben had an upperclassman friend who was recruited to play soccer at stanford university on a full ride scholarship like many scholarships it came with a requirement that she maintained her class grades at an a or b level at the end of the second quarter of her junior year she struggled through a unit exam and received a c her class grade dropped from the b minus to a c plus for the year and stanford revoked her acceptance and her scholarship had the student attended school at oakton just a four minute drive away she'd have had the opportunity to retake the exam and the student's grade would have
078been a b minus and she could be playing soccer on a full ride scholarship at stanford stories like this should encourage us to make sure that we have a county-wide grading policy that allows each and every fcps student to have a level playing field and an equal shot at success in college and beyond i've heard many suggestions from the students i've met across the county as what to what that grading policy should be but the one thing everyone agrees on that we should we should definitely have a standard grading policy i applaud the fcps leadership team for forming a grading policy committee and working to find an equitable grading policy for the county and i encourage that to be rolled out as soon as realistically possible and i look forward to providing input looking ahead
079i'll be touring the key center school in springfield tomorrow at noon i'll be the 6th grade all county choir festival all the way down at mount vernon high school on saturday and i'll be at the gatehouse center on monday for the student leadership development program's mock work session and lastly she's not here tonight but perhaps you'll watch this i'd like to congratulate miss mary ellen hook who after 33 years of service to fairfax county public schools will be retiring at the end of this coming august ms hook is the executive administrative assistant to ms heinz mr stork and myself i am 18 and i'm able to say that that is shocking i cannot thank her enough for the help and support throughout my course of my term since i i believe was last june as
080scattered and everyone oriented me as to what i would be doing as student rep and i wish her nothing but the best in retirement and she's already promised she'll be visiting me in edinburgh so i'm really looking forward to it thank you very much thank you mr latifah and i do like you i do want to just make a note one of my colleagues had suggested this and i i do want to say you know policy 1450 which is our non-discrimination that is not going to be voted on tonight i just wanted our audience members to note that that but we will have a vote on that on may 7th so thank you moving on to action items 4.01 student achievement goal number two i call on miss evans for a motion thank you madam
081chair i move that the school board accept the monitoring reports and presentation for student achievement goal 2 development essential life skills and student achievement goal 3 responsibility to the community in the world world as detailed in the agenda item seconded by mr velko okay all right miss evans would you like to speak i would just very briefly i'm very pleased to make this motion to approve a student achievement goal to report the report on essential life skills and student achievement goal three demonstrate responsibility to the community in the world these are very impressive reports showing the critical importance that this board and our school system place on the health and well-being of our students and on the qualities needed to live and thrive in the larger world these reports are rich with data on just
082how much our school system does to promote well-being and the positive impact that we are having in anti-bullying work restorative justice as part of our discipline reform efforts and supporting improved resiliency among our young people we are making greater efforts in the area of physical exercise good nutrition and adequate sleep all critical to health and learning it is a tribute to our school system that we put this emphasis on areas that aren't measured by such things as standardized tests that we have a report for example that talks about things like promoting kindness among our students we of course do need to do more in some of these areas such as was mentioned tonight by our partner at the unified coalition that we do need to get our marijuana use down just as we've made great
083strides in getting our tobacco use down and continuing our work on addressing addressing depression and anxiety issues but i do congratulate the staff on the excellent work that they have done in all of these very uh very very important areas thank you and i urge support for this motion mr valkov would you like to speak to your second i cannot improve on those wonderful comments from my colleague ms evans all right i'm miss mclaughlin just for those of you who did not have the wonderful opportunity two weeks ago when staff presented to the board these reports on goal two and three my colleagues and i uh spoke with such enthusiastic excitement about where the school system is going and in particular we gave very strong praise to dr garza her leadership team dr kim dockery
084dr jane lipp and marianne panarelli and many many others who have really helped this board and recent years move in the direction that so many of us have really hoped to see for all the children in our public schools and as ms evans talked about part of what we touched upon two weeks ago with discipline reform with the social emotional learning i also wanted to touch upon the fact that when you look at things like starting as early as preschool and kindergarten the executive functioning skills that we know nationally are proven through research and best practices dr dockery bringing a national expert like ellen golinski to come and partner with fairfax county schools that is innovative that is what is going to not only help our 180 000 students plus but also be able to
085hopefully spotlight this at the national level so that school systems across the country will really start to understand as we try and wrestle with the quite frankly the shackles of no child left behind while well-intentioned they really have restricted uh that creative and critical thinking um that is so essential in 21st century education and so uh these reports that we received two weeks ago if we've stimulated the curiosity of the audience to go look and to read them in my mind they speak to some of the best work that's happening here in fairfax county schools i think it is a hallmark for what we've been known for decades of being leaders and providing equality instruction for our children and when we focus on being able to educate the whole child with those lifelong skills we
086then are honoring our children for leading us into the next generation so very excited dr garza to applaud you and your team for this excellent work and look forward to partnering with you all as we continue this incredible innovation for our public schools all right if there are no other comments the uh motion on the table is that i move that the school board accept monitoring reports and presentation for student achievement goal number two develop essential life skills and student achievement goal number three responsibility to the community and the world as detailed in the agenda item all those in favor the vote is unanimous next we move on to 4.02 and again i call on miss evans thank you madam chair i move that the school board approved guidelines for the election of school board
087chair and vice chair is detailed in the agenda item and update the strategic governance manual accordingly is there a second seconded by mr moon ms evans uh yes i just wanted to uh remind the board and the public where uh why we came up with this in january the board tasked the governance committee with coming up with a proposed timeline for running for chair and vice chair the committee made its recommendation on a timeline and the board just did consider this at a work session on march 16th there was consensus to move forward with the proposal and to add the timeline to our strategic governance manual this is where we are tonight and i urge support for this motion mr moon oh there's nothing to add to that i do want to just comment on
088it because this is sort of inside baseball i think for much of the public and i don't necessarily know that there's any clarity for them on what this means there was an earlier work session that is accessible on our website and our work sessions our all-day work sessions are available via videotape on our school board website i'm neither opposed to nor particularly supportive of this change i'm not sure that it actually functionally does anything and that's the one thing that it bothers me for us to spend our time on something that actually doesn't yield something productive at the end because in the end the way this policy is written a person could serve two years as vice chair two years as chair someone else could you serve two years as vice chair two years as
089chair just you're talking about the next one that's cr at the time we're on the first one oh well i'm gonna i'm gonna put myself on pause and hold because i thought we were at term limits all right that's next that's next um so i'll put myself on hold when we was talking chair and vice chair i thought in term limits i thought we were already there all right miss mclaughlin um i just want to thank my colleagues for the discussions we've had so far on this as someone who serves on governance i also appreciate the work that we talked about this particular issue i do believe that these guidelines for election of school board chair and vice chair will hopefully move us in a positive direction as a board i think what it does
090is hopefully enable all of us to do our best to engage with one another unlike the board of supervisors where the chairman of the county for the board of supervisors runs and is elected by the voters for us the chair of the school board is a decision for the 12 of us and it's difficult hurting 12 cats and i know that you know miss kofax and those who proceeded before her it is a challenge and i tip my hat to anyone who serves as chair or vice chair in doing their best to try and build collegiality and hopefully finding consensus and and most importantly also compromise so for this reason i support it and i really do hope that we can embrace um the intent of this which is to enable all 12 of us
091to feel engaged and a part of this very important decision we make each year which is the two positions that will lead the board and help us do our best work miss reed and then ms hines thank you mr neck cofax i just wanted to thank my colleague miss heinz upon reflection it was back in the early fall that we started talking about this issue and trying to come up with ways to improve ourselves so we talk about continuous improvement for fcps and this is an example of how we were looking at the way we do our own business and we thought well we we might be able to do a little bit better so i'm very pleased with actually seeing the results now of some very good thinking and deliberation it's much more of
092a team approach we have now some procedures in place and i'm very happy to see it so i'm very much i'm supportive of this thank you my signs pretty much a ditto thank you miss reed for helping me brainstorm and thanks so much miss evans and um governance committee for being willing to bite you know chew on this for several months and come up with something that i i can certainly support so thank you all right the motion on the table 4.02 is that i move that the school board approved guidelines for the election of the school board chair and vice chair as detailed in the agenda item and update the strategic governance manual accordingly all those in favor the motion is unanimous and it passes and miss evans gets the third one missing evans
093is the chair of our governance that's why miss evans gets the privilege of doing all and i and and am honored to do so thank you madam chair i move that the school board approved guidelines um i'm sorry i was on the wrong one i know i did the same thing mr schultz did i move that the school board approved term limits for board members serving in the chair or vice chair position as follows no more than two years as chair during a four-year term and no more than two years as vice chair during a four-year term as detailed in the agenda item and update the strategic governance manual accordingly seconded by ms heinz second once again the governance was asked to consider whether we should have term limits for chair and vice chair the
094governance committee pondered this and had some discussions and brought a recommendation to the full board that we have a maximum that a chair can serve any individual school board member can serve two years as chair and two years as vice chair during any four year school board term so we just did discuss this at our march 16th work session had a consensus to move forward with this and uh this does then um will add language to the strategic governance manual to that effect and i urge support miss heinz yeah um i i appreciate the effort here i think it's probably what what the you know the best that we're going to come up with you know as a compromise we also have talked about this for months um and i uh i i just i
095think this is important because we have 12 members on this board and lots of different leadership experience and abilities and my goal here is just to make sure that we're taking advantage of of all of those different leadership styles and i don't think we would probably ever be in a position where at a four-year period anyone would serve as chair more than twice anyway so i don't know this makes a huge difference but at least it sets in stone our desire to share the responsibility for leading this board and so that's why i will support this thank you ms smith i'm going to speak in opposition to this i don't believe that we should tie the hands of the board in any year i think the board should be able to make a decision of
096who they want for chair because it's a majority decision and so i i just i don't support limiting that i think each year when the board makes a decision on who they want for chair or vice chair it should be open to whoever they want i don't think it's about a matter of taking turns i think it's a matter of the board deciding who they want for their chair so i will vote now michelle's this is one i wish the the great staff that we had out in the truck could just edit and put my other comments in insert here thank you thank you for what you do out there but i i'll have to do my own editing so as i was saying on 4.02 which was really 4.03 you know the work of
097government officials doing and spending time on things that in the end don't really result in a material difference concerns me on the one hand the former the the 4.02 i do understand but as i was previously saying the effect of this change could result in out of a body of 12 elected officials result in somebody serving two terms as vice chair and two terms as chair and one other person serving two terms as vice chair and two terms as chair and concentrating the leadership in some deal over four years to two people out of 12. and i don't think that that's particularly wise i don't think that's the intent of this of this change but it doesn't it doesn't lay it out not to do that and we attempted to discuss this at the work
098session um that if this if you are limited to one or the other or two years total then that's a material change that i think actually potentially benefits from an array of leadership qualities that the voters all saw fit to put us into office utilizing so you know i'm i have mixed feelings i appreciate ms smith my colleague bringing up why she doesn't think we should pass this i don't happen to agree with her from that perspective and i'm sure she doesn't agree with me so i have just somewhat you know benign interest in this i wish that in in practice the words here would yield a different result and i look forward to the work of the board being actually behind these words to effect a change because that's where the real change happens
099not so much in saying that you're going to change but in actual action behind the change so i don't know when we go to vote i may or may not vote for it miss mclaughlin oh you didn't i'm sorry mr storkman thank you i'm going to uh to vote against this motion i i don't believe in tying the hands of future school board members frankly and i think that's what this does even though i think the intent is is correct i think it's it is clear that we do better as a board when we spread those leadership opportunities around and we really listen to our colleagues and frankly we interact with our colleagues in ways that we know that it'll be spread around meaning that you are conscious of how you conduct yourself well future
100in the future might be how somebody else should conduct themselves and you kind of spread that positive process and positive methodology as the last three-term consecutive three-term chairman of the school board i know at that time my colleagues thought very long and hard about whether or not they they wanted to to elect me to a third consecutive term and i frankly don't blame him i recognize that that was unusual situation but i think the core thing is that i trust you all as colleagues i trust that when we have the elections this summer that there will be recognition that we have a larger mission and that is to make sure that we find ways to work together and we collaborate and and when we make decisions that frankly are tough and those are some of
101the toughest decisions we make because they're so personal that we will balance we'll find a way to balance those personal those decisions in a way that that everybody feels at least positive about the process even if it isn't if it doesn't feel so good if you're on the one one individuals that that isn't elected or your particular person isn't elected so again i don't believe in tying future score members hands i don't think you should either um i think you should recognize that you will conduct yourself in a way that honors this motion honors this recommendation and just commit yourself to doing that and i think the future boards will work out the more difficult parts of the chair and vice chair elections as part of that thank you mr volkov thank you madam chair
102you know for some reason we commonly associate mr stork with president lincoln but um i think in the history of the school board he's probably going to go down more like franklin delano roosevelt in terms of serving consecutive terms yeah i want to be sure i know what i'm voting for here so the language says that a school board member may serve in both sentences and i'm reading that literally because it has a different interpretation than shall so i am working with the assumption that the the option of the word shall was considered by governance and was um rejected and that the governance committee settled on the word may because it had a slightly different interpretation am i correct about that answer that yes um this says that that one person may only do this
103for two years out of a four-year term and um so shell wouldn't really fit in terms of limiting the amount okay because the previous sentence does use i mean the words that are currently there use the word shall and i'm saying that if i were reading this i would never interpret may to have the same meaning as shell so i read this as a recommendation and guideline which i fully support i'm the reason i'm raising this is because the recommendation and some of the talk is talking about that these are actually term limits and in this regard i am in agreement with mr stork and mrs smith in the sense that you know we can't predict what circumstances may uh be faced by future boards and where there may be some particular reason why literally
104adhering to this uh might not be in the best interest of the board so i'm perfectly happy to support this with the understanding that the word may is a strong recommendation but that is not fully binding in the way the word shall is i'll get to you miss mclaughlin well it's fortuitous that i'm following mr vilkoff because um i agree with his interpretation and i point simply to the fairfax county student rights and responsibilities uh where shal is shao it's a must it must be may is as mr mr valkov pointed out recommendation you can do it you don't have to do it so i actually i'm not sure uh how the language was drafted and why the word may is in there instead of shall because from our work session conversations i thought uh
105we really were pretty clear that the whole point of this was actually to have it say and mean something and i think this may be one of those things where um you know un unexpected oversight and the use of a word they're not really interchangeable may versus shall so i worry about that in terms of what my colleagues have said for anyone who is following our conversation right now i think it's actually another great example of something where it's well intentioned and then what's the outcome or what do you hope will happen and then maybe what are the unintended consequences from it so on the one hand the benefit of this recommendation especially if it's a shall and we are to follow it um is that you do uh have an opportunity where uh if
106the board has some split leadership um and or you know split uh voting uh bodies where um it's a slim majority uh and the slim majority keep selecting the same chair that may not actually work to the best of the full board you could find yourselves in the minority voting body having four straight ears with a chair that you don't feel is really serving the full board to the best of its needs and abilities so the term limit in that regard is actually of benefit i believe to the full um the full board however the flip side is that uh as i mentioned earlier with the 12 cats and trying to hurt us you know different leadership styles trying to have a leader who can relate to not only the diversity on the board but
107also being able to um have uh someone who is comfortable who can uh really uh bring together all 12. uh that takes a special kind of leadership and so sometimes it might be that all 12 of us might be served best if we did have access to a particular person who we all as like with our superintendent we were unanimous in her selection and we unanimously uh find her ability to bring us together um at our very best so to pass something like this would limit our board entire hands if we were to have a member who really has that unique ability to bring all of us together so i will say i'm actually conflicted on this one because i think it has upsides and i think it also has some downsides to the language
108but uh with all that said i guess i would uh echo mr velkov's question uh is was everybody clear that the may is the may and it isn't a shall and so uh i look forward to hearing more from people before we vote all right i have a couple go back so would anyone who hasn't spoken yet like to speak misread wow and i thought this was going to be a short discussion upon reflection back in early fall when miss hines and i sat down this was the second part of our discussion was looking at the leadership abilities of the 12 of us and expressing a shared desire to allow opportunities for all of us to be leaders in some way and so this language that's in front of us i think is the governance
109committee's best attempt at doing that i i feel that in some ways now that we're talking about the may versus shell um if if it's may then it's guidelines and it's really not all that strong of a language it's like well you could do this but you really don't have to you can really do whatever you want anyway and so looking back at our initial intention i'm not sure that it now meets that initial intention on the other hand it's better than nothing and it's a compromise and if nothing else this board has learned that we need to compromise so and so it is forward progress i will say though that um what we have seem to have lost sight of is that it isn't a popularity contest it isn't about who can you know
110be the line leader the most times it should be about who's most qualified for that particular position and the responsibilities associated with it and you know whether it's seniority or whether it's their skills and abilities um to me those are the kinds of things that should be considered and you know that this doesn't really get it that one way or the other this is just simply counting so at the end of the day we could just based on the process and the popularity or the factions or whatever you want to call it you could really elect people over and over again who really don't have the skills to be in the job at all and then we'd all be sunk because you know if you're not a good facilitator i mean miss darynette kofax has
111done a wonderful job and you see i talk about herding cats you see what she has to has to try to deal with planning meetings i mean you could go on and on about all the things that you do and we appreciate you're very good in that position and that's my point and so i'm hopeful that reading these words that there's some intentionality behind it to make sure that we have a process that one puts people in roles where they can succeed and use their experiences and talents effectively and two gives opportunities to more than just one or two people on this board after all we're 12 leaders here so uh so i i guess what i'm saying at the end of the day i'll support this because it's better than nothing all right mr
112moon uh thank you madam sure i didn't realize that this deserved this much discussion among 12 of us i thought this was simple internal organizational matter that i mean i i you know pretty much agree with mrs smith and mr stroke that we should not be tying not just the future board but our own hands in selecting our own leaders but looking at looking at the language i mean this was a compromise for me and i something i can support at this point because if when well with the board which always act by majority vote generally i'm not gonna you know i you know no matter what the majority does i'm not you know i i would hesitate in criticizing action of the majority if the majority sit to fit to elect someone to serve
113as a chair worldwide share multiple times that's the majority right given right to do that and i respect that if we see another another great leader like mr stewart who had the last to serve the share for three times in a row in the future and we see our internal organization manual states that tom limit is for two years or the board could change the internal organizational policy at that point and do away with the term limited appointment elect another mr historic filter tomorrow for them so with that i mean i see as a member of the governance committee in a feeling that there are both members who wanted to have a little more term limit limit on the number of times one serving the leadership leadership position this was my compromise position all right
114i have several go backs starting with miss smith my recollection is we we didn't get into the detail of may or shall this was just written as this is what it's going to be it wasn't written to have flexibility we did not get into the specifics of may or shall i would tell you our intent was this is it it wasn't written this way to be something you could switch around mr stork i i have to admit i'm now relatively confused i'm going to start with what is could someone read for me the motion on the floor because my understanding is different than what people have been referring to so madam chair could you read the motion on the floor please i will it's on your green sheet but i will just happy to read
115it out for a purpose so i move that the school board approved term limits for board members serving in the chair or vice chair position as follows no more than two years as chair during a four-year term and no more than two years as vice chair during a four-year term an update is detailed in the agenda item and update the strategic governance manual accordingly okay so the motion doesn't have may in it the motion doesn't have any really equivocating language in it at all if you look at board docs and what apparently is going to be written into the governance manual it is it is not the motion it is something different it says a school board member may serve no more than two years as chair during a four-year school board term and that
116is not at all the language that we would be approving if we vote in favor of this motion on the floor right now so i don't want anybody to misunderstand if you approve this motion on the floor right now there's no may in there that's not it's not equivalent there's no equivocation well i i think is when we put as detailed in the agenda item that's that's what we typically use and that's the way we we do this i would ask i would be happy to ask our our uh our school attorney to give us his general interpretation of the language here versus the language in our governance manual i realize it's automates the board's decision but um i i don't see how you can interpret the language we have here at it as a
117may it's not there's no uh equivocation in that language it's not shallow mr foster you may have a moment you don't have to answer that right now if you would like a moment and i can go on to other board members or if you're prepared no i i'll take them for a moment madam chairman yes sir um yes ms evans you are next on the go back list thank you um i am a little surprised by this conversation um uh i wrote this language i wrote this language so i can tell you what the intention was with mr moon's help and miss goddard's help and it was not intended to be anything as mrs smith said it was intended to be a limit an actual limit there was not intended to be wiggle room now
118it's a very modest limit it is an extremely modest limit but it wasn't supposed to be wiggle room in there and so that certainly was the intention is this the same language that we considered at our work session on march 16th it's what we discussed on march 16th so i'm a little surprised that people read shall differently than may i don't read shell differently than may in this context if people have more comfort with the word shall we can certainly change it to the word shall because that was the intention it wasn't intended to have wiggle room um again it's it's a very modest limit but it is intended to be an actual limit and madam chair if i could continue yes mr stork well i'm not an attorney and i don't want to be
119an attorney but i know that the word may and shall have two very distinct meaning in law and and may is not shao or vice versa so um i'm just i want to point out to the board that the language in here doesn't have wiggle room and i think ms evans just pointed that out that wasn't her intent either so i don't have a problem i just i want this motion to reflect what people think it does and right now it's it's not there's no equivocation if you vote for this you're not allowed to run more than twice unless we change this policy at some future i get that what we might do is i'm going to have everybody else do this and we may take a brief recess at that point to allow our
120attorney to further uh develop his opinion at this point i have um miss schultz and miss mclaughlin just very briefly regardless of what the estimable mr foster does with magic language machinations over there we're not tying any future board to anything ever because any future board could undo this at any time so what we're saying is if at this point in time we are putting our mark and our stamp on and and sending a message to future boards that this was the will of the board at the time and if a will of the board of the future wants to change it they're going to bring back the estival mr foster to do a little bit of magic language changing again and you can undo it just as fast as you can do it so
121my comments were really around whether the stamp and the mark of the will of this board is demonstrable enough and whether i think the actions will follow the intent here i would have preferred if it was two years total because then you get to true shared leadership and it doesn't do that so that's that's where i'm i'm worried that this now we've spent even more time on something that doesn't necessarily yield anything beneficial in the end so i'm a little i'm a little bit more weary than when i started all right uh i think ms mclaughlin you're on okay uh for our esteemed general counsel i think i can make this easier for you um mr foster i i think i can make this really easy maybe it's because i'm married to an attorney so
122i'm used to having this kind of conversation we have our motion and that's what we're going to prove when i look at this this is not complex it's not it's any big deal it was just administrative error if you look at the language when it says if you pass this motion then here's the language you're going to have in your governance manual and that's the translation where the error happened where you know it was authored as the may and since the board is saying here's our emotion we want it to be affirmed that there is a limit if we just go ahead and vote on this thing can't the language that's going into the governance manual that's not part of what we're voting on we're voting on just this motion and that's just administrative cleanup
123of that language um i mean technically that's that's what happened here so if we take a recess because we just need to people want to vote on the motion plus the language that's up above and listed that's really the big question because i think it's pretty clear what the motion is supposed to be it's just a matter of that the governance manual language that it was supposed to be drawn from doesn't accurately reflect that mr foster would you like to see yeah i would i i think that as the board has discussed there there is a a significant legal difference between the term may and the term shall okay you all understand that based on your discussion this evening and so my recommendation to you is that you should i think amend the language depending
124on what you want to do to have the phrase either may serve or shall serve and that's your decision to make but i think that i would recommend madam chairman that you entertain a motion to make such an amendment thank you miss thank you mr foster i i will call on miss smith as i saw her hand first miss smith do you have an amendment i move that we strike the word may and insert the word shall so the sentence would read a school board member shall serve no more than two years as chair during a four-year school board term thank you and there's two sentences oh one two three board member and strike the second may to make that shall a school board member shall serve no more than two years as vice chair
125during a four-year school board term thank you do you have a second seconded by miss evans so call the question call a question all right all right so we have to vote okay yes thank you i'd love my help with the robert thrills um okay uh uh i've been asked to call the question all those in fact do i need a second to call the question mr valkov a second that all those in favor okay um that that was moon um reed heinz smith darren at kofax velkov mclaughlin evans schultz um all those uh opposed mr stork mr stork with miss strauss away from the table so the question has been called and we have a new don't we have to vote on the amendment we have to vote on the amendment next all right
126so the amendment has been made to i don't have anything back there but but strike the word in this in the second part of what's detailed in the agenda item um the two maze two shells so it so agenda item two under section two would read a school board member shall serve no more than two years as the chair during the school board term and a school board member shall serve no more than two years as vice chair during the four-year term all right now were there all those in favor yes all those in favor of that all right that vote is unanimous yes with janie away from the table and now we can have discussion on the language that is written um it with a change in that language so uh let's go forward
127mr moon call for the question second all right here we go okay okay how many people okay call the question all of those in favor of calling the question moon reed heinz smith darunette koufax falkoff mclaughlin evans schultz those post mr stork with janie away from the table all right so now what we have is we have the motion that is i move that the school board approved term limits for board members serving in the chair or vice chair position as follows no more than two years as the chair during a four-year term and no more than two years as vice chair during a four-year term as detailed in the agenda item which we just changed and update the strategic governance manual accordingly all those in favor of this moon reed heinz mclaughlin strauss um
128evans and schultz those opposed um smith daronette koufax valkov stork and there's nobody left to abstain that motion passes next we go to 4.04 this portion of the meeting is where the board will will confirm any action regarding issues that were discussed in the closed meeting these issues may include action taken regarding student disciplinary matters board members have discussed each individual case and at this time we'll make several motions to confirm the recommended action i call on miss evans for a motion thank you madam chair i moved to grant in part the school reassignment appeal of a student who distributed an imitation controlled substance at school and modify the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent do i have a second second seconded by miss heinz all those in favor moon reed heinz darinette kofax stork
129ann evans opposed smith valkov strauss abstentions mclaughlin and schultz that motion passes i again columnist evans i moved to deny the school reassignment appeal of a student who threatened another student at school and to confirm the disciplinary decision of the division superintendent do i have a second second seconded by miss heinz all those in favor moon reed heinz smith darren at kofax velkov uh strauss evans uh stork i'm sorry mr stork um opposed abstain ms schultz that motion passes and i now call him mr stork for a motion thank you madam chair i reckon i move that prior to june 15 2015 the instructional personnel identified and closed session being notified that their contracts will not be renewed one those who hold a provisional or conditional license expiring 2015 or earlier two those who hold
130a provisional or conditional license expiring 2016 and three those with incomplete license data for those missing or failing praxis two five those with license pending with vdoe and missing or failing praxis two six those with provisional license that expired prior to 2015 seven those on a one year hiring agreement second seconded my miss smith all those in favor moon reed um smith darynette kofax velkov uh mclaughlin stork strauss evans abstentions miss schultz opposed i'm sorry i did that but and we have miss hines away from the table that motion passes next we move on to our consent agenda our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure robert's rules provide a consent agenda listing several items for approval by the board by a single motion many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided
131to all board members and the public in advance items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting 5.01 approve the minutes of the april 9 2015 regular school board meeting 5.02 confirm the separations for the period beginning march 1st 2015 and ending march 31st 2015 as detailed in the agenda item 5.03 confirm the appointments and separations for the period beginning january 1st 2015 and ending march 31st 2015 is detailed in the agenda item 5.04 approved the career and technical education management system for the 2015-2016 application for career and tech for career and technical education funds 5.05 approved 2015-2016 annual special education plan section 611 part b grant funding application and section 619 part b preschool grant funding application as detailed in the agenda item 5.06
132adopt policy 2202 admissions residency and attendance eligibility for enrollment as described in the agenda item 5.07 authorized the division superintendent and the assistant superintendent department of facilities and transportation services either of whom may act without the other to take all actions necessary and appropriate in consultation with legal counsel for the school division to pursue approval of proffered condition amendment application number pca 76-m-0 including negotiating signing and submitting the final proffer statement and any other documents on behalf of the school board are there any objections to approving the consent agenda seeing and hearing none the consent agenda is approved i'm just waiting for my computer the following are new business items there will not be a vote tonight on these items but action is scheduled at a future meeting 6.01 adopt regulation 2601.29 p student rights
133and responsibilities as detailed in the agenda item 6.02 award the contract for the automatic temperature control system replacement at belvedere elementary school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 6.03 award a contract for installation of a synthetic turf fields at annandale high school and hayfield secondary school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorized the division superintendent or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board 6.04 award a contract for the installation of synthetic turf fields at south county high school and stewart high school to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder and authorized the division superintendent
134or the assistant superintendent of facilities and transportation services to execute and administer the contract on behalf of the school board i wanted to let you know that currently the school board and the board of supervisors and the park authority are working with the fairfax county health department on recent conditions raised regarding synthetic turf fields fcps will continue to work collaboratively collaboratively with the board of supervisors and the park authority assessing the latest information related to synthetic turf fields we will continue to monitor and evaluate current information related to the safety of synthetic turf fields and i also plan to send a letter to chairman bulova requesting that the turf task force be reconvened next moving on to item 6.05 adopt the resolution requesting that the board of supervisors to approve to take all necessary and
135appropriate action to place on the ballot for the november 2015 general election a school bond reference referendum in the amount of 310 million dollars as detailed in the agenda item and 6.06 adopt policy 1450 non-discrimination as detailed in the agenda item next we move on to superintendent matters dr garza thank you madam chair members of the board i'm very pleased tonight to report that kimberly scott an english teacher at franklin middle school has been named the fcps 2015 teacher of the year ms scott will represent fcps in virginia's teacher of the year competition and the winner will be announced in the fall of 2015. scott mrs scott has also won the washington post agnes meyer's outstanding teacher award for educational excellence which is presented annually to a teacher from each school division in the washington
136metropolitan area mrs scott is known for a dynamic engaging classroom where students are anxious to spend as much time as possible in her class she has been known to stand on a chair when she has something important to say and to use stories cartoons and case studies including our own struggles with learning to support engaged students ms smith and a number of leadership team and i've had the opportunity to surprise mrs m scott in her classroom and it's it's no doubt um it was obvious why she was chosen to represent fcps teachers in this way she was just an extraordinary teacher and in person i also am pleased to report that william bates who has served as principal at herndon high school since 2009 and has worked for fairfax county public schools for 15 years
137has been named the fcps 2015 principal of the year and as recipient of the washington post distinguished educational leadership award we're very proud of of william bates and everyone around the table knows him well william bates is known for his philosophy we are educators because we are hopeologists our world needs more hopeologists because children without hope become children without a future putting that philosophy into practice mr bates has developed a mission for herndon high that states all hornets are capable capable of success no exceptions this statement drives everything at herndon high school from the development of a professional learning community focused on student achievement via professional development for teachers to the establishment of a curriculum support specialist who works with the instructional assessment coaches to manage the school-wide data monitoring system both and i've also
138had the opportunity to spend some quality time at herndon high school and what wonderful things they have going on at his school and really they're having a major very significant positive effect over their entire pyramid so it's really very affirming exciting to see both william bates and kimberly scott will be honored along with the other school divisions teachers and principals of the year at a ceremony next month at the washington post and we're so proud of these uh two wonderful uh educators and we're very very pleased and proud they're a part of fcps on other news along with many fcps staff board members other community supporters i attended the pre-mark up at the board of supervisors last week and we were disappointed yet again that the supervisors did not fully fund our very reasonable and
139very pragmatic budget we know that even though they do not pass a budget until next week we've definitely been told it's essentially a done deal and it's quite discouraging and disappointing but i do want to take this moment to recognize our many parents fairfax county citizens and our fc ps employees who became actively engaged in the process and who express their support of our budget request we thank each and every one of them for championing for our schools and for champion for our children for those who may not have engaged yet we need you our children in our schools are very much at risk after years of consecutive cuts since 2008 and almost a half a billion dollars in reduction in terms of operating cost consistent and chronically underfunded school systems are unable to hang
140on to excellence but not only our schools and our students at risk our local economy and the overall quality of our community in our neighborhoods is also at risk because they're also connected to the vibrance and the quality of our public schools so we ask for our community to weigh in the future is very important for them to weigh in be a part of helping us create solutions to the problem that faces us and how we sustain and support our great schools into the future thank you madam chair thank you dr garza next on our agenda is board reports and i will call on miss evans first to give us reports of governance from march 9th march 16th and april 20th thank you very much on march 9th and 16th we did work on the
141leadership succession items that we just approved uh we discussed the plans for the then upcoming april 11th retreat um as well as started planning on our for our july retreat at the march 16th work session with the full board we did reach consensus also on the way we would do the main budget motion for the approved budget in may that will be crafted as an omnibus motion by the budget chair and vice chair after presentation of the superintendent's recommendation and a budget work session to gauge school board member majority support staff is going to bring back language about that process to us at the april 20th governance committee meeting we continued to work on our july retreat we have tentatively decided to try to do it all in one day rather than a day and
142a half we are revisiting with school board members which saturday works best for them and mrs goddard has sent out something to board members asking which of three saturdays works best so we we will tally that and and get back to board members on what date we feel it works best we are going to recommend a streamlined self-evaluation at least we've tentatively decided this uh to have a streamlined self-evaluation based on themes from last year and we will be bringing recommendations on that retreat to a future work session thank you miss schultz the public engagement committee meeting on april 13th i actually think i have march 11th as well all right i don't want to report take more time but i do believe that we have a report out so we had both a pc
143a public engagement committee meeting on march 11 and on april 13th on march 11th we had a number of requests to the staff for information about potentially recommending postponing the education summit that the board has been holding each fall ultimately at the april 13th pc meeting we did agree um to recommend to the board and the board agreed that with the amount that of work that is on our staff and with the number of other summits like the teen wellness summit mental health summit and the special education conference that we would this fall postpone the education conference in addition um we had looked at submitting an a nomination for a partnership award with the fairfax county chamber of commerce there were other awards that were put forward by to vsba on behalf of the board
144we requested a strawman of the budget communications plan that did not turn out too well for us to dr garza thanks board of supervisors we do look forward to additional infographics and type of things in the future to help the public understand better some of our budgetary needs and some of our constraints on our april 13th pc meeting we did have a discussion around our blueprint for change on our communications plan around our later start times we still are in a little bit of a wait mode for some of the transportation schedules that are going to come out but the bell schedules did get rolled out effectively there were some reviews by members of the public engagement committee along with members of the senior staff and i think that that in general has gone very
145well we've had very little communication back as a result of that that roll out and that deliberative effort that mr gilfoyle came on at the last minute and we have an update to our back to school night videos on our future budget and our budget communications plan and our back to school night videos on our next agenda where we're going to be making some recommendations as we head into a busy election season season all right thank you i call on miss smith to talk about the april 13th work session so mrs strauss and i were meeting managers for three of the sessions one was special services where we did the srnr and it's new business tonight there'll be action on the sr and r in may 7th then we had a redo again about the
146renovation queue and the board decided that we are going to have another work session and look at the criteria for evaluating the schools by december of 2015 so there'll be a work session scheduled sometime in the fall and then after there'll be an engineering firm to evaluate the schools but the board wanted to know about the difference in cost between evaluating 11 schools or more of a list of the schools so that work continues and then we had a presentation about a project momentum it's called to help our needy of schools and all of that information is online for the public to see thank you thank you miss smith and mr moon the audit portion of that meeting uh thank you madam chair at the audit portion of the work session we began discussing fi
1472016 audit plan uh we are you know board members will have an opportunity to provide individual inputs for all the committee to deliberate and present the recommendation to the full board we are full body will have an opportunity to discuss there on july 13th with eventual adoption on july 23rd the second part of the audi committee audit work session was presentational report of a math curriculum review and we had good discussion and there were several good recommendations from staff for our consideration and adoption thank you mr moon and that is it for tonight on reports um i will go to board matters and i will start with miss schultz tonight it's a good thing i'm ready so um i've had a busy few weeks i know we we're passing whether it's day or week administrative
148personnel day and certainly there are a lot of administrative personnel who help support the board you know second to none is the school board office member who helps me melissa fields and my my thanks to her because i've had two citizen town halls one at sinkster elementary and one at silverbrook elementary this week at which she attended both evening meetings and in addition last week i had an a an excellent student town hall at south county high school it's absolutely terrific maybe one of the largest student town halls i've done it's my last one for this school year as we get ready to head into graduation season but i think that makes and and truly an amazing experience and i thank all hundreds and hundreds of students with whom i've had the opportunity to meet
149at all the high schools for for sharing your time with me and for the teachers administrators for giving me the opportunity to listen to the student voice also to all of the citizens who turned out for the two citizen town halls i have one left in may there'll be another kit message that goes out that one will be at willow springs and that will make four this spring and that's just an opportunity to dialogue with members of the public in addition i had another opportunity i believe this is my third to meet with members of the chinese and asian communities and i'm truly very grateful that was the most robust dialogue i've had so far on issues around citizenship and how local government works and why it's important to be to be registered to vote
150and education policy so i thank those members from the bottom of my heart for giving me the opportunity and i'm also thankful to steve greenberg from fcft to coming out to one of my citizen town halls this weekend i'll be at the 6th grade all-county chorus very much look forward to that and i think that's that wraps me up thank you thank you miss evans yes first of all i very much want to welcome officially principal penny gross to stuart high school she has done a wonderful job at glasgow middle school as the principal there as well as welcoming sean derose as our new acting principal at glasgow middle school i'm i'm very enthusiastic and confident about these choices miss miss gross and mr derose are wonderful leaders and they they will do a terrific
151job at these two schools i've been very happy to work with them in their previous roles at stuart high school in glasgow and i'm delighted to be continuing to work with them in their new roles this is a wonderful opportunity for renewed energy and growth at both stuart high school in the stuart high school pyramid we had an excellent meeting last night at stuart high school we nearly filled an auditorium with community members parents teachers administrators students to discuss these leadership changes at stuart and and glasgow middle school um i want to thank dr garza for uh having and for leading the the conversation last night and for uh dr zuluwago region 2 assistant superintendent for uh being there and outlining a number of the the plans for um for the stuart pyramid as well
152as well as of course uh principal gross and acting principal shawn derose were there answering questions about their visions too thank you mr moon for attending as well and uh to the stewart ptsa president ginger hayes and glasgow pga president jill barris who put this uh conversation together in in very short order and for all the people who got the word out from the the kit messages and the parent liaisons and the robo calls that went out it was it was really wonderfully attended i also wanted to mention a celebration that we had last night with a partnership that we have with the bailey's crossroads rotary club which um they have been very instrumental in helping stuart the stuart pyramid in a variety of ways and so they took the opportunity last night to talk
153about some contributions that they are going to be making to stuart glasgow bailey's elementary school in key center that totaled more than 25 000 so we had a ceremonial check passing last night and i want to thank the rotary and president harry henderson for all of their continuing work this is just one of their many contributions to the stuart high school pyramid secondly because i'm going to be out of town unfortunately on may 7th unfortunately missing that school board meeting i did want to take a minute to address the issue that had we've been getting so many emails on uh this week regarding adding gender identity to our non-discrimination policy there seems to be a great deal unfortunately of misunderstanding and misinformation about what this is going to mean i believe that it is important
154to have compassion and understanding for all of our students and i believe it would be wrong to discriminate against children based on gender identity this motion i see as a simple motion of non-discrimination and we certainly heard with from people with concerns and we need to take their concerns seriously uh we are going to be i understand from dr garza we are going to be hiring a consultant to take a look at just how certain elements of this would play out and i support doing so at the same time we've heard from parents who are asking us to consider very carefully the struggles that their children have when they are dealing with gender identity issues and i think that we we need to have compassion for for all children i think we need to make
155our decisions based on facts and best practices rather than um unsubstantiated assumptions so i will i would if i were here i would support that motion miss strauss thank you this morning i attended the herndon high school breakfast honoring the most improved students and again we are so thrilled at herndon high school that william bates is our principal of the year and of course congratulating him again this morning and reminding that when we recognize our principles of the year it's not just the principles the entire school because it means that the entire school is working well for students and for children and it is so apparent at that school um every year they honor um young people who have overcome unusual challenges and we honored probably close to 100 kids they are nominated by their
156counselors by their teachers for a variety of of challenges they've pulled their grades up they've overcome sometimes very difficult situations in their in their personal lives or at home and the cafeteria is filled with with proud family members um grandparents siblings and uh that these young people have done themselves proud so that at herndon we celebrate success not just academic success or athletic success but we just recognize the success of teenagers living through sometimes difficult challenges because they are teenagers it's just a wonderful wonderful morning they do this every year and i would recommend other schools doing it i also want to congratulate langley high school we had k-state last year and mr latif was there and it was it's a mock supreme court trial the students do a wonderful job they prepare themselves as
157the um as the attorneys and there is a full day of discussions and panel discussions about the uh the the um uh laws that that were that were debated that day and the supreme court i believe will be hearing that case uh oh it has been heard so i okay we'll find out if they came to the same conclusion that we supreme court justice and i believe you've always been right when it comes to what the supreme court has said yes i have thank you i've been a justice for many but the students are wonderful um i've been i was at haycock pta last week mr snead and i were at the mclean citizens association discussing the impact of dyson's corners on our schools and they were very interested the citizens and coming to visit
158bailey's we reassured them that we can construct or renovate an urban elementary school so they would like to see baileys and we'll be working to set up a tour they are very concerned about the growth in tysons because the silver line um the uh the our safe community coalition met last night to talk again about our programs for next year for students there's a great deal of ongoing continued concern about adolescent stress uh in the acknowledgement that mindfulness and yoga and various other ways to help students relax their minds a little bit and disburse some of the tension that it has all been a very positive experience this is an excellent excellent community organization that sponsors a lot of our ethics day forums and opportunities for older students to go into our schools to work
159with our younger students to help them be successful tomorrow will be at forestville elementary school and this weekend we have the sixth grade choral concert which should be lots of fun and of course it's high season for theater almost all over this is the whole spring season for our public schools at private schools i was even out of flint hill private school the other day so if you have nothing to do on the weekend do you have two or three plays to choose from and i highly recommend it thank you thank you mr stork thank you madam chair i um first off wanted to to thank staff for the incredible amount of work that they've put into our regional facilities capital improvement programs as well as the program discussions that we've had we've had four
160meetings over the last really month that they've worked very hard in particular mr kofax and i have been there and i appreciate our work together on that as well as want to thank miss tyler mr plattenberg and mr snead in particular who have spent a lot of time effort to put this together um i think the meetings overall were very successful in bringing parents and community members in to here and understand the kinds of options that we have in front of us and the kinds of decisions that we're going to be needing to make not only about facilities but future boundary or program changes that will influence um all of those so again a lot of work and i think a lot of positive results and i think it's the community gave us a lot
161of great views and perspectives as well as concerns that we needed to take into consideration so i thank you all on this coming saturday we have something called spring fest fairfax 2015. spring it is a it's held at the workhouse arts center which is on uh in lorton on the workhouse way which is down route 123. there'll be over 5000 children and adults attending a fun and educational celebration of the natural environment and there's work there's artwork that's themed to that as well as games for all face painting pony rides wildlife shows live entertainment plant sales again it's a celebration of being outdoors and it's also a celebration of at least a a piece of mount vernon district and would welcome all any and all to come it should be a wonderful event and my
162absolute favorite event of the year is this saturday at three o'clock at mount vernon high school we have the all-county sixth grade course those of you who have not been before this is absolutely your chance to feel like you've died and gone to heaven at least for a little while and and hopefully you'll stay there but if not then you'll you'll hopefully get a chance to to understand really how wonderfully well our sixth graders sing and how really some of the conductors how they bring the best of our to our to our children and students out so the public is of course invited i would get there early because there's usually uh large crowds and it's difficult to find a seat but it's absolutely one of the best events of the year three o'clock this
163saturday i'm looking forward to being there i missed mr strong actually traffic is also very heavy on route one whenever we have a sixth grade or county so come earlier than usual absolutely mr moon it is it is the event of the year for most of us and i think if you go you will understand why thank you miss mclaughlin i just wanted to highlight a few things first of all i really enjoyed the opportunity to visit fairfax county's partnership with the alternative house and that is a absolutely wonderful program for at-risk students teenagers who need shelter and care and so i was able to tour one of the homes that they run and look forward to visiting some of their other after-school programs they have in bailey's crossroads but i was just extremely impressed
164with once again the things that fairfax county does as a whole to helping those in need in our community i also had a wonderful visit with our county social workers our fairfax county public schools social workers they had a countywide in-service day last friday and i want to thank the coordinator mary jo davis who invited me to spend an hour and a half speaking to all the social workers about the great things that we're doing here in the county to help with educating the whole child there was lively discussion about the new sosas in the building and also talking about things related to student stress and academic homework loads things like that very interesting discussion about ap courses the infringement on student curriculum and how that's also added to stress and pressure for students i
165also enjoyed this past sunday being invited to visit the hope chinese school which is in annandale they have a program they run out of annandale high school and so it was interesting to get a chance to talk uh with their community um about their academic interests and concerns and uh really wanted to make sure i got a chance to spotlight um that a week from saturday frost middle school is going to be celebrating their 50th um anniversary and so they will be holding festivities in an open house there uh saturday may 2nd i i'm very excited to go be a part of the festivities since my husband and my three boys are all now officially alums of the school and it's i know a very exciting time for them as well this wednesday uh i
166was able to visit with woodson high school student services and talk about the great things that they're doing with the guidance counseling staff to help students be successful and tomorrow morning i will be joining frost middle school for their bi-annual review of their student services and uh they're very excited that they were named among the national counseling services in the country for uh ramp and their and their incredible programs that they're doing for students so exciting exciting week with what's going on with our schools and also looking forward to still getting out to some of my elementary schools in the district so thanks mr valkov thank you madam chair monday i represented fcps at the northeast region meeting of the virginia school board association and there was an art competition and i took our entries
167one each from elementary school middle school and high school and i'm pleased to report that in the middle school event we our student was the first place winner that's sharon park at stone middle school and in the high school category the second place went to choi shin a at mclean high school and lest you be concerned that we had no success in the elementary area i should mention that i brought back last year's first place in the elementary category the the first place winners go on display i believe down in richmond in the capitol or the governor's office or vsb there's they kind of tour around in richmond i believe miss smith miss heinz thank you um i just wanted to echo the congratulations to mr bates at herndon high school i think that's so
168exciting you know the job of high school principal i think is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world and to be recognized as a leader among leaders is is really great and i've have also seen some of the work that he's done there the kids at hope program i understand it's a twist on the term kids at risk so they have figured out how to turn kids at risk into kids at hope and and my colleague mrs strauss described very well the programs that they have there so good job mr bates congratulations um i wanted to mention that an interfaith group in vienna the town of vienna has for the last year and a half been providing a great deal of support to cunningham park elementary school and the families there and one
169of their members has made a personal donation to cunningham park that will allow cunningham park to have a young scholar summer program which they would not have been able to have and so i think that's that's great news and i just i just wanted to give them a shout out they're doing a lot of good work in vienna happy teacher appreciation week is this teacher appreciation week it is right i think yes um and i'm sorry that the board of supervisors has once again made it difficult for us to support our teachers the way we want to but we will keep fighting i want to thank the fourth grade teachers and students at hunters woods elementary school for their interactive museum i was there last night they acted out virginia history and i've taught fourth
170grade for years and it's my favorite thing about teaching fourth grade is teaching the sweeping story of virginia's history and it was wonderful to see all the ways that those students presented virginia's history with drama and with artwork and you know hunters woods has the great arts and science magnet program there and the students and teachers really take advantage of all those resources it was a lot of fun they did a great job i also want to thank the title one district advisory council i was at their last meeting for the year this past week and this is a group of parent leaders from our title 1 schools who get together and learn a lot about resources that are available to title 1 parents and help to empower those parents they go back to their
171schools and empower their parents to advocate for their students and um it is really that they're a great resource i look forward to their advisory um committee report which will come to us next month i want to thank wolf trap elementary school pta for inviting me to come meet with them last week and also to thank the principal teresa calucci there was doing a great job we had a great conversation about large class sizes and the new regulations that are coming and i'm looking forward to our work session on that because i did come away with some questions that they would like to have answered but overall it was a very good discussion i appreciate the parents being so understanding and thoughtful on saturday i will be at the taste of vienna at the firehouse
172in vienna the town of vienna is a great partner for our school system it's a wonderful place to be a kid i raised my own two kids there and this is just one of the many things that go on in the town of vienna so if you have time on saturday to sample some of the great food from the restaurants in vienna it starts at 11 in the morning and seems to go all day from what i can tell so i'm looking forward to that finally on a very sad note a hunter mill district supervisor kathy hudgins husband willie hudgins recently passed away unexpectedly and it's a great loss to the community and of course a great loss to her family there will be a service on saturday at 1 pm at st thomas a
173beckett church in reston it is open to the public so if you if you knew willie hudgins or if you'd like to help share the story of his life please join us ms reed thank you mr net cofax first i wanted to thank the students at fair hill elementary i had gone there to read on read across america day and they sent me a whole packet of letters and drawings and it was just wonderful to receive that so i wanted to say thank you and i will be getting back to you writing you back and i hope i can come visit again we had a wonderful talk about what our favorite books were too and so i'll look forward to coming back again soon i wanted to share with my colleagues next steps on the
174budget we have a work session coming up monday evening the 27th and will be posting some material i believe tomorrow so make sure you look for that and read up it basically is focusing now on options for closing our 7.6 million dollar gap for the fy 16 budget the board of supervisors will formally adopt their budget on the 28th new business on our approved budget is may 7th public hearing may 12th work session may 14th and 21st we adopt it and july 1st of course starts the new fiscal year so there'll be a quiz on those dates later also i wanted to let you know that next week i'm looking forward to attending the support services employees advisory council meeting i believe the first one we were snowed out but this is our bus drivers
175and attendance the central office clerical and technical food service custodial and plant operations folks so i'm very much looking forward to sitting down and talking to them and little known fact my mother for a while was a food service worker when i was in school so i'll look forward to to talking to them and really hearing what their issues and concerns are so i appreciate the invitation and last but not least i wanted to do a shout out to kathy partlow my executive administrative assistant and not only is it appreciation week but for her it's wedding week and her daughter gets married this weekend and so i just wanted to say thinking about you and thank you for everything you do kathy mr moon oh thank you madam chair i'm not going to list everything
176that i will be doing for the next two weeks but just in case you don't know this already i'll be at the kiliman middle school at seven o'clock tomorrow for performance of legally blonde junior among other reasons that i'll be i'll be looking i'm looking forward to seeing the act of mr ryan mcelveen's father who is english teacher there so if you want to join me please come on thank you all and yes i do want to mention that it is administrative professionals week thank you to my administrative professional and the school board office ms joey and kenny you are a life saver each and every day and i thank you for your support and assistance and thank you to all the ladies in our office you are an amazing group of people we are
177a challenging bunch to work for but you treat us with kid gloves and make us look good every day so thank you all for that and with that this meeting is adjourned