Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Meeting, Thursday, April 24, 2025

Date: Thursday, April 24, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 3h 45m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipORVBY7_XA
Official School Board page (FCPS): https://www.fcps.edu/about-fcps/leadership/school-board

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-30. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] moment of silence in honor of former fairfax county school board chair and member janie strauss of drainsville district our board extends our sympathies and condolences to her family and friends at this difficult time the moment of silence will be followed by a performance of the national anthem by the spring hill elementary strings under the direction of margot mizvinsky i pledge allegiance to the united states of america to the republic which it stands one nation

[00:00:35] here another round of applause for our amazing students and and our and our incredible music

[00:03:02] educators a jet item 2.02 announcements miss dixit has submitted a written request to attend this evening's meeting virtually due to a personal conflict she is at a family event and is attending tonight's meeting from amsterdam netherlands all those in favor of approving miss dixit's request miss maron mr mckelveen dr anderson miss anderson miss sizemore heiser mr moon miss lady miss st john cunning and myself that is unanimous for board members present

[00:03:34] MISS DIXIT WILL YOU TEST YOUR MICROPHONE AND CAMERA HI YOU'RE VERY POPULAR MISS DIXIT THANK YOU ALL RIGHT UM DID I FINISH DID I ANNOUNCE THE VOTE YES I DID UH ALL RIGHT MR MCDANIEL HAS SUBMITTED A WRITTEN REQUEST TO ATTEND THIS EVENING'S MEETING VIRTUALLY DUE TO A PERSONAL CONFLICT AS HE HAS CHILD CARE AND IS ATTENDING TONIGHT'S MEETING FROM FAIRFAX VIRGINIA ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF APPROVING MR MCDANIEL'S REQUEST MS MARIN MR MCCLEVEEN DR ANDERSON

[00:04:13] Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning and myself. That is unanimous for board members present. Mr. McDaniel, will you test your camera and mic? Hello. Thank you. All right. We hear you loud and clear. If you would like to review a copy of the meeting agenda, please see the back of the auditorium. To obtain copies of any items or supporting materials being presented tonight, please reference the QR code on the agenda or visit fcps.edu/boarddocs.

[00:04:44] Tonight's meeting is being broadcast on Channel 99 and live streamed on YouTube and our website at fcps.edu/livestream. Agenda Item 2.03, Holocaust Remembrance Day Proclamation. I call on Ms. St. John Cunning for a proclamation.

[00:04:59] Holocaust Remembrance Day Proclamation. Whereas the Holocaust was the government-sponsored systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews who were targeted by the Nazis for extermination per the Final Solution Directive, Resulting in the annihilation of 66% of the Jewish population and whereas per Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Eli Wiesel the Holocaust is not an example of man's inhumanity to man. It was man's inhumanity to Jews.

[00:05:31] And whereas the Holocaust was a genocide that specifically and intentionally targeted Jews powered by anti-Semitism based on tropes and conspiracies perpetuated for millennia in societies and whereas the distinguishing factor of the Holocaust is the industrialization of genocide to exterminate mass quantity of Jews as efficiently as possible including using gas chambers and whereas between 1933 and 1945 Nazi Germany and its collaborators also targeted Roma people with disabilities and polls for destruction or

[00:06:11] dissemination based on racial, ethnic, or national reasons, and millions more also suffered grievous oppression and death, including homosexual persons, Jehovah Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents. And whereas, education about the Holocaust is a prime method to ensure such atrocities never again occur, reversing growing anti-Semitism, and consider that Holocaust survivors and and their descendants, including those who are the first generation from survivors, live here now in our FCPS and Fairfax community.

[00:06:50] And whereas in FCPS students receive Holocaust education largely in grades seven, 10, and 11, as per alignment with state social studies standards for which FCPS educators receive professional development with content from organizations such as the Jewish Community Relations Council, Capital Jewish Museum, the Virginia Holocaust Museum, the Anne Frank Museum, the Smithsonian, Echoes and Reflection, and more.

[00:07:19] Now therefore, be it resolved that the Fairfax County School Board proclaims April 24th, 2025 as Holocaust Remembrance Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and its legacy from which learning continues.

[00:07:35] And therefore, be it further resolved that the Fairfax County School Board encourages every member of our community to set aside moments of their time each year to consider the over six million people murdered, the heinous result of unfettered hatred and personal commitment to be an upstander for all people's freedom and right to live in peace.

[00:07:58] - Is there a second? - Second, Mr. Chairman. - Mr. Moon, all those in favor of the proclamation, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, Ms. Seismarheiser, Mr. Moon, Ms. Lady, Ms. St. John Cunning, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Dixit and myself, that is unanimous, the proclamation is adopted.

[00:08:15] Congratulations. Agenda item 2.04, Virginia High School League and academic team recognitions. The school board is very pleased to recognize the recipients of winter 2025 VHSL state championships and selected performing arts ensembles tonight.

[00:08:31] Please stand when your team is recognized. After all recognitions are completed, individual teams will be invited to have a photo the board in front of the dais. Ms. Seizmerheiser. The board would like to recognize the Lake Braddock Secondary School gymnastics team for winning the VHSL Class 6 championship four years in a row.

[00:08:52] The board would also like to recognize Principal Lindsey Kearns, Director of Student Activities Janice Pritchett, and Coach Michael Cooper for their contributions to the team. Congratulations. The board would like to recognize the Chantilly High School boys swim and dive team for winning the VHSL Class 6 State Championship.

[00:09:17] The board would also like to recognize Principal Amy Goodloe, Director of Student Activities, Brendan Shapiro, and Coach James McKenzie for their contributions to the team.

[00:09:39] The board would like to recognize the South County High School Girls Indoor Track and Field Team for winning the VHSL Class 6 State Championship. The board would also like to recognize Principal Samuel Cushaba, Director of Student Activities, Marvin Wooten, and Coach Maurice Hutton for their contributions to the team.

[00:09:56] The board would like to recognize the West Springfield High School Boys Indoor Track and Field Team for winning the VHSL Class 6 State Championship.

[00:10:12] The board would also like to recognize Principal Elizabeth Fawcett, Director of Student Activities Leah Conte, and Coach Chris Pellegrini for their contributions to the team.

[00:10:29] The board would like to recognize the Southlakes High School Basketball Team for winning the VHSL Class 6 State Championship again, second year in a row. The board would also like to recognize their principal, Carlos Seward, Director of Student Activities, Andrew Duggan, and Coach Mike Desmond and team for their contributions to this fabulous group.

[00:10:59] The board would like to recognize the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Scholastic Bowl Team for winning the VHSL Class 6 State Scholastic Bowl Championship.

[00:11:16] The board would also like to recognize their principal, Michael Mackay, Director of Student Activities, David Arthur, and Coach Julia Fu for their contributions to the team.

[00:11:33] The board would like to recognize the Chantilly High School Speech Team for winning the VHSL Class 6 State Speech Championship. The board would also like to recognize Principal Amy Goodloe, Director of Student Activities, Brendan Shapiro, and Coach Barb Clowarty for their contributions to the team.

[00:11:54] The board would like to recognize the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Symphonic Wind Ensemble for their performance at the Music for All National Concert Band Festival. The board would also like to recognize the Principal Michael Mukai, Director of Student Activities David Arthur, and Band Director Steve Ballard for their contributions to the group.

[00:12:27] The board would like to recognize the West Springfield High School Wind Symphony for their performance at the Music for All National Concert Band Festival. The board would also like to recognize Principal Elizabeth Fawcett, Director of Student Activities Leah Conte, and Band Director Wilson Gustama for their contributions to the group.

[00:12:51] The board would like to recognize the Cooper Middle School Symphonic Band for their performance at the Music for All National Concert Band Festival. The board would also like to recognize Principal Maureen McLaughlin, Director of Student Services Dana Skavis, and Band Director Matthew Baker for their contributions to the group.

[00:13:12] We will now pause for photos for the proclamation and recognitions honoring the recipients of the winter VHSL 2025 state championships and selected performing arts ensembles. We will read the recognitions in reverse alphabetical order. The clerk will.

[00:13:29] And first I would like to welcome all of those here in support of the Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation

[00:13:33] to please join the board for a photo at the dais.

[00:14:50] - The board would like to invite the West Springfield High School boys indoor track and field team school staff and supporters

[00:14:56] please join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the West

[00:15:56] Springfield High School Wind Symphony school staff and supporters to please

[00:16:00] join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the Thomas

[00:16:41] Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Scholastic Bowl team school

[00:16:45] staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo. The board would like

[00:17:51] to invite the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Symphonic Wind Ensemble school staff and supporters to please join the board for

[00:17:59] a photo the board would like to invite the South Lakes high school boys basketball team school staff and supporters to please join the board for

[00:18:38] a photo the board would like to invite the South County high school girls

[00:19:50] indoor track and field team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would like to invite the South County high school girls indoor track and field team school staff and

[00:20:26] supporters to please join the board for a photo the board would like to invite

[00:21:06] the members of the Lake Braddock secondary school gymnastics team school

[00:21:10] staff and supporters to please join the board for the photo. The board would like to invite the

[00:22:21] Cooper Middle School Symphonic Band school staff and supporters to please join the board for a

[00:22:26] photo. The board would like to invite the Chantilly High School Boys Swim and Dive Team school staff

[00:23:05] and supporters to please join the board for a photo. The board would like to invite the Chantilly

[00:23:57] High School Speech Team school staff and supporters to please join the board for a photo.

[00:24:46] Chair Fish that was our last photo. Board members please return to your seats. Agenda item 3.01

[00:26:07] One, community participation. The next order of business is community participation. We welcome all community members who are here and those who signed up to speak this evening. Additional information about signing up to provide comments at school board regular business meetings and public hearings can be found on the school board's website at fcps.edu/schoolboard.

[00:26:26] During the signup process, community members acknowledged they were informed of the school board's expectation for proper decorum when providing comments. These expectations are also available online and with the printed agenda and meeting materials in the back of the room.

[00:26:41] We ask audience members to be respectful of one another. Shouting and outbursts will not be tolerated. Please hold your applause until the conclusion of a speaker's remarks. Audience members may not join speakers at the podium and should remain at their seats, including when recording video or taking photos.

[00:26:57] We are grateful to those who have come to speak to us today and thank you for your cooperation. School board members will be listening but not responding. Before we dive into community participation, like to recognize that we have a former school board member present miss sandy evans the former school board member from mason madam clerk please call the first speaker alexander mather do i begin

[00:27:37] when i'm ready uh hello uh today i'm here to talk about the weapons detection policy affecting students like myself we are all very lucky to live in a district in which our leadership cares about feelings of student safety however my peers have not been displaying that students are panicking afraid of being treated like a suspect for the crime of potentially being a victim of school violence. And critically, my peers and I don't believe that the OpenGate system is capable of keeping our schools safe. OpenGate promises AI weapons detection, but what does that actually mean? On their website, they give almost no information on how their system works, saying

[00:28:17] that if they did, criminals would be able to easily break it. In other words, OpenGate is a mystery machine that we are expected to simply believe, and if we knew how it worked, it would fail. Even worse, when a group of security experts called IPVM tested it, they found that the machine was unable to detect even common weapons like a Glock 19 or a switchblade. When they confronted CEO Luca Cascioli about it, he said that the weapons detection term is a marketing word and that OpenGate is identical to the metal detectors that were invented in the 60s. These metal detectors

[00:28:51] do not work. Even the TSA, which uses a much more complex system than what OpenGate can promise, misses around 70% of contraband moved through it, according to tests by the DHS. This is why, according to the Department of Education, schools that install systems like these do not see reductions in school violence. To spend millions on school safety, even when our county budget is $150 million under next year, is genuinely admirable. However, OpenGate is promising a simple solution to a complex problem fcps deserves better reducing violence is a whole of society

[00:29:26] issue that should include conversations from students staff community members as well and uh solutions like hiring social workers or improving peer-to-peer relationships are what we should focus on thank you for your time sandy evans good evening i'm sandy evans former school

[00:29:57] board member and co-founder of sleep i was coming here tonight to ask you to vote for a later middle school start time pilot at poe and at glasgow tonight but my understanding is that that motion is being pulled so i guess i i will start by telling you why i think um you should have been able to do that uh your consultants have done an excellent job of creating cost neutral a cost neutral pilot at Poe and they promised that they could produce a cost neutral

[00:30:32] pilot at Glasgow as well it's important to do what's best for students so it's disappointing to us that deeply disappointing to us that you won't have this opportunity at least tonight and we hope you continue on this mission because it is important to the health of our middle school students we want to thank dr. Anderson for her tireless efforts on this and for those of you who have supported us throughout this effort I'll make a couple of other points one is that you're never going to get to the point where there's no

[00:31:11] disruption or something like this you're going to have some opportunities to see people who are going to be unhappy with this but at the end of the day parents deeply deeply want to see their children have healthy start times and so I would hope that the board could fulfill your promise to middle school parents and middle school students and get this done if if there's no action this year it will be a major failure of this board and of your superintendent thank you

[00:31:41] Elizabeth Endy hello I'm Elizabeth Endy a longtime member of the sleep advocacy team who cheered in 2014 when the school board voted to implement later high school start times I saw the world of difference later lighter later start times made for my daughter during her years at McLean high school thank you

[00:32:15] mr. McElvain and mr. Moon we're voting yes in 2014 and since your return to the school board last year for your work to deliver on the commitment the board made 10 years ago to also implement healthy middle school start times how much difference does it make if students start school before 8:00 a.m. University economists answered this. We find that when a student is randomly assigned to a first period course starting prior to 8 a.m., they perform significantly worse in all their courses taken

[00:32:52] on that day compared to students who were not assigned to a first period course. Importantly, we find that this negative effect diminishes the later the school day begins. Economists estimate the performance boost for middle and high school students as equal to two extra months in school.

[00:33:13] What better investment could you make to improve academic performance and positively impact mental and physical well-being? Prismatic has provided data that would allow you to cost-effectively pilot healthy start times at two middle schools this fall.

[00:33:31] This pilot could give you critical data for county-wide rollout and would provide immediate relief to 2,600 students. Please vote to change the start time at both Glasgow and Poe this fall as a step towards bringing pediatrician recommended schedules to all of our students.

[00:33:52] Thank you. Kara Danner.

[00:34:08] Good evening. Thank you for your time and your ongoing commitment to improving the well-being of students. here tonight to urge you to take meaningful action on healthy school start times. This board and previous boards have already acknowledged that our middle school start time of 7:30 is not healthy for young adolescents. Many students wake up at 5:00 a.m. just to get to school on time. This is not what pediatricians recommend. This is not what's best for students. And yet, despite the research, the data, and your own stated goals, we have not fixed it. The lack of progress signals that the urgency is not being communicated, or

[00:34:45] worse not being felt by leadership staff are more than capable of making change when they know it's a priority from the top FPS has FCPS has already shown that it can find efficiencies even in a short time when prismatic took a closer look at our transportation systems they identified real ways to streamline routes including cutting stops of zero riders imagine what can we accomplish with just a little more time and direction the benefits of extra sleep better mental health improved focused higher academic performance are well documented please direct staff to do the additional work needed students parents and teachers will

[00:35:22] thank you let's stop talking about what's best for kids and start showing it Cooper Jessup Carrie Russo comments me but I'd like to say them anyway good evening my name is Carrie Russo and I appreciate the opportunity to present my concerns regarding the Mason district start time pilot which would impact

[00:35:57] wayanoke elementary where i have taught for 16 years the later start times for poe and glasgow middle schools schools that wayanoke students do not attend would push wayanoke start time from 8 35 to 9 a.m currently we're the only elementary school being pushed later fcps is rushing a decision which will immediately place more economic burden on an area that already faces socioeconomic obstacles. Yesterday, the Title I office reported Weyanoak's poverty rate at 93%. A later start time will create more need for before school care for our families. This is a financial burden that

[00:36:33] is not easily managed by our families. Moreover, Weyanoak has worked hard to improve attendance. 90% of our students ride the bus. With a later start time, parents with rigid work schedules who cannot afford before school care will be forced to leave young children to get themselves on the bus further exacerbating our attendance struggles the later drop-off times could see our children getting off buses in the dark in busy apartment complexes along major roads where safety is an ongoing concern my last concern is personal i'm a proud graduate of fcps but i've lived in

[00:37:08] loudon county for 25 years where i've been raising my own four children i willingly drive this long commute because of my dedication to Wayanoke families. Many of my colleagues also face long commutes as they live in Woodbridge, Stafford, Manassas, Sterling, etc. All of us are concerned that we may not be able to continue teaching at Wayanoke with the later start time. The pilot was announced with very little warning on April 1 at the end of the transfer window and we are now figuring out how a later start time will impact our own families and many of us are facing a difficult choice of having to leave Fairfax County to teach in a different county now that the transfer window is closed thank you for your

[00:37:47] thoughtful consideration Vanessa Hall hi all thanks very much I wanted to address budgets and safety but I'll talk about safety first our county was rocked by the violence at West Potomac High School the community's outraged and scared I'm unfortunately a parent who's received the first worst call that any parent can get yet even I caution you against reactive decisions. Arming adults in the building

[00:38:26] does not solve the problem. Instead it solves the appearance of a problem because armed adults have not yet prevented gun deaths in schools. Metal detectors may seem like a solution but they come with limitations and have not been shown to reduce violence. I really love Alexander's research on that. In spite of this terrible incident Fairfax County schools are the safest in the country and the safest place for students spending money to harden our schools hardens our children as well and takes money away from critical academics and programs that prepare our children for the outside world so on to a happier subject the budget um there's overwhelming grassroots support for

[00:39:03] increasing pay for fcps staff i appreciate each and every one of you who has advocated shown up and encouraged others to speak since our schools are starved for funding by the governor i did a little research and I was surprised to find that the average 2023 county salary was 15,000 more than the average FCPS salary. That's a 20 percent difference. Are FCPS staff working less hard under less scrutiny or involved in less important work? We all know that's not true. Even when comparing apples to apples, you'll find that Fairfax County has paid 20 percent, their attorney has paid 27

[00:39:38] percent more than our own general counsel. And I'm surprised by that after seeing his incredible legal work in the courtroom. Staff in schools and gatehouse show their commitment to our community every day. Honestly, in this age of culture wars, ever-changing state and federal whims, and constant harassment by paid agitators, it seems like they should get hazard pay. So please keep on fighting for a safe, well-funded educational environment for our students, staff, and families. Chair Fish, that was our last public speaker. Thank you, Madam Clerk.

[00:40:15] agenda item 4.01 student representative matters i understand we have a very big announcement tonight so without further ado i call on miss sawant i've actually saved my announcement for the end but it is exciting thank you mr chair in light of recent events my heart goes out to all the students the staff and the community affected at west potomac that could have been any one of our high schools and hearing from students about what they went through is just horrifying for me thank you to to our safety and security teams, our school resource officers, our Office of Safety and Security that works tirelessly to keep our schools safe

[00:40:53] and to mitigate incidents like these. While we hope that this never happens to us, this is the reality that we live in and we always need to be prepared. With that said, the extra money in the budget that we've put towards safety and security, the weapons detection pilot, these things are necessary steps that we can take towards getting to greater safety and taking the steps that we need to after that.

[00:41:14] We need to do more to promote our tip line so students know what to do in these situations and educate our students on how they can feel safe at school and supported by the county. At a recent superintendent's advisory council meeting, students sat down with our regional assistant superintendents and we spoke about areas of progress and concerns in our schools.

[00:41:33] One issue that repeatedly came up was bathroom access. Within just region two, one student mentioned that in their school, only three sets of bathrooms are open. they're locked during class during class during the day and they're only open during passing periods. Another student mentioned having to walk to the other side of the school near a bathroom not near their classroom because none of the other bathrooms were open in the school. Another student also mentioned not wanting to visit the bathroom because they were scared about what was inside and then at another school they had no issues with the bathroom all of the bathrooms were open and the reason that I mentioned this is this inequity between the same schools across one region shows us that students are experiencing

[00:42:13] vastly different standards of access to basic necessities. Many students have started to accept that this is normal, that it's normal for only a couple of bathrooms in the school to be open, that it's normal to only go during passing periods, but it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be acceptable to feel like you can't use the bathroom during the school day. We need to strike a better balance between maintaining safety, like preventing vaping and abuse within the bathrooms, and also preserving students' dignity and access to their needs. What really surprised me is how different it looked across high schools within the same region. I also had the opportunity before spring break to attend the Portrait of a Graduate symposium which brought together teachers, principals,

[00:42:51] instructional leaders, and students to share their experiences on Portrait of a Graduate implementation throughout the classroom. Our secondary students' Voices Advisory Committee, which is a group of high schoolers, shared their findings on the work they had done throughout the year on how POG experiences vary between different schools, grade levels, and specialized programs. And the goal of this was to gain student feedback on portrait of a graduate so we can see how we can revise the how we can better implement these in schools in 2025 and to kind of put it into perspective these high school students juniors and seniors that were on the committee were in kindergarten first and second grade when portrait of a graduate first came to be in 2014 so we came back to share our

[00:43:30] experiences with everyone from the feedback that we collected from over 1,000 student advisory responses and personal interviews to help share with teachers how they can better support Portrait of a Graduate growth in FCPS. What we found is that Portrait of a Graduate is really used strongly in elementary schools through project-based learning, exit ticket reflections, and emphasis by teachers. But it's kind of lost in middle school and high school and kind of seems to be more of a requirement put in into classes when it's needed. But the thing is Portrait of a Graduate isn't just a requirement, it's a real-life skill and when you get to high school and middle school and you're balancing all your classes, learning how to take tests, going through the college

[00:44:08] application process balancing all of these different things in your life and what you need to be as a young adult this is when portrait of a graduate becomes more important so one thing that our committee really stressed on was the importance of reflection in high school and ways that we can build portrait of a graduate into advisory lessons into reflection into that personal growth that you have when you are struggling through those challenges another thing that we found was that incentivizing student involvement in portrait of a graduate outside of the classroom there are student leadership programs that are already built like the Madison Wing program or the Lewis Leadership Program or the Saxon Start program which is given to freshmen at Langley High School when they come in giving them the tools that they need was really helpful

[00:44:46] so that students could apply it to extracurriculars outside of them and then on top of that it was really inspiring to hear from the other elementary school students who also attended that conference and how they're seeing POG in that classroom and how that translates to high school so I hope that we can continue to spread that awareness about Portrait of a Graduate And last but not least, to the news, the Superintendent's Advisory Council held their student representative election for the next school year on April 9th at Thomas Jefferson High School, and I am so excited to announce that our next student representative is Faith Maconan from South County High School, where she's a rising senior.

[00:45:21] She is part of our student leadership development program and I'm so excited to see what she does this next school with year I worked with her on the superintendent's Advisory Council on goal two and just seeing her lead goal to how passionate she was about the issues I am so excited for what she'll do next year and the passion that she'll bring to this board. So congratulations faith Thank You miss saw you will be missed. We're very excited though for faith. So thank you Chair Fish may I be recognized. Yes Dr. Anderson you can have three minutes.

[00:46:01] Thank you as was shared a little bit earlier in light of some new information and some feedback that have been received today I do not believe that it will be prudent to bring forward the poll middle school pilot program at this time so I did elect to withdraw it from consideration for this evening however I have been in conversations with Dr. Reed I've been in conversations with the consultant with prismatic and there appears to be some opportunities to continue to review the Glasgow Middle School component of the

[00:46:37] report. There were several next steps that have been identified which would essentially given with given a little bit more time may result in bringing that recommendation in a cost neutral way. While the timeline is not ideal Dr. Reed has confirmed that she will continue to have those conversations with Prismatic so that the board may have that report to consider during the next meeting.

[00:47:06] And so while we weren't able to move forward on one section, I'm hoping that we can have some good data that we can review at the next meeting regarding the Glasgow component for the Justice Pyramid. I deeply appreciate all of the feedback and all of the support and all of the advocacy of the community that have come here and have written the letters and have done the work and i'm hoping that we can be successful because we do know that having um a healthy start time with kids the research has already been clear that doesn't need to be restated we just need to find

[00:47:41] a way to make it happen for our students here in fcps in some way or other i did also appreciate Dr. Reid's comments during the Mason Crest community conversation yesterday speaking about that this is going to be something that's going to happen in the very near future and having an opportunity to pilot it to work at the kinks would be important. So Dr. Reid I'm not sure if you wanted to share anything else as we discussed. The timeline is not ideal but we will we will do what we can. Thank you Dr. Anderson. Agenda item 5.01 action certification of closed meeting compliance.

[00:48:19] In order to comply with section 2.2-3712 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 24th, 2025, to the best of each board member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements, and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board during the closed meeting.

[00:48:46] do i have a motion miss lady do i have a second mr moon all those in favor miss marron mr mckelveen dr anderson miss anderson mr dunn miss saint miss sizemore heiser mr moon miss lady miss st john cunning miss dixit and myself mr mcdaniel are you voting he's abstaining um mr mcdaniel you're abstaining am i correct yes that's correct thank you all right uh the motion passes agenda item 5.02 Action item confirmation of action taken in closed meeting.

[00:49:22] I call on Miss Anderson for a motion. I move to remand the school reassignment appeal of a student who fought another student and caused a disruption at school to the division superintendent for further consideration based on the discussion in the closed meeting.

[00:49:38] Is there a second? Second. Mr. Moon, all those in favor. Miss Marin, Mr. McElveen, Dr. Anderson, Miss Anderson, Miss Sizemore Heiser, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, beautiful background.

[00:50:00] Ms. Dixit or Mr. Ms. Dixit, will you verbalize your and Ms. Dixit and myself and any abstentions? McDaniel abstains. McDaniel. The motion carries. Agenda item 5.03, action, social studies basal instructional resources.

[00:50:21] I call on Ms. Marin for a motion. I move that the school board approves the titles listed for the social studies as recommended by the Instructional Resources Review Committee and instructional services leadership. Is there a second?

[00:50:37] Miss St. John Cunning. Miss Marin, would you like to speak to your motion? It's been a welcome opportunity to review a bit more the social studies materials that were presented last week and discussed last week. The board did have some conversations about how professional development for these materials would go about.

[00:50:55] And also, we wanted to be sure that the materials were accessible, meaning not just digital, but that students had hard copies of materials, especially in those years when they have standards of learning. And also so families could help students see, you know, at home and what's happening.

[00:51:11] I did want to note that the purchase of the International Baccalaureate books for grades or curriculum for grades nine and ten aligns really nicely with observations that I just received from the board's advanced academic community advisory committee.

[00:51:27] That early entry to IB for students in a certain number of courses will help with that rigorous coursework trajectory that we heard our superintendent talking about and even so opting in, opting all the students in, right, can give them that exposure so that more are exposed to it and shown that, you know, we do believe that they can attain high levels of rigor. So I was pleased to see that group of community members, you know, further validating what the superintendent's been doing and what we've been talking here. So I did just want to ask a few questions. The professional elements since that was something that oh we're gonna wait i don't okay the script did not have

[00:52:04] the presentation in there so i just went right along yeah dr reid would you like to have staff present to the board yes sir that's what i was wondering we will give miss marron back a few seconds of her time so that she can get into her questions when the presentation is over yes sir all right thank you um i'd like to ask our assistant superintendent noel clemenco to provide a presentation this evening and so miss clemenco thank you dr reid and thank you board. I first want to thank you while they're getting the presentation up for giving me a second

[00:52:38] chance to to really bring these books forward and provide the additional information. As for those of you who are watching and may not have tuned in on April 10th we did talk with the board about the process that we went through and the titles and all of those all of that information is posted on board docs. Tonight if you'll go ahead and switch to the next slide please. Tonight the focus This is really following up on some of the questions that we heard from the board last time.

[00:53:09] And again, I welcome the opportunity to bring this information back to you all. The first being some additional information about International Baccalaureate. Then as Ms. Maren just sort of set us up for, a little bit more about the professional development plan. And finally, we did some additional costing.

[00:53:26] There was definitely interest from the board to look at buying more print text. So we wanted to give an idea of what that looks like. you'll go ahead and go to the next slide. Ms. Maren was sort of just mentioning how for our ninth and tenth graders at our IB schools they will be receiving the textbooks for the social studies courses just like all the other courses because our IB coursework really begins in 11th and 12th grade. I think that for those of you who aren't familiar with IB it's important to realize that it's a it's a slightly different approach than our AP classrooms in that

[00:54:05] it doesn't have, it's not a survey course. So for our classes that stand in place of our standards or honors classes at grades 11 and 12, we have actually three classes, History of America, Topics and World History and Geography. But within those courses, teachers make selections out of a list of topics to focus in and go deep on certain topics. So it's a little bit different than a textbook that covers a large breadth of information and the resources they need are a little bit more detailed so we have been in touch with all of the ib schools collecting understanding what they are

[00:54:40] currently using and they do use a variety of print and digital resources for sure and we do have an existing central contact contract for an ib text that goes across content areas called cognity but we do recognize that as we are launching new things for others it's important to not to be sure to be sure that we have what we need for IB so you know we're committed to working with the schools to identify that they have IB approved resources and and have parity in spending if we are buying the AP resources then we should also be helping the schools with that purchase and we've done some

[00:55:18] estimating based on the AP purchase and how many students we have enrolled in those upper level IB courses that meet core graduation requirements and we believe that would be approximately five hundred thousand dollars to to have that parity so we don't have something to bring tonight obviously that it will take a little bit more time to dig in but we do have a plan for moving forward if you move to the next slide the next thing was around professional development plan I feel like a lot of things in this county our elementary language arts implementation and professional development has become the gold standard right that's what we are

[00:55:57] that's what we really are like we want to do things to that level but we do need to keep in mind that not all basal resource adoptions will be the same as that particular one keeping in mind that for elementary language arts we really were changing the way teachers teach language arts so it was a significant shift to the pedagogy it wasn't just a new resource for them to to learn so for social studies it may not feel like we have a plan that's quite as rigorous and that's true but that doesn't mean that we don't have a plan that will be appropriate given the situation. We find ourselves right now at the opportunity to introduce a new

[00:56:35] resource at the same time when we are bringing new standards in most of our courses. So what you'll see up here is the professional development is really going to focus on the new resources, but in the context of the new SOLs that are also being launched by BDOE. And we have estimated that the cost of pd will be four hundred thousand dollars if you would like to switch the next slide i'll talk a little bit about the kinds of things and what we're we're looking at so we do have a staff development day which is a day on contract so there's not a cost to that where we will be

[00:57:11] doing well all the asynchronous model modules will be available to anybody and everybody in the school system so that we can start to just break in and get some groundwork done we know We know there are a lot of things happening on that day, but we want to make sure that we can catch some people before they even leave here and get some things introduced.

[00:57:31] We will have two symposiums, an elementary and middle school one, and then a high school symposium, and those are not only about the new materials, but they're also in courses where we have standards changes, because there's just a few courses where there's significant changes to what the content is.

[00:57:51] all through the summer our plan is to offer a variety of optional summer virtual offerings. I know that virtual isn't always preferred but when we're trying to capture people in the summertime when they have child care and vacations planned we're going to offer just a a variety of summer virtual offerings where they can be walked through. Obviously the asynchronous materials would also be available but these would be things where they could have some more support.

[00:58:16] Then when we return to school on August 13th we have another staff development day and that would would be an in-person staff development to help support this. And then we know we're going to need some ongoing. So we'll work with our different groups of teacher leaders throughout the first quarter.

[00:58:31] It will go beyond the first quarter. I just ran out of room on the slide. So just gave you a flavor of how we will launch this. I have to go to the next slide. So this one, let me just take a moment to make sure you all see what we've done here.

[00:58:46] So keeping in mind that when we purchase these books, purchasing the books and the digital licenses for seven years so we make the one-time purchase and we keep them for seven years which is our cycle our typical cycle the first column after the grading subject where it says digital and print for all there was definitely interest in buying a a print textbook for every student and so if we were to do that we would be buying a digital and a print license for every student for every course and when you take when you add them up for all the different courses that we buy centrally and add the shipping it comes out

[00:59:21] to just about 17 million plus. Another way we could look at it is we could look at buying digital for everybody and then buying class sets. So when we buy class sets that means each teacher typically gets 30 books and so then they some of those books different people do it different ways if a student needs a textbook then they usually check one out take it home and there are some copies in class so So there's a variety of ways for students to access the print copies.

[00:59:51] And then the final one that we presented last time was kind of a mixed bag. So digital for all, grade level sets for elementary, class sets for seventh and eighth grade, and then 40% books. So it's more than a class set for high school there for more students to be able to check them out.

[01:00:11] I would say a class set really comes out to about 33%. So this last column is about 40%. So that is what additional information I brought for you tonight. I'm happy to answer any questions and clarifications that you have.

[01:00:29] Thank you very much, Ms. Klaminko. And we will rewind and pretend like the beginning didn't happen, except Melanie already spoke. Now she's going to ask her questions. Ms. Marin. Thank you. It's really-- this is really interesting. So the questions-- well, first of all, I mean, if we want to save a million bucks, can we rent some U-Hauls and some of us go on a road trip and pick up these books?

[01:00:51] I mean, wow, that's a lot of money for shipping. I wanted to know more about the professional development, and you did explain that, Ms. Klemenko. And also regarding, last time we were talking about print sets, I believe the board was interested in making sure the classes with the SOLs and the elementary grades had print.

[01:01:12] And so I just do wonder, maybe Dr. Anderson has an opinion on this, but like if the grade four through six get their own individual books, like do we want each kiddo to have it? So that's just like one permutation that maybe, yeah. So with elementary, right, elementary, because teachers have one class, they get, basically it's the same.

[01:01:35] You'll see that the price, you see how the price doesn't change from column one to column two. It's because buying one for every student and buying a class that is synonymous at elementary.

[01:01:44] Okay. There was a question that I'd asked that I think was a little more complex and would need explanation, but you know, we're also going to have the math basal review on the horizon soon. And so when I'm for me, when I'm looking at this, like, what's the budgeted amount for this purchase? Do we need to be thinking about the budget amount for the math purchase? And what was the question I had? I'll just leave it at that for a moment. If you could speak to that, like, what's the budget we should be looking to spend for this resource?

[01:02:19] I believe we budgeted at most $17 million for social studies. So if we go with column one, we would be $641,000 over what we budgeted for social studies. And columns two and three give us a little space.

[01:02:38] And this money is already in the FY25 current budget, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right, I will leave it at that for now. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Marin. Ms. St. John Cunningham, would you like to speak to your second? No, I just really appreciate the extra information, the extra time that you you took to give us this information.

[01:02:59] So I appreciate that you did that. Thank you. Miss Anderson. OK, so I can't gloss over. I had this conversation with Dr. Reid earlier this week. I can't gloss over. So can you talk just for a second about why it is so astronomically expensive to ship these books?

[01:03:22] Well, actually, I think part of the reason is because they're going to the schools and not the warehouse to be distributed to the schools and so there's a certain extra cost involved with that having said that we certainly could go back as a staff and try to press for a better shipping rate because i agree it does seem like even just renting a 18-wheeler i don't know if i want to drive it but um it does seem exorbitant to spend that kind of money on shipping yes i i would love for us to pursue other i mean i did basic research

[01:03:58] after i saw this today um i did baker to ship an entire container from china it's like six thousand dollars so i think that we're just i understand that the the drop shipments are are excessive like excessively expensive i don't understand fully why we're not utilizing our warehouse to mitigate some of that cost um and so i understand that that would be it would be an an undertaking, but it does seem like it's a significant cost savings if it could mean that we would get closer to being able to have more books with kids.

[01:04:28] So what I could do, Ms. Anderson, is do a, you know, a contrast table if it was a dropship to schools versus dropship to the warehouse and, you know, come up with some options for us. I just, I know that renting an entire, like, 18-wheeler full of, like, it can't be a million SO ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO MITIGATE THAT EXPENSE I THINK WOULD BE A VERY APPRECIATED ENDEAVOR HERE.

[01:04:56] WE'VE HAD SOME QUESTIONS FROM STAFF RELATED TO THIS SPECIFICALLY. I'M GOING TO GO THROUGH WHAT I UNDERSTAND ABOUT HOW THIS IS ALL WORKING, SO PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG. WHEN WE IMPLEMENTED BENCHMARK, THAT WAS BASED ON A STATE MANDATE TO IMPLEMENT A BASIL RESOURCE FOR LANGUAGE ARTS.

[01:05:16] this the same type of mandate no no okay so this is our decision to create a standardized social social studies platform this is actually I think this is twofold one there is a curriculum review cycle that if we want to stay current is every seven years in Fairfax County and there is a we looked at curriculum committees even that the only requirement is to convene every seven years so I think so and then secondly there are new SOLs that we want to be responsive to so that's another piece as well as one of the things I know this

[01:05:53] board has been very focused on is trying to provide similar experiences across the county so having a basal social studies curriculum really enables us to do that I think that it's an amazing opportunity for our staff I don't I don't necessarily think that they can see it that way at this exact moment because it seems like a lot coming all at the same time.

[01:06:16] So I would hope with our professional development plans, are we coming up with plans that would help show how the existing, the new basal resources can overlay immediately so that it is not put on each individual teacher to determine that?

[01:06:34] Yes, we what we do is we take sort of the planning and pacing guide and we integrate it with the new the new resource. Yes, okay, because I think that that's going to I think that as we're talking about this with staff, we need to stress those opportunities that we're going to be we're going to be pursuing to ensure that it's an easier rollout for them. Because I think that as as we've gone through benchmark and everything else, it's been a heavy lift, particularly for our elementary teachers. And I'm concerned, particularly when we've got math coming. I know math won't be this next year for them.

[01:07:05] BUT THAT'S THAT'S A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT LIFT OVER OVER JUST A FEW YEARS TO DEAL WITH THREE DIFFERENT SETS OF CURRICULUM AND SO I WOULD REALLY LIKE US TO DO WHATEVER WE CAN TO SPEND THE TIME WITH OUR INSTRUCTIONAL FOLKS TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE PROVIDING WHATEVER RESOURCES WE POSSIBLY CAN TO MAKE THAT A LIGHTER LIFT FOR THEM ALL RIGHT WE'RE GOING TO TAKE A FIVE MINUTE RECESS BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME PROCESS AND MOTION QUESTIONS THAT NEED TO BE RESOLVED BEFORE THE BOARD CONTINUES FIVE MINUTE RECESS BOARD MEMBERS PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEATS BOARD MEMBERS

[01:17:59] please return to your seats board members we have enough to begin business but barely so please

[01:18:45] return to your seats so in a moment miss marion is going to um speak to the motion there's some confusion among colleagues around the slide and what the board's direction is tonight and as the finishing point of the basal review committees we're not voting on contracts tonight we're voting on the titles of the materials that we are choosing for the students so that should bring some clarity and Ms. Marin is going to speak to that point.

[01:19:17] Ms. Marin. Yes. Thank you. So to clarify, you know, usually when we do our basal adoptions, we vote on adopting the titles that have been presented to us. And so those are listed in the motion. And that is what the vote will be about.

[01:19:32] And we can certainly each offer input on which options seem most amenable. You know, this money is already budgeted in the FY25 budget, but it doesn't escape me that if we save some money here and it's okay for the instruction we could maybe use that for other things like paying our teachers so but really when we talk to our teachers and our staff knowing what they need the print for all really seems too much that it wouldn't be as useful and when we think of little kids schlepping their textbooks back and forth that might be a lot as well as again with the math adoption that's going to be a textbook so now we're

[01:20:09] talking about kids bringing two textbooks back and forth but so it seems and I've talked to a few people briefly before the middle column the so it's digital for all and and printed class sets for grades 4 through 12 right so every teacher gets a set of 30 although in the middle grades I believe it gets to the 40% is that correct Miss Clemenco in the middle column yes it's classes classes okay so like a high school teacher who's teaching five sections of history would that mean they get 150 books or no a class that they get one class out of 30. One class out of 30 for all their sections. Right so they'd use them in

[01:20:48] class or they could they could check them out. A lot of our students would probably choose to use the digital option. Okay well and the last thing I'll add is I just went through this with my own daughter trying to help her study for a World War II exam and not knowing where to go for that content and so I'm really optimistic that the content resources will be better available so I'm in that um anticipation i think going more with digital on this is is the way to go so for me i'm okay with the middle column but i do continue to support the uh proposed materials that are listed

[01:21:21] in the agenda thank you miss marin dr anderson all right thank you before i get started on some of my comments and um questions i do want to echo what was previously shared by mrs anderson regarding the shipping. We have to be able to explore every possibility to do that differently.

[01:21:48] A million dollars for shipping just seems to be probably not the most conservative thing that we can do, especially given our budget climate. We need to get that down. So I'm looking forward to whatever chart you can produce Dr. Reed regarding what the various options would yield we are on the postage path awesome thank you a question that I had originally and you started to speak about it miss Clemenco but I don't know

[01:22:20] if I'm 100% clear the 40% means that it is a class set plus one more if you could just detail that out for me a little bit so a class set is as 30 is 30 books right and 40% is 40% of I'm trying to think oh 120 of 120 so 48 books so the difference in column 2 and column 3 right or when I say 2 and 3 that of the

[01:22:56] options. A class set would be 30 books. The 40% is 48 books. Okay, 48 books. So at the elementary grade, it's pretty easy because, you know, you have one teacher, the teacher gets the class set, everybody utilizes it. How does it work at the high school level? Is it the teacher who's, if I have a teacher with multiple preps, do I get a class set for maybe the one prep that I have to teach this course? Multiple, like multiple preps of the same class. Like if they're teaching five sections of something of world one they would get that's not what I meant

[01:23:34] like I'm a teacher let's say I have three sections of you know history and two sections of government do I have all of the books that I need yeah you would get class that's a beach I get yes that's a beach okay you're teaching both courses I guess one of the questions that I had was regarding which options you all were recommending but I think that has been taken care of I do appreciate the follow-up regarding the professional development a question that I did not understand clearly is there in a synchronous option for high

[01:24:09] school teachers or is the June 12th for everyone so June June 12th is when we will have the asynchronous available for everyone yes it's not just elementary those are available for high school teachers as well and then on June 24th and 20 yeah then we have the symposiums and those symposiums are when teachers are i'm sorry schools are sending one individual and then they'll come back and do the training come back and then we'll have um virtual all summer long for any teacher to sign up for for all the different grade levels okay thank you um i hope that if we are if we are able to realize

[01:24:47] some savings in the shipping perhaps we can reallocate some of those funds towards some more in-person opportunities for teachers who might want it and i'm hoping you can keep some sort of list um listing of that kind of an unrelated question but dr reed when you are envisioning the math textbooks for students is that going to be one per or is it a class set it must be one per it must be one per because one of the discussions we're having here was how a kid's going to store

[01:25:22] them carry them so if they have to store and carry a macbook we essentially don't have that question anymore because that would be applicable here so one book versus two books for me is kind of moot so having said that you know i was very much leaning into the middle section um and i think there might be some opportunity well i'm just going to throw out that is was that my can i have a go back please yes mr dunn can you please clarify if the digital and the uh print are identical

[01:26:02] yeah the text like the units and the texts and yes they are the virtual does have um enhancements right and things like it can read you can click on things and it can help with vocabulary or it can be read aloud or um movies that might you know the book only is a two-dimensional thing right so there will be enhancements in the digital but as far as the the text yes it will be the same so so there's nothing that would be in the print that would be missing from the digital is that

[01:26:35] right no okay um can you clarify uh my colleague's question there was the example was or hypothetical was a teacher has three sections of one class and two of another does that mean the teacher would get five sets or the the presentation says there'd be one grade level print set for each school so does that mean if there's four teachers teaching government one that there'd only be one print set for the entire school? No, each teacher would get a class set of, so if there's four government

[01:27:11] teachers, each government teacher would get a class set. So if that teacher is, if each teacher is teaching multiple sections of the same class, they'd use the same class set for each of their classes. Correct. And so if you had, but that would make it difficult for students to take books home because that might mean that students in the next class wouldn't have the opportunity to access the book isn't that true what we find is that children now that we're one-to-one they have their computers so they can access the text on their computer as well not all students choose a print book but that was some of the

[01:27:49] reasoning for the 40% right if we buy teachers like a 48 instead of 30 there's a few extra there's there's a little bit more for letting students check them out and so I'm not following the 40% can you clarify just I'm so first of all I am so sorry this is so confusing and I appreciate everyone's patience with me so there's different ways and all of this is very a la carte like we can do a lot of different things for grade levels but in the middle column it talks about class sets so if a teacher has five classes of world one they're going to get one class set of 30 books and they will use some if there are students who

[01:28:28] you know sometimes IEP say they need a print textbook they get a textbook or sometimes a family just says we need a print textbook then teachers have in the past checked them out to students for for a period of time or for the year and they will have digital in the that is what is in the middle column class set for grades 9 through 12 when you look at the last column it says 40% so if we base it and we base it on teachers having 120 students I know they have more than that 40 percent of 120 is 48 books so our original proposal to you all was 40 percent

[01:29:05] to give a little bit of cushion to that class set for those checkouts if that makes sense so you wouldn't just buy one class that you'd buy you buy 48 books instead of 30 so there's like and each teacher would have 18 books that if there were students who needed to have a print copy at home for a reason right because we're going to have class we'll have books in the classroom so it was just to give a little cushion in our original recommendation dr reed can you clarify what your intention is with respect to these options that are shown on the slide well i think

[01:29:42] we need to start by going back to the publisher and see if we can get a better deal on delivery costs i guess i would also just do a double check that we've um winnowed the cost as best we can this was uh if you will uh um no a recommendation in terms of where we were at this point in time draft of the possible costs and see if we can get costs down a little bit more.

[01:30:07] I do think classroom sets at elementary make sense and I do think textbooks for middle and high school students that they are able to take home at middle and high school makes sense. While Ms. Clamenco is correct that there are students who prefer digital, there are many students who don't have consistent or dependable Wi-Fi at home and therefore digital is really not accessible to all students. So I think it's important that students not also feel burdened to have to ask to check books out because sometimes that feels like you're being an exception and we really want that to be a natural thing.

[01:30:45] Students receive a book that they can take home and be prepared for class. I think so my intent would be to make sure that we have print text available for all middle and high school students for sure I think grades four through six the classroom set makes sense and that's tantamount to a textbook for students I think it's less likely at elementary they would be taking them home and back but it could happen so we don't have a lot of time during the day with you know the literacy and math coming up social studies and science I think that you know

[01:31:22] if possible there could be some reading prep for social studies that could be done at home if possible thank you I strongly support all physical textbooks for every student in middle and high school because for the past 600 years since the invention of the printing press are this progress of our civilization has depended on books and I also support you know expanding as much as possible the availability of physical textbooks in our elementary schools because if you progress all the way through sixth grade get to middle school for the first time you have a textbook, I think that's going to be a rude awakening.

[01:32:00] I think there needs to be some introduction of textbooks along the way to socialize that textbooks just from being human, you know, our entire base of our species is engagement with something physical, not something digital, right?

[01:32:16] Although technology is attractive, I think studies have shown the physical textbooks are superior in terms of academic outcomes. So as the proposal you described, I will support the hybrid between the middle and the left option, but I think we do need to look long-term more at basing our learning on what's worked for the past 600 years and not on the digital, which does not seem to have been as successful in maintaining productivity growth rates and economic growth within our country over the last 20 years.

[01:32:53] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Ms. Anderson, for a go back. Wait a second. Mr. Moon has his light on.

[01:33:08] I apologize. He's not yet spoken. Mr. Moon. Thank you. Ms. Kalamako, I'm going to ask you a very, very picky question. Comparing a second column with a third column, just for grades 7 and 8, look at those two numbers.

[01:33:27] For under second column, for grade 7 and 8, what they are getting is digital plus print class sets, correct? Under second column? Yes. Under third column, they are also getting digital plus print class sets for grade 7 and 8. So they're exactly the same thing, except there's a price difference. Do you think they flipped a typo? Yes, I believe I transposed those two digits,

[01:34:04] and I apologize for that. One and nine was flipped in one of those columns, okay? Yeah. That answers MY QUESTION THANK YOU THANK YOU MR. MOON I APOLOGIZE FOR SKIPPING YOU MS. ANDERSON I JUST WANTED TO ALSO SHARE THAT I AM I I BELIEVE THAT THE CENTER COLUMN IS PROBABLY THE BEST OPTION PARTIALLY BECAUSE I HAVE TEST SHOPPERS FOR US AND I CAN TELL YOU THAT I DOUBT THAT I WOULD EVER BE ABLE TO GET MY NINTH GRADER TO CARRY HIS TEXTBOOK BACK AND FORTH AND SO I DO THINK THAT IT'S PROBABLY A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE THE PHYSICAL COPIES AT SCHOOL AND BE ABLE TO USE THE

[01:34:42] digital copy at home where possible but I do understand that we've got some connectivity stuff that's going on for different kiddos so maybe we can look at those areas that we know we have the significant connectivity issues and offer something different for those kids that are necessary rather than just do it based on everyone so if we have a school where we know it's one of the questions we're asked whether or not we have internet access at home so if we know we have internet concerns it could be that we could utilize a different purchasing for that for that particular area but yeah I am the other concern that I have with having textbooks particularly at the high school level is

[01:35:19] letting know that we have been actively working to take some of those locker banks out as they're no longer really being utilized by students as significantly and so I do worry about what's going to happen whether or not if you're depending on unless you also have a class set I don't think I think THE PROCESS OF CARRYING BACK AND FORTH PLUS A LAPTOP ISN'T NECESSARILY GOING TO HAPPEN.

[01:35:41] THAT'S WHAT I GET NERVOUS ABOUT. THANK YOU, MS. ANDERSON. WE WERE SIDEBARRING THAT WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO RUN A U-HAUL, PUT ON BLACK BANDANAS MAYBE AND DRIVE OUT AND PICK UP THE BOOKS OURSELVES, SAVE US SOME MONEY. WE'LL WORK ON THE SCHEDULE.

[01:35:59] ALL RIGHT, DR. ANDERSON, FOR I GO BACK. I DO HAVE A LARGE VEHICLE. I've carried lots, like a whole horde, a whole troop of Girl Scouts, so I can take some books. Just going back a little bit, I want to make sure that I don't get lost with some of the points that I wanted to make, which is regarding the IB.

[01:36:18] Miss Clemenco, just so I understand, while you have listed here on the slide that there are options to standardize IB resources, these will be options that will be actualized. it's just that you haven't developed what exactly that they will get but there will be funds that are earmarked for those IB schools yes okay terrific thank you um Dr. Reed I think I got lost in the sauce here a little bit I thought I heard you say your at well your preference was to have a physical text for middle and high school okay okay thank you it's not that necessarily

[01:36:57] that they will carry it back and forth because some will some won't so would you then anticipate that in the classroom there would be more dependence on the digital copy because would it be a clap a physical copy for kids to take home and a class set you know I think that the internet or the Wi-Fi is more predictable at school yes so if I were to use you know if I were to look at again the most accessible opportunity the I would probably use the digital in the classroom consistently I think that in every school community we have

[01:37:36] students who are living in spaces that do not have reliable connectivity at home and in particular perhaps not to be able to use extra features that might come in a digital text I think having it available is great but relying on it as AS A BASIS FOR GRADED ASSIGNMENTS, I THINK WOULD NOT BE SOMETHING THAT I WOULD SUPPORT.

[01:38:03] I THINK THE TEXT AVAILABILITY AT HOME IS CRITICAL. AND THAT IS PRETTY MUCH CONSISTENT WITH WHAT WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT IN PREVIOUS CONVERSATIONS. THAT'S CORRECT. REGARDING MATH OR REGARDING ANY TEXTBOOKS. BECAUSE WE HAVE PARENTS THAT ARE WILLING AND WANTING TO SUPPORT THEIR KIDS, BUT THEY'RE NOT UNABLE IF IT'S IN THIS LOCKED-UP SPACE FOR A LOT OF REASONS.

[01:38:23] I'm in full support of having that physical copy at home because we do have more reliability and no one is singled out in the school setting when everybody has to open the laptop that they carry back and forth every day. My one question is because we have a delineation between grades four and six and grades seven and eight what does it look like for the three middle schools that are not clean.

[01:38:50] So will the sixth graders at Glasgow Holmes and Poe have whatever it is and then the seventh and eighth graders will get the physical copies? Where will they fall? I have not talked to Ms. Clamenco, but I would anticipate the sixth graders would have since the seventh and eighth graders have actually more access to written text that sixth graders in a seventh and eighth grade school would also have more access to that text because they don't have a homeroom.

[01:39:17] They're moving from class to class. So we would mirror that. Okay. you thank you dr. Anderson seeing no others we will vote for the motion if the clerks could put it on the screen please again we're voting on the titles here if you have additional feedback for the superintendent you can share it with her after the meeting whenever all those in favor of the motion that is arriving on the screen all those in favor miss Marin mr. McElvain dr.

[01:39:54] Anderson miss Anderson miss Sizemore heiser mr. moon miss lady miss st. John Cunning, Ms. Dixit, I can't see you. - Ms. Dixit has left. - Okay, Mr. McDaniel, all right, and myself.

[01:40:10] - McDaniel votes aye, sorry. - And Mr. McDaniel, all those opposed, abstentions? Mr. Dunn, the motion carries. Congratulations, thank you. All right, agenda item 5.04, action, strategic plan, goal five report, leading for tomorrow's innovation.

[01:40:32] As a reminder, the board has already had an extensive work session on this topic, SO BOARD MEMBERS ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO RAISE THE SAME QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS THAT ARE ALREADY ON RECORDING AND AVAILABLE FOR YOU TO VIEWING AT ANYBODY'S PLEASURE AT DOUBLE SPEED.

[01:40:51] SO THANK YOU CHAIRMAN FRISH, GOOD EVENING BOARD MEMBERS. THIS EVENING I'M HAPPY TO SHARE SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM OUR GOAL 5 WORK SESSION THAT MR. FRISH JUST REFERRED TO. FOR THE PUBLIC WE DID HAVE A COMPREHENSIVE SESSION ON APRIL 8TH WHERE WE HAD A CHANCE TO DISCUSS DATA RELATED TO THIS GOAL AND THE FULL REPORT IS POSTED TO BOARD DOCS.

[01:41:12] So just want to make sure we center ourselves in Goal 5, which is Leading for Tomorrow's Innovation, which is really an opportunity for us to be future ready here in Fairfax County. There are eight measures in Goal 5, and this evening we're going to be focused on measures C through G.

[01:41:34] First of all, what is graduation equity? When we think about that, we've talked about the statement, our equity commitment is that we want to strive for all students to graduate with a plan and a way to demonstrate their qualifications for post-secondary success, whatever they choose that to be.

[01:41:53] So this report looks at several related factors that you can see on the slide. And why this matters is it's really the culmination of many of our earlier efforts from PK through 12 and 12 plus in some cases.

[01:42:10] We want to make sure we're thinking about supporting student growth and learning in earlier grades, regular attendance, and facilitating access to and success in advanced courses. So let's take a look at on-time graduation first and FCPS and Virginia calculate on-time graduation rates based on the percent of students in a graduating class who've earned a standard advanced studies or applied studies diploma. So essentially the data on the screen shows some

[01:42:44] changes, increases and decreases, but across the board we continue to meet targets that we have set for this work. So looking at slide 8, our on-time graduation rates have increased by 10 percentage points for multilingual learners, classified as levels 1 and 2, which is a significant increase in our data points. This was, while these data are still not where we would like them to be. We are making significant progress year over year. Our former multilingual learners

[01:43:22] had a rate of on-time graduation that exceeded the division average at over 97%. So what we know in that far right column is once our multilingual learners exit, the programs that are there to support them, they actually graduated at a significantly higher rate than all students so it's a lot to celebrate there. Last year we want to we want to make sure we take a look at our freshmen on track rates because we know graduating credit ready or graduate her leaving ninth grade credit ready means

[01:44:00] there's a high likelihood that students will graduate on time so we want to make sure that we follow these data points and don't wait until students are seniors to track credit readiness. So really proud of the team that we're looking at this level of detail as students are completing ninth grade.

[01:44:18] We've also had a really lengthy discussion at the work session about the impact of the state's new school performance and support framework and graduation rates. Beginning this year, the four-year graduation rate will account for 10% to 15% of a school's overall accountability score within the new framework.

[01:44:36] and this is going to be slightly less than it previously counted. In the last column the new six-year graduation measure effectively recovers most of the diplomas for students needing more time to complete high school or needing to access the applied studies diploma. So at this point again the graduation rate with these additional two years and broader diploma acceptance the six-year rate is only about 0.6 percentage points below the traditional on-time graduation rate. However, note that the six-year graduation measure will only account for 5% of a school's overall score in the new state framework. We want

[01:45:16] to make sure and we're going to talk more about this not just tonight but in the coming weeks so that our community better understands how these graduation rates are going to be factored into accreditation of our schools. Let's look at the student dropout data and again we have declining rates of students dropping out last year we saw improvements in these rates across multiple student groups again with the largest improvements for student groups that we've had real significant challenges with the rates of dropouts in

[01:45:51] looking at our multilingual learners they're improving but they vary similar to the on-time graduation data we saw large improvements for our level one and level two multilingual learners and our former multilingual learners had dropout rates that were lower than the division average so leaving with a plan and a diploma it's hard to believe but we're getting close to graduation time so I can't wait to see our students as they celebrate the end of their career here at the beginning and the launch out into our greater world so each year our high

[01:46:28] schools administer a survey to our seniors to determine if they have a post-secondary plan for students who completed last year's senior survey 99 percent had post-secondary plans a rate that was similar across all student groups so we're very excited to have that data point and proud of that work for most seniors those plans include college the majority of seniors at the 88 to 87%. This is a really high rate, particularly for a school division our

[01:47:04] size. I want to mention that the percent of on-time graduates by diploma and student group, again this was for SY 23-24, there are differences in diploma outcomes by student group, which was similar to the baseline. And if you recall goal 4, we have measures around academically intense course taking patterns, which will begin to shift these numbers quite a bit in the coming years. I think next year we'll begin to see some real differences in the following year, even more significant differences. Most students who plan to go

[01:47:40] to a four-year college have earned an advanced studies diploma. We do see that the majority of students who are planning to attend a four-year college do pursue the advanced studies. However, there are differences between student groups again as we deepen our work with the ABL group and focus on both consistent academic advising and enrollment we expect to see changes in this data as well we also know that 79% of FCPS graduates enrolled in college within 16 months of graduating and this is across all groups it's a higher percentage than the Commonwealth and other divisions in Northern Virginia in

[01:48:20] addition to monitoring students post-secondary plans we also have access through the National Student Clearinghouse that reports on both two and four-year programs. On this slide we're looking at state-reported Clearinghouse data that provides information on enrollment in college within those 16 months of earning a federally recognized diploma. 79% of our graduates from the class of 2023, which is the most recent year, met this criteria. So our strategic improvement efforts focused on graduation equity. Last year, again, we saw improvements that we

[01:48:59] attribute to consistent structures and systems in place at the school level that use data that identify risks and provide personalized support. Dr. Ponce, Ms. Lemon, the teams that have been out working with schools, our region offices, really in our school-based staff have done a lot of work to make sure that we have systems in place and structures that are effective.

[01:49:29] Our efforts focused on student attendance last year as you recall also resulted in large improvements in the rates of chronic absenteeism and last year particularly with seniors. As you can see on the slide we have both new and continuing actions related to these strategies and our goal teams actually have done some reporting even this week.

[01:49:51] I didn't get to sit through all the presentations yesterday as we had several things occurring. But our goal team reports, which include principals and central office staff, have just done some phenomenal work in these areas. And I'm just really proud of how they've pulled data together and not just made plans to continue processing the data, but actually plans to engage and make a real difference, honestly, in the data, which affects and supports our students.

[01:50:25] So, key takeaways in SY2324, as you can see, our graduation rate was 94.58% for a division this size, which is incredible, with a 3.81% of students that dropped out, and we saw increases in on-time graduation and improvement in dropout rates, with the greatest improvement in those areas where the gaps were the largest.

[01:50:51] We met our overall targets this year and are on track for our overall 2030 targets and goals. However, we're going to need to make sure we continue the support. And that's why we're counting on our county partners to support our budget transfers so we can continue our arc of progress towards our 2030 goals.

[01:51:12] Mr. Chairman, this concludes my goal five presentation. Thank you, Dr. Reed. I'll call on Dr. Anderson. Thank you. I did it again. We have a different way of doing this now. Just one moment. I call on Mr. Moon for a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the school would approve the goal five strategic plan report for SY202425. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Mr. Moon, would you like to speak to your motion?

[01:51:48] Just briefly and perhaps I also have a couple of questions or comments is I think a report spells out a shows a reasonably satisfied satisfactory progress on graduation rate and reduction in dropout rate and also post-secondary plans that our students certainly have on their minds those are really all good we hope that we will continually continuously improve on those those measures as well in the future going forward however at the same time i am really looking forward to you know next year's

[01:52:26] report because if you if you look at the report itself the measure g and measure h are going to be a add-in next year's report 25 and 26 especially one regarding a student perceptions of opportunities for innovation because if you go to please bear with me i'm trying to go between two different

[01:53:00] reports here under goal five uh under equity commitment h it says students innovating and preparing for the future uh you doctor you and i had this conversation earlier today we are in the age of artificial intelligence and that is changing so fast are our students prepared ready to go into the world of artificial intelligence as they graduate from us i mean that's the kind

[01:53:37] OF CONVERSATION I WOULD REALLY WANT TO HAVE FOR THE NEXT YEAR'S REPORT. YES, SIR. THANK YOU, MR. MOON. DR. ANDERSON. YES, THANK YOU. ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE DISCUSSED DURING THE PRESENTATION BACK ON APRIL 8TH AND I PROBABLY SPENT THE MAJORITY OF MY COMMENTS ON THIS WERE AROUND THE DIPLOMATYPES, THE DIPLOMATYPES.

[01:54:02] AND PULLING UP THE PRESENTATION FROM THAT MEETING, IT WAS SLIDE 32, HAD A SECTION WHERE IT said to be determined just to have some conversations regarding goals since then you have provided to the board because I also requested that much appreciated for giving us that information in terms of how what the diploma types looks like across our schools and it's anywhere from seven percent to eighty four percent so wide range across our schools one of my major advocacy points

[01:54:37] when looking at this data that was provided on the 8th is that it looks very similar to the data that we had the year before why are we not having any targets to that end and I still don't see any targets for diploma types so if you could speak to that please yes ma'am I as I recall and we discussed with the team there was a bit of a reluctance I think at the time of the work

[01:55:09] SESSION A YEAR AGO ON SETTING TARGETS AND ATTRIBUTING -- I THINK I RECALL A ROBUST DISCUSSION ABOUT THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN STANDARD AND ADVANCED DIPLOMAS IN PARTICULAR AND WHAT TYPE OF COURSE TAKING PATTERNS WOULD LEAD ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. I DON'T KNOW THAT I FELT OR THE TEAM felt like there was a consensus around how how do I say what ratio the board felt was targetable that doesn't probably sound right but what would be

[01:55:46] our goals with those because it's not would Sony I did I don't know that the team am I saying this right Miss Neal there wasn't a consensus as we looked back on the notes and so then the question is I mean staff can set a goal around advanced versus standard diplomas I do think that we also need to make sure it's part of our ABL work right making sure that students across the entire county have access to the most rigorous courses but then there may be students who will choose to take that standard diploma route and perhaps do

[01:56:23] take other a different course path so I think we're still in a space where we're working through what we think would be a reasonable ratio for those and I guess I also would be curious about the board's appetite for setting targets within those two diploma types well I certainly think the data require that we set targets because when you're looking at this list it has all students at 66 percent of advanced diplomas yet there are some groups that are significant

[01:56:58] outliers multilingual students are 23 percent students with disabilities are 22 percent black students are at 52 percent hispanic students are at 45 percent everyone else is somewhat kind of closer or above the average we have an achievement gap this shows us this and so i'm struggling with staff not being able to wrap their minds around the fact that there's a gap here that should be closed because we do address those same kind of gaps in many other areas where students elect to do different things.

[01:57:33] And we also had an extended conversation with Dr. Bell regarding the ABLE work in terms of how that could impact this. So not having any kind of target is for me just dismissing this gap that exists.

[01:57:49] So the reason we retained and are working with the ABLE group is to make sure that we provide access to those advanced courses for all students. I mean, that's why we're doing that work. I think the setting of targets, trying to make the determination in terms of the cohort experience, because when students begin high school is really when they begin that path towards a diploma type, either standard or advanced.

[01:58:17] And often, that's determined, again, by mathematics and where they're going to start, because that can determine the level of science they're able to take and so forth so I think that we would want to roll any type of target into a cohort model with incoming ninth graders and we're happy to set those targets so I I will have staff make that across the board then and we'll just move in that direction if that's something as a result of our discussion you know that certainly is something we could explore but at the end of the day we want to make sure the courses are accessible at all schools to all students.

[01:58:55] Right and you've just described multiple efforts which again are very good efforts we appreciate that but targets help us to measure the impact of those efforts whether it be an entire cohort whether we're starting with ninth graders or the entire high school group having some sort of target keeps us keeps us focused. It measures the efforts. It really gives us on-time data. I mean, that's what all the dashboards are about, on-time data in order to course correct. This just seems to be missing, and I don't understand why. I personally would like to see some sort of target, whether

[01:59:33] it's a cohort or across the grade levels, because it tells me that we're paying attention to the fact that achievement gaps exist here. Yes, ma'am, and I do want to share that we do have dashboards around course taking patterns um and advanced course acquisition so we will be providing year over year data which should show growth in this area um but i'll take that as a point to note thank you and my second question um also speaks of this area i'm very curious to

[02:00:09] your thoughts when you reviewed how that the 25 high schools presented themselves when this was disaggregated what came to mind what were some of the aha moments and what could that potentially lead to well for me one of the most significant aha moments again was around our mathematics sequences and they look very different at this time around the county and we're working very hard i know the isd team is working very hard on compacting curriculum and working with staff and we're Dr. Ponce and his office are working with principals in terms of master scheduling

[02:00:48] and the high school principals are working with Dr. Gehring and our ABL partners to make sure that course scheduling is occurring in consistent ways across the county our DSS's are part of that conversation and making sure that our students are even in some cases and I didn't I will at some point this spring here share our algebra dashboard that actually went student by student with their SOL scores their performance in

[02:01:22] their current class etc so we were able to look at a student by student course registration plan where some students I think were not advocating for themselves or families weren't in similar ways across the county so we're really trying to look at every bit of data and make the best course placements possible thank you it was thank you it was was weird Miss Lady Thank You Chairman Frisch um thank you for this report I think that there is a lot of

[02:02:01] good news in here and I really do appreciate your leadership around high standards for all students and pushing all of our students to achieve at their their highest level I do have a question on slide 19 which indicates the clearinghouse data is this 79% of the kids who started college or is it 79% of of the kids who self-reported an intent to go to college because when you look at the other slide

[02:02:35] 16 that's self-reported data that's an 88 percenter fit but when we look at 16 months in is it 16 months in those who started 79 9 are still attending miss neil sure so miss lady this is a report that the state generates using national clearinghouse so it is looking at the students who earn the federally recognized diploma who started college at any point in time so the denominator is our kids who graduated with the federally recognized diplomas who enroll in college at some point in that 16-month window so the 79 doesn't necessarily represent that 79 of

[02:03:15] our graduates overall were enrolled at the 16-month point that is correct right some point and the reason i bring this up is i really believe in transparency and when you click on our website in the about fcps we share students self-reported data and you have to have a keen eye around this this data to know that that's not reality i'd like some clearinghouse data on our website and even in this particular slide it delineated because if i don't ask these probing questions it's misleading um and i know we want to be transparent i just think it's important

[02:03:53] but i also want to say that what we have in terms of our college going culture is phenomenal when it comes to other school systems in this entire country um and we are we are among if not the best to dr anderson's points um if if we have some schools whose advanced studies diploma numbers are low i understand targets but i will also tell you that i have worked with lots of families in my career where i advise them not to get an advanced studies diploma because they wanted to be pre-med

[02:04:30] so do bio do chem do ap bio do ap chem that's not three sciences from three different scientific areas you have just forfeited the advanced studies diploma we have just introduced ap human geography in ninth grade maybe you don't do world one world two because you don't do two world histories you don't get your advanced studies diploma people need to understand that what we're talking about with the able work is the priority which is having access to high level coursework and the advanced studies diploma was created in Virginia back we didn't have school counselors and we we didn't have college going cultures we have today it was kind of a way of saying hey if you want to go to

[02:05:07] college then you should you should take these courses which are above the standard but we have lots of kids who don't need that sticker but have incredibly impressive transcripts having said that in some of our schools where we really see that we're struggling with access issues i think we do need some targeted goals around advanced study but i just want people to understand i'm not comfortable with a blanket increment of advanced studies diplomas for the whole county because i often advise families not to pursue that because that's not what's best for their kid thank you

[02:05:39] miss lady mr dunn i wanted to ask about ib diplomas um because uh there is a a vast disparity in my experience from attending graduations last year between uh the number of ib diplomas received at different schools and and I'd like to see as part of this graduation equity more effort devoted by FCPS on a on a system level basis because you've rightly said we should be governed as a school system not a system of schools to ensure

[02:06:12] that the IB curriculum especially the full IB program is is made available to to a broader number of students because it is an amazing program and I think of our generation on this dais perhaps we don't have a full appreciation for the opportunities that exist with IB diplomas today because you can get much more college credit with IB than with AP in many instances and IB teaches critical thinking whereas AP teaches more rote memorization.

[02:06:47] So I wondered if you could talk about what your intentions are or if you have any plans or thoughts about how to ensure greater implementation or consistency across FCPS of the IB program. So I think I don't today have any plans to expand IB to other schools in the county.

[02:07:09] I don't mean to expand, but just where it is right now, if it's being underutilized. So I would agree with you, Mr. Dunn. There are different numbers of IB diplomas depending on the IB schools and in some cases remarkably different.

[02:07:27] I wonder I've wondered why that is and I know I've asked staff particularly at the chief of schools and chief academic officers I know to look at what those percentages are and really be thoughtful about the opportunity.

[02:07:48] And again, it's somewhat different, right? The opportunity to take IB courses versus that whole sequence of courses, exams, and leading to the IB diploma. I don't know that we have specific plans, but I'm going to ask maybe Dr. Presidio, Dr. Ponce, if you have any thoughts, because I think it's a fair question.

[02:08:08] No, it's a great question, and I think you've already framed it pretty well. The courses are available, the full slew of courses are equitably available across all of our IB schools. I do think when you look at the enrollment numbers in some of those courses in particular, you see differences across schools.

[02:08:25] So that's one of the areas that our IB high schools are going to be working on when they work with the ABL team to look at getting more kids in a more rigorous academic trajectory. So we definitely have a lot of work to do there. I would say with the diploma, though, I think we have to be a little careful about using the number of students who achieved the diploma as the success measure, because that still comes back to that individual choice, just like we were just talking about with advanced studies.

[02:08:53] And I'll just say, just, you know, you're not going to find a bigger IB proponent than me. I was an IB student, an IB teacher, an IB principal, and I'm an IB parent. And IB students, if you take the full load for the diploma, you sacrifice a lot of elective choices when you do that.

[02:09:09] So I think what we find is some of our students are perfectly capable of earning the diploma, but they might choose, as Ms. Lady mentioned earlier, to take additional coursework in other areas of interest, whether it's elective areas or other courses within a particular discipline that they might be more interested in that don't put them on that track for the diploma.

[02:09:28] So again, I think it's one of those areas where we have to be careful, and our area of focus right now is not looking at the number of diplomas earned, but looking at the enrollment in IB courses and trying to get greater parity in enrollment in courses across the division. And in some ways that we have to start earlier because IB, if you just encounter it the first time in high school or if you encounter it at a middle school where it's not implemented effectively, then you may not be familiar with it, right?

[02:10:00] There's a little bit of education that still needs to happen with our local population to talk to them about the benefits. but both for obtaining college credit as well as for teaching critical thinking, which is, I think in our society, going to lead to a more successful career, ultimately, whether it's in a mathematics, scientific, or liberal arts field.

[02:10:23] Can you talk a little bit about what you might have in store or in mind for how we can expand to elementary schools or implement more effectively at middle schools? Again, given our current budget situation, we know that IB or the PYP primary years program is more expensive because the professional development, the coordination and so forth at elementary.

[02:10:49] So I don't believe there are any plans on the books at this time to expand. In our MYP, the middle years program, there are not plans to expand either. Now, that's a different question, though, than effective implementation of those. AND I HAVE TO -- I HAVE TO HOPE WE'RE EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENTING OUR PYP AND MYP, BUT WE CERTAINLY CAN TAKE A LOOK -- I BELIEVE THOSE ARE EXTERNALLY REVIEWED BY I.B. ON A CYCLICAL BASIS.

[02:11:18] SO PERHAPS WHAT WE CAN DO IS PROVIDE THE MOST RECENT CYCLICAL REVIEW TO THE BOARD IN A FRIDAY LETTER I THINK WOULD BE APPROPRIATE. I DON'T THINK I FORWARDED ONE SINCE I'VE BEEN HERE. BUT I DO KNOW THERE IS AN EXTERNAL REVIEW. correct okay thank you yes sir thank you mr dunn miss sizemar heiser thank you and i appreciate the conversation i just wanted to pick up a little bit on um i think what miss lady was talking about and in terms of um in terms of having a um for the advanced diploma i think it's important to make sure that students have access the advanced diploma to make sure that they have the opportunity

[02:11:58] you know and they're encouraged to take the classes and they're also ready for the classes which we've talked about with our elementary school, making sure about advanced math and things like that. And I think if there's disparities in who's getting an advanced diploma, looking into the reasons for those disparities are important from school to school to understand that.

[02:12:16] I just wanted to be careful about setting a target for more students to get the advanced diploma, because I think one of the things that makes FCPS so great and valuable to is the breadth and depth of the variety of classes we have. I know Miss Lady talked about the variety of the science classes and people who might be going to a certain field, but I'm thinking of our CTE credits and our great academies and we keep talking about the certifications our students can achieve and how they can help kickstart their careers or into colleges.

[02:12:43] I'm thinking about the arts. I'm thinking about DECA and I want to be careful that we're, sometimes when you have targets for more of an advanced diploma, which is very academically based, then it devalues and maybe disincentivizes what Miss Lady talked about, where the counselor really looking at an individual student and saying what is your goal and how would you be able to get there and what would be the best path to get you there.

[02:13:07] And that may be an advanced diploma. That may not be an advanced diploma. It may be a science-heavy path, maybe an arts-heavy path, maybe a, you know, hey, you want to take a look at this great CT credits. You're very interested in cybersecurity, whatever it may be. I don't want to accidentally and unintentionally disincentivize those because we've had target sets for the advanced diploma I would love an advanced diploma that actually looked at multiple paths for advanced coursework right you know where you have a strong academic basis and then if you have students who want to do a lot more science right there's a pathway to an advanced diploma

[02:13:43] for five multiple AP classes in science or an advanced arts or I just that would be great to have but that's a state-level conversation that's not a local conversation but in the meantime i don't want to accidentally disincentivize our principles because they're trying to be understanding be a target from making oral counselors making sure a student can be counseled in the way that's best for that student but looking at disparities and trying to dig into the reasons why and making sure access opportunity readiness and encouragement are consistent across the county i think would be really great things to look at yes ma'am thank Thank you, Ms. Sizemore-Heiser.

[02:14:20] Dr. Anderson. - Thank you. Can you put back slide 17, please? I just want to make sure that that comes back up here because I appreciate both of what my colleagues shared.

[02:14:37] Definitely spot on. But we can't see the slide and not have questions regarding our economically disadvantaged students, our multilingual students, our students with disabilities, our black students, and our Hispanic students.

[02:14:55] I don't see the slide and not see, what is it in the words of Jason Morgan? Is he there? We have a revenue problem? We have an access problem. And this is the same slide that showed up last year. So yes, I am still on my target train because this does not just speak to choice because there's no way we have those students and those groups making the choice to do other things in these numbers.

[02:15:26] That to me does not compute. Thank you, Ms. Anderson. Ms. Lady. Yeah, I'll be brief. I made one other note to myself down here, and that was, have we ever given any consideration of teaching World History I and eighth grade?

[02:15:45] Because that will help your Advanced Studies diploma numbers, in my opinion. But we have surrounding jurisdictions who do this. Arlington does it, I believe. I think Prince William does it. I think that there are actually-- and I don't know what else they're doing, but there's a possibility that some of those students coming into high school with like three or four standard i mean um sol credit courses like they're coming in with like four high school credits so i'm just going to put that have we ever considered doing world history one in eighth grade i don't know but i will ask uh miss clemenco what i would say is i don't think we've ever put it forward to to seriously seriously consider it i think there's

[02:16:24] always been a question about how many high school courses do we want to push down in middle school where they start their their high school transcript it's something that could be discussed for sure well and i think along those lines because i can appreciate that but i think along those lines there are lots of colleges turn a blind eye to the grades that actually are generated from high school courses in middle school just like we have some college like university of delaware if you get the advanced study and you take spanish one in eighth grade and then spanish two and ninth and spanish three and tenth you're not eligible to go to delaware because you didn't take three years of oral language at the high school level right so there's all these kind of

[02:17:02] intricacies which again i'm going to advocate for better professional development for our counselors around college preparation and how it differs stanford doesn't even look at ninth grade right not that i'm sending kids to stanford but i'm just saying that there's so many different ways that things are evaluated but what you hear more often than not is that the middle school grades while people perseverate on them because they're part of a gpa um they're not as much of the evaluation from a college reader's perspective so I just think we should check it out and we can ask more and more of our colleges what their thoughts are I don't want to you know run with scissors um but I do think it it's it's not hurting our surrounding jurisdictions it's actually helping some of those

[02:17:42] kids and and helping them get to the advanced studies diploma which is one of the things we're talking about thank you yes ma'am it would be interesting too to Dr. Anderson's point if we're doing some practices in some parts of the county and some not that are disproportionately impacting Students so I will make sure we take a close look. Thank you miss lady. Miss Anderson I just have a quick question, and I'm learning in public a little bit here I'm hoping it's not something. I'm supposed to already know is And is the diploma type one of the new things that's in the accountability and accreditation

[02:18:20] Standards I know that advanced level courses or dual enrollment are part of it I don't know about the new or the differentiated diploma types. I'm still sort of learning these multiple diploma types coming from a state that didn't have them.

[02:18:36] We had a diploma, not diploma types. No. OK, so that would be another reason why focusing on advanced coursework and not necessarily just diploma type would probably be an important thing across the county. Certainly to the extent that we need to get these numbers in a better place, that it's cohesive across the board or a better representation for what is appropriate for our kids.

[02:18:59] and that indicate access but I'm just maybe not focused on the actual type of diploma but focus on the access that's behind the diploma type I think is part of it well yes ma'am and I I think you know when you look at this chart that's up it's hard not to oscillate that there's something else going on absolutely that individual choice not not to speak for my colleague but I believe that that's what I mean it's hard to look at this and not recognize that they're the same the same patterns that we're seeing in a lot of our our issues and so i i want

[02:19:37] us to make sure that we're increasing that consistency and access opportunity that i think that we talk about every time we see a goal report because it is the same groups of kids that's that tend to have the larger gap that we're trying to to reach and so i understand the desire but i also am very cognizant of what miss lady was just talking about in terms of wanting to make sure that we're actually preparing kids for what they want to do in the future and giving them the opportunity and not being as worried about the diploma type so i do think some of this will be some of this access is resolved around mathematics and i will be sharing a little more about our

[02:20:17] light bulb data project which really um really put shine the light hate to say it but shine a light on a variety as we sat even in senior leadership and looked at students data points it was very surprising there were a number of students that actually by data were better prepared to be in the next most rigorous course who weren't then students who actually were and we you know we can theorize that parents advocated to put them in or there was some methodology

[02:20:54] by which they were placed there, but there were many many students that we then met with students and families at the school staff level and moved them into the next most rigorous courses. So I think we're going to see these data points move as well as we really dial down to the student level at each school and that's the level we're working at right now.

[02:21:14] I'm so excited to hear more about that as we move forward because I really think that Particularly as we talk more and more about how much of math as we know it right now is review and how lost kids get in the boredom of factor of it where math really should just be exciting and fun.

[02:21:33] But yes, I so I really want those opportunities that we can push kids so that they have the staff that can push kids even when they may not have those cheerleaders at home for lots of different reasons. and so I think that to Miss Lady's point as well having that that eye towards professional development for our counselors so that they can be part of the driving force behind that push is important yes ma'am thank you Miss Anderson Mr Dunn I guess I'd like to understand whether there's a formal plan and maybe it's you know within the scope of the strategic plan but is

[02:22:12] there something written down saying you know for these groups black hispanics multilingual learners or economically disadvantaged, that we are, you know, here today, and by 2030 we want to be there. And this is the way that we will, you know, have it.

[02:22:32] I don't know if you'll be able to achieve, you know, parity with white students and Asian students by 2030, but, you know, if we cut the difference in half, right, that would be significant, right? and that's what I'm trying to understand, like how formalized for these groups, which may reflect historical legacies, but now we're at a point where we need to overcome those historical legacies and make sure every child is receiving a world-class education.

[02:23:03] And in my experience, at least, unless you have a plan, you can't really get anywhere. - We reviewed goal plans for goal five, actually yesterday afternoon, and there were some very clear plans, and we want to vet those plans, right, and that those goal teams include central office and principal school-based teams and central teams.

[02:23:27] And as we vet those strategies, then it's full bore ahead, just like we've done with a number of other topics I've reported on this year. You have a generic on slide 22, a generic pursuing strategies, too, but we have some very specific data tables that I probably won't share in a more public setting, but could at a different setting that are very directive and very specific.

[02:23:56] And we've got attributes of what those theory of action plans look like. Yesterday, I was really impressed. We went through lots of our multilingual learner plan, and that gold champion team did a really nice job about separating, I think it was policies, Persons and practices the three piece and so not just and I was just really proud of them because they're not just talking about Professional development or policy changes, but what actually is going to happen and how is it actually going to look different?

[02:24:29] So I think we're going to continue to make the progress I mean we had some double-digit gains here in goal five in a number of areas. So I think you'll see a lot more detail very shortly. What I'd really like to see is, you know, as as under your leadership in the school board, you know, we reestablish Fairfax County as a gold standard for public education. My frustrations coming into this is that there just seemed to be so much more art than science, and we've been educating people for hundreds of years. We should be able to apply a scientific approach, right?

[02:25:02] There's innumerable research studies, and it sounds like you are putting together, you know, a roadmap map to success to student achievement to overcome these disparities that have existed for decades. And I would just ask that as you're going down that path, that you document what you're doing so that we can then publish our results and how we achieve that so that other school systems can follow our model, assuming our model is successful, because we should not leave others in the dark where we can be the light. Yes sir I appreciate that I think one of the

[02:25:41] things that the team here for example we talked about SAT scores we have over 70 percent of our students taking the assessment and still maintaining a higher score than the commonwealth the country and the world and in the commonwealth there are around 50 percent of eligible students taking it so when you think about 70 percent that's around opportunity access and the scores are excellent.

[02:26:06] RIGHT SO THE TEAM THAT'S SITTING OVER HERE AND THE SCHOOL-BASED TEAM THAT THEY REPRESENT ARE DOING INCREDIBLE WORK AND SO ANY HOW I APPRECIATE THAT AND I'LL MAKE SURE THAT WE CONTINUE THAT PATH THANK YOU THANK YOU MR. DUNN WILL THE CLERK PLEASE PLACE

[02:26:22] THE MOTION ON THE SCREEN ALL THOSE IN FAVOR OF THE MOTION AS LISTED ON BOARD DOCS AND IN THE AGENDA ITEM AND ON THE SCREEN MS. MARIN MR. MCLEVEAN MISS ANDERSON MISS SEIZEMER HEISER MR. DUNN MR. MOON

[02:26:58] MS. LADY, MS. ST. JOHN CUNNING AND MYSELF WITH TWO COLLEAGUES AWAY FROM THE TABLE. ALL THOSE OPPOSED, DR. ANDERSON, ABSTENTIONS. WILL THE CLERK READ THE VOTE? THE VOTE IS 9-1. THE MOTION CARRIES. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THANK YOU, DR. REED.

[02:27:30] I CALL ON CHAIR FRESH FOR, I'M SORRY, 5.05 ACTION ITEM, AWARD OF CONTRACT SOLAR POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENT AT 15 ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SITES. I CALL ON CHAIR FRESH FOR A MOTION.

[02:27:47] i move that the school board approve the implementation of a rooftop solar power purchase program at 15 elementary school sites and authorize the division superintendent or the chief operating officer to execute deliver and administer the contract on behalf of the school board is there a second i second chair fresh would you like to speak to your motion yes this was on the consent agenda and i pulled it off for two real reasons one to highlight the progress we're making on the school board's critical jet climate and carbon neutrality goals another is to elevate the student inspired work were it not for the passion of our students

[02:28:25] advocating for solar on the schools we probably would not be here today and and so where are we today here's where we stand our one school pilot project is finished nine more schools are in design and going to permitting next month and tonight we will approve 25 more schools which should be finished with design permitting and installation in the next 12 to 18 months that's 17 more elementary schools five more middle schools and three more high schools and it was not easy getting here we faced a lot of hurdles we had trouble finding the right partners

[02:29:03] then in 2022 dominion energy revised its interconnection requirements which freaked a lot of people out in virginia because they would have significantly impacted the costs of solar projects across the commonwealth particularly for those being planned by school divisions and local governments the change risked exploding the costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars perhaps even millions of dollars for different projects and it created a lot of uncertainty and so how our staff responded to these challenges tells the story that we should be talking about tonight because they

[02:29:37] did it incredibly smart to keep the ball moving forward and to save us money in the process they planned these projects to fall beneath dominion's 250 kilowatt threshold for that interconnection rule so these projects will not be impacted by that price gouging and by the way our friends in richmond are working to address that that gouging additionally our staff negotiated this is my favorite thing a rate with an escalation uh they negotiated an escalation rate of zero

[02:30:09] over the next 25 years that means that the rates we pay today will be the rates we pay until 2050. I'm sure some of us will still be on the board then. All of this ties back to the incredible energy conservation work that we've been doing in FCPS to be good stewards of the community's tax dollars for years. Since 2014, FCPS has reduced its energy use by 31 percent, surpassing the goal set 10 years ago for a 20 percent reduction and resulting in more than

[02:30:45] 100 million dollars in savings. These energy efficiency measures have resulted in a substantial decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to sustainability and helping us combat climate change. So I want to thank Dr. Reed for helping to get our jet work moving again. These solar projects are evidence of that. I want to especially thank our Office of Division Council, our Office of Procurement Services, and in particular, Janice Szymanski and the entire sustainability team within the Office of Facilities Management. None of this incredible work would have been possible without

[02:31:19] your tireless incredible and innovative work so thank you would you like to speak to your second yes this has been a long time in the works it's been four years 2021 and unfortunately that theme of things taking a really long time in fairfax county seems to permeate a lot of things so i i'm really pleased that we have the fortitude to go on but if we want to establish green goals THAT WE WANT TO MEET AND SAVE MONEY, WE CAN'T TAKE FOUR YEARS TO DO THIS KIND OF PROJECT.

[02:31:59] THAT SAID, WE PLAN TO HAVE A SAVINGS OF THREE MILLION DOLLARS OVER THIS TIME. AND I DO WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THAT BECAUSE ONE OF THE THINGS DURING OUR BUDGET ADVOCACY RIGHT NOW TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS IS SAYING THAT WE HAVE BECOME AS LEAN AS WE CAN TO INCLUDE SAVING OVER 800 MILLION DOLLARS SPANNING THE LAST TEN YEARS AND THOSE CATEGORIES INCLUDE compensation savings, class size increases, fee increases, we've been able to do some things but we are always trying to look for savings and so we did send a statement today

[02:32:38] to the Board of Supervisors about our budget advocacy saying look we've done what we can, we need the funding to fund what our executive has told us to do. So I will let one of my colleagues speak more to that letter later but this is just such a prime example of how we are trying to do the right things in this school division by students by employees by the environment and by taxpayer dollars.

[02:33:01] So and I also do just want to highlight that further down on the consent agenda we do have even more schools listed to get solar on the school. So this is just fabulous and thank you to Miss Zemansky and her team. Mr. Dunn.

[02:33:17] Well I think anyone who has studied the utility sector and has looked at projected rates for electric use in Virginia and see how they're expected to skyrocket as the number of data centers continues to explode would be grateful for having stable electric rates for the next 25 years.

[02:33:45] And I think, you know, this isn't just beneficial from a climate change carbon emissions perspective, This is fiscally responsible and I appreciate the enormous efforts that have been made to save money because when you save money this comes out of the operating budget and that operating budget is the same budget that funds teacher salaries and other popular things.

[02:34:08] So I wanted to emphasize that this makes sense from a taxpayer's perspective as well as from an environmental perspective and that's why we should continue to explore every avenue TO SAVE MONEY AND BE MORE SUSTAINABLE IN OUR OPERATIONS.

[02:34:25] THANK YOU. SEEING NO OTHER SPEAKERS, I WILL CALL FOR A VOTE FOR THE MOTION ON THE SCREEN. ALL THOSE IN FAVOR, LOOKS UNANIMOUS FOR EVERYONE PRESENT WITH MR. MCDANIEL AND MYSTIC SIT AWAY FROM THE TABLE.

[02:34:44] ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. AGENDA ITEM 6.01, ACADEMIC MATTERS, I CALL ON DR. REED.

[02:35:09] LOTS OF EXCITEMENT THIS EVENING. Our Academic Matters segment focuses on advancement via individual determination, or our AVID program, and how our recent efforts to expand AVID directly support our school division's strategic plan.

[02:35:26] As many of you both on the board and at home know, AVID is a K-12 college and career readiness program backed by over 40 years of research in teaching and learning. It prepares students for success by equipping them with the skills to navigate rigorous academic courses which connects to our earlier report and prepares them for future college and/or career trajectories.

[02:35:50] AVID implementation in FCPS has grown considerably over the last few years. In the upcoming school year, we had 23 additional schools that are going to come on board, 21 of which are Title I elementary schools. This will bring the total number of AVID schools to 76, and the link in the slide provides a breakdown of where our AVID schools and FCPS are.

[02:36:14] It's actually really an exciting time in our school division to see all of the younger students coming on board, where they set those patterns early, and the foundational skills that are so critical to closing opportunity gaps.

[02:36:30] At both the elementary and secondary level, AVID is designed to be a school-wide model where teachers use high engagement strategies in daily instruction and you can also see that there are certain strategies often called the wicker strategies which are embedded and are really helpful across the board for students the avid elementary program lays a foundation of essential skills necessary for future success and provides a rigorous learning environment it's really been exciting to visit some of these schools and visit with students as they explain how it's made a difference for them finally the ultimate goals of

[02:37:10] avid secondary build again essential skills necessary for academic life and career success avid tutorials are a core avid strategy that supports students as they access higher level courses and as you can see in the picture from an avid middle school class a tutorial group includes five to seven students and an AVID tutor who helps facilitate the inquiry process. Students bring a point of confusion from their core classes to AVID if they can find a point of confusion and with the help of their collaborative group they present their question and work through a structured process to gain a deeper understanding

[02:37:48] of the content and honestly it's a great way of showing their thinking and making learning more visible and I think that's just a really key strategy for group work later in life as well. So these programs are only possible with high-level professional learning, which is where a lot of the cost for the AVID program also exists. Educators who attend AVID Summer Institute and they train and collaborate with their school teams to establish their SIP aligned site goals for implementation. In fact, I asked one of the principals this

[02:38:25] morning at all county principals meeting, I was asking what fun summer plans do you have it was our Mount Vernon Woods principal actually I said so what fun summer plans and she said well our school team's going to AVID and I thought well that's exciting right to get to get away and do AVID professional development so I just think that the time our staff spends during the summer to work on their craft is what makes so many of our principals and educators be able to do the magic they do during the year. So anyhow, lots of excitement. You can see some of

[02:39:02] the comments here and the work that staff are putting into this. We also know that AVID supports the FCPS strategic plan, and I'm really pleased to share the data on the screen because both our strategic plan and the AVID program are committed to excellence, equity, and opportunity. At the secondary level, the AVID elective is designed to improve and provide academic support to students who are engaged in rigorous coursework. Many of the AVID schools have incorporated AVID into their individual school innovation and improvement plans. And this year, over

[02:39:39] 74% of AVID 8th graders are enrolled in Algebra 1 or higher, which is seven points higher than the division-wide average and the division-wide percentage. In addition, 86% of AVID seniors have taken at least one APIB or DE course. When you include honors courses in that equation, the percentage increases to 97%. So I think as we talked about the slides in Goal 5, AVID, Mr. Dunn, is a very researched 40-year practice to improve strategies for access. And this is one, this has been one of our key

[02:40:14] theories of action along this point of view. In FCPS, many AVID students are eligible for free and reduced price meals and are also enrolling in rigorous courses and planning to attend college at higher rates. So here are some thoughts or if you will students, staff and families and one of the things I know that as we visited elementary schools it's really fun to have elementary students explain their binders how they're organized and they like to hold them up and shake them and nothing falls out which would be different than the binders I recall toting around as a student when you had to kind of hold it

[02:40:52] this way so that the papers didn't drop out. The teachers and counselors can cite how AVID complements division initiatives like Benchmark and how its organizational systems and structures have increased school to family communication. I just think that we also have a father of three AVID students who shared how grateful he was for the impact AVID has had on his entire family. I just think being organized is such a key skill to learn and that personal management of our materials from a young age really matters. And as we transition next

[02:41:29] year to recognizing homework again is an important and key aspect of our educational experience, the AVID program really is going to provide some structure in how we do that. So Chairman And Frisch, that would be academic matters this evening.

[02:41:47] Thank you, Dr. Reid. We'll get started with Ms. Sizemore-Heiser. Thank you. And I appreciate the presentation. I appreciate the hard work of staff and especially the staff at the schools who are employing the AVID program. I've heard really great things about the success stories. But in that realm, when you talk about sort of the proven data strategies, do we have data in our system when you're looking at a school where AVID was, like maybe before AVID got there and after AVID got there in terms of the difference it made?

[02:42:12] be good to sort of or maybe comparing schools with similar populations that do and do not have AVID. So I'm wondering if we have any of that data ourselves. Well, we did look at data on slide six, and that's not preschool and post school. But I know we've been keeping some of that data related to school improvement plans.

[02:42:31] Dr. Ponce, do we have some that you could kind of put your hands on data around schools that have implemented AVID, maybe how their performance is improved after? from before or Dr. Presidio, do we have anything like that that we've collected?

[02:42:49] We could run it. We definitely have access to that data, so we could do that analysis would be helpful. So we could provide something to get back to you on that. I've just heard anecdotally so much about it. And these numbers are fantastic, but it would be good to kind of see, you know, how is what's the difference in terms of the schools that have and don't.

[02:43:08] So, yeah, if you if you can, that would be great. Just as we're looking at continual improvement of our programming, I am. Again I've heard great things about the AVID program I've visited some of the classrooms and the teachers and staff have talked about it. I am a little surprised that the presentation has zero mention of executive functioning skills because I know in the last four or five years when I've talked about the importance of executive functioning skills and embedding them in our classrooms.

[02:43:33] One thing that's often been brought up to me is AVID as a place that they're taught and practiced. But I know we talk about the Wicker skills and that's probably what it's built around. But right in the presentation and I bring this up because we we talk often about those learn to learn skills and executive functioning skills and how they underlie a student so much of a student's ability to be successful.

[02:43:53] Right. And yet we don't talk about it much outside of the special ed realm. And the reality is that executive functioning skills are important for every student. Right. So I'm just surprised at the missing piece of that here. So I'm curious. Are they taught it?

[02:44:09] it sounds like the bind organization is but are they taught in that including the self-regulation and planning and all that or are they not well i think the planning obviously the goal setting is a part of avid and clearly the wicker strategies are scaffolded organizational skills in terms of the intersectionality between executive functioning skills and avid i think there is a strong intersectionality um dr presidio do you maybe want to elaborate on that yeah absolutely and i i appreciate the question because there is some overlap as you mentioned for sure with executive

[02:44:48] functioning skills through the wicker strategies and habit very specifically when we talk about collaboration skills when we talk about organizational skills but we also know that executive functioning and teaching executive functioning has been a priority for our school system for the last several years so we didn't want to give the impression that we're adequately covering executive functioning skills with just the AVID program and we don't have the AVID program right now in every one of our schools so we didn't make that connection but there's definitely a connection here what I will say is that through our advisory program and through

[02:45:23] and that's responsive advisory at the elementary and then our advisory program at middle school and high school we do have explicit executive functioning skills as part of that curriculum at every grade level and even in the schools that don't have AVID we've embedded the wicker strategies into advisory so that they're getting those note-taking skills study skills as well be it advisory that's great to hear and I appreciate that I just the reason I bring that up is because one thing I know we're trying to work on dr. Reed is kind of ending the siloing some of these conversations so having that kind of embedded throughout different areas where those skills are actually focused on.

[02:46:00] It's sort of a very natural way to end some of that siloing. So that's why I'm glad it's an advisory because that's another way to do it. But I think it's important to name it as we do it so that way it doesn't get all executive functioning that's for this group and this is for this group because I think it's an important thing for all families to realize too.

[02:46:18] So I just wanted to put that out there as something that I would have loved to see in this presentation. I have a question also on slide two. talks about how these strategies for both elementary and secondary are embedded in elementary says into instructional routines and existing curriculum in secondary it says incorporated into trained site team members classes school strategies could you talk a little bit more about what how that looks embedded because one of the things I've talked for many years is we can't do these types of skills in isolation so I'd love to learn more about how it's taken from Abbott embedded throughout the day because that's what this unless if I misread that let me know but that's what this implies to me yes ma'am thank you it's a great

[02:46:57] question because I think not again this is a trained site team members classes so I don't know that the input maybe the implication is broader than what the problem maybe I'm mr. in the slab that's what it came across to me yes no no you're not misreading it at all and perhaps we oversold it a little bit but I hope not because I do believe that this is happening school-wide the main reason that we chose to emphasize that point is I think sometimes when people are familiar with AVID they just think about the tutorials that we focused on in some of the other slides and those are really important for the students that are taking that elective class but not all of our students in the school

[02:47:35] take an AVID elective class right so again as part of the training the AVID staff work with our faculty to talk about how do you take particularly those wicker skills the writing skills the reading skills collaboration the inquiry skills right the organization skills and how do you teach those and embed those and reinforce those skills in all of the classes in the school so at the secondary level you can think about trying to do that you know focus note taking in a social studies class or a science class for example at the elementary level you can think about those teachers you know it's actually probably in some ways easier because it's one teacher with the same kids all day long so they can find the appropriate places to build on those

[02:48:12] practices that they're being trained by the avid staff with I appreciate that I just would love to maybe another date some more information about how it's KIND OF STRATEGICALLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY BEING DONE BECAUSE I DO THINK THAT'S A REALLY IMPORTANT POINT. YOU CAN'T PRACTICE AND TEACH THESE SKILLS IN ISOLATION. I THINK IT HAS LIMITED ACADEMIC IMPACT. SO PERHAPS A LATER DATE YOU SOME MORE INFORMATION HOW THAT SYSTEMATIC EMBEDDING IS HAPPENING. BUT GREAT PROGRAM, GREAT PRESENTATION. I APPRECIATE IT. THANK YOU, MS. SEIZEMERHEISER. MR. DUNN. CAN YOU ELABORATE JUST ON WHETHER THIS PROGRAM IS

[02:48:46] FULLY IMPLEMENTED AT ALL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ALL SECONDARY SCHOOLS FOR THE SCHOOLWIDE MODELS THAT ARE DESCRIBED IN THE SLIDE? YES, SIR. IT IS CURRENTLY NOT AT ALL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND ALL SECONDARY SCHOOLS. WE HAVE BEEN ADDING NUMBERS, I KNOW, FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS, AND THERE IS A COST ATTACHED TO IMPLEMENTING AVID AT A PARTICULAR SCHOOL.

[02:49:11] And I don't know, again, whether it's Dr. Ponce or Dr. Presidio's office that has those growth numbers. We really worked through Title One. We want to make sure AVID was going to be provided at all Title One elementary schools. But and I can't recall how many we've added.

[02:49:27] I know we're adding 23 additional schools for the coming year and 21 of the 23 we're adding in the coming year are going to be Title One schools. And as slide two, I believe, share it actually it's probably not up there but we have a total we'll have 76 of our 200 schools be avid schools by next year and i don't know where we started but we were a lot less than 76.

[02:49:53] well yeah i mean this year for example we're at approximately 50 so it's a pretty dramatic increase and i really appreciate the partnership with dr ponce's team because the title one office sits in his department and we've really focused on expansion to all of our title one schools for next year so the academic office and the chief of schools office have been working together on this initiative would it be possible to receive a list of all the schools where it's implemented and and then a list of all the uh there and the experience that yeah that that link right there um does link to the list so we could publish that in the friday letter if that would be helpful but it is right there on the slide so i'm i'm proud to to be uh the representative for the mount vernon district

[02:50:33] because gunston elementary was the first elementary school and fcps that implemented avid elementary and it was actually the first elementary school that the founder of AVID witnessed AVID Elementary in action. So, you know, something I've seen is that AVID, I think, was originally designed or at least implemented within FCPS to assist Title I communities, low-income communities, but I'm seeing that the same lack of, and I'm hearing from many constituents, that at all income levels, just as kids today don't know how to program a VCR because it's a foreign technology,

[02:51:07] They also don't know how to get organized, how to take notes, like basic skills that we take for granted that we assume at a certain income level, kids know how to do in the post pandemic world, they don't, they just don't at really any income level. And so parents are coming to me and saying, Hey, where is the class where my kid learns to take notes? And I say, well, AVID, and they say that I go to my school counselor and, and I'm told that's not for my family, right?

[02:51:37] And so I do appreciate the expansion of this program, but I do encourage it to be implemented system-wide because I think, you know, in our digital world, unfortunately, we've lost many of the skills that used to be more taught, I guess, in a family setting or taught in elementary schools and might not be taught for whatever reason anymore.

[02:52:04] I appreciate that, and I think part of why we're providing this at Title I is because there are Title I funds to support the implementation and professional development, and we can provide that scale because I believe every student benefits from AVID.

[02:52:23] There's just no question about that. Where we're in this budget strap time over the last couple of years, Title I schools do have extra dollars to enable us to roll this out. And some schools have been able to carve that out of their budgets. But point taken, I was going to ask, how much is it for each school right now?

[02:52:46] Do we have a round number? I was trying to recall. Yeah, off the top of my head, I don't know. But we can get that. I apologize. I can get that for you in a Friday letter, but I think as we think about planning, definitely there's a plan, if not the whole AVID program, at least the WIC or strategies, you know, having those be something that are available across the board.

[02:53:09] Yeah, if you could share just the budget numbers of what that would cost to implement at every school system-wide, and maybe if there's a different cost at elementary versus middle versus high school versus secondary school, 7 through 12, that would be helpful to know. I'm also just concerned because our definition of what is a Title I school has changed significantly over time.

[02:53:28] And I think recent materials I saw said for a high school, you have to have 75% low income or more, which I think it used to be much, much lower, like half, right? I mean, I think if you have 51% low income, that's a Title I school. But it seems like we have differing definitions and we're stretching those Title I dollars more broadly.

[02:53:48] And so there are schools that are technically not Title I but might have a majority of low-income families and students. And so that's why we need to think more broadly, not just limiting it to Title I, understanding that there is a cost associated with it.

[02:54:04] But as with security improvements, these just seem elemental to providing students with the skills they need to succeed as well as be in a learning environment where they can focus on their academics. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Dr. Anderson?

[02:54:24] Thank you. I just want to echo a couple of things that I had here that my colleagues have have asked, but just want to just lend support to it. Nevertheless, one is the data that shows the impact of AVID. I think that's just important to show. I think anecdotally, I could speak to some of this data that is that are on what I don't know.

[02:54:44] Slide six, because the AVID program at Justice High School is one of the largest. And I had the opportunity to participate in their evaluation and having students who were graduates of the program come back and give back and speak about the benefits of the program and how prepared they were, how it helps with college applications, writing your college essay, all of the things, which is why I told my son, you're going into that elective because we don't have to do that at home if you're doing this at school.

[02:55:14] Having said that, the growth that you're talking about, the expansion of AVID at the secondary level, are these elective classes or just being embedded throughout other courses? So the growth, the 23 additional schools that are coming on board next year, 21 of those 23 are Title I elementary schools.

[02:55:36] So the remaining two are not Title I elementary schools. Do we know what they are, the remaining two schools? Someone have the presentation up and can link to it? I'm sorry it was real middle school might go in Centerville High School will those be elective courses or again just embedding the tenants into advisory however it is that we do it when it's not an elective class so Miss Clamenco what is our plan for those two schools so those are those schools are adding Abbott's they would be adding the elective everyone has it in their

[02:56:14] advisory um okay um thank you um the second point is one that mr dunn began to talk about which is you know our students don't know how to take notes honestly every year i buy my kids multiple notebooks to send to school expecting that they would utilize them at the end of the year they're blank because everything is done electronically how are parents to see some of the work that is being done to teach them some of those skills of note-taking because i don't think we're seeing that connection at home and I hope that Miss Merritt also speaks to this because we've had this conversation multiple times these wonderful things are

[02:56:53] supposed to be happening in the school but yet we don't know how to help support or to reinforce or even request that our kids show this learning that they're doing that should be organizing them for the you know very very long future ahead of them as adults and learners so great question I know Miss Burton and I share an excitement for the Cornell notes notepad because that's what we learn to use and it's actually like serious excitement when we have our Cornell notepad but miss Clemenco do you want to respond to the more specific

[02:57:31] question when students are digital I find that I often am hearing that and we both have heard some of that I think in our parent quad meetings that it's hard for parents sometimes to find those digital footprints to have those conversations. I know I agree I mean a lot of students a lot of your probably your children and students find that taking notes on their computer is the way that they prefer and I think it leaves a lot of us who learned in a different way in a place where it's a little bit hard to we can't see it and it's hard to understand if it's as effective as what we did when the hand

[02:58:08] with our own handwriting. I think that the process of note-taking, you know, as we embed the AVID strategies into advisory, they can be introduced there, but students practicing is something we would probably have to look at to be more explicit about. I could not name for you exactly where that is happening. Okay, so that raises another question, particularly in the classes and in the schools in which it is not an elective, it's just embedded through advisory to teach the skills, What is the expectation of the division in terms of how those skills will then show up in other classes?

[02:58:45] Because without a stated expectation, you get what you get. Yes, ma'am. Dr. Ponce, do you want to explain how that is showing up? Yes. Well, I know that the first question was how we support and work with the parents.

[02:59:02] Something that we have been working with the regions. We have an AVID night out, where it's kind of festival where the parents are able to see the project of the children, the binder, what they have.

[02:59:17] So I know we started this year. Next year is going to be mandated for every single AVID. So that's going to be for the parents to know. And something else that we have been talking across, how we increase Cornell notes across.

[02:59:39] So I know that this is only a page that we can make copies and make sure that the students are being utilized across content areas. So this is something that we have been discussing and talking with all the six regions.

[02:59:54] SO WE'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO TO OBSERVE, IT'S GOING TO BE PART OF THE CONVERSATIONS THAT THE RASSES AND EPS WILL HAVE WITH EVERY SINGLE AVI SCHOOL. I'M JUST SORRY, JUST TO REITERATE, YOU'RE SAYING THAT NEXT YEAR THERE WILL BE SOME EXPECTATIONS REGARDING THE USAGE OF CORNEL NOTES?

[03:00:15] THAT'S CORRECT. AND EVERY SINGLE -- AND THIS WILL BE A PHYSICAL USE OF CORNEL NOTES OR ELECTRONIC USAGE? SAY IT AGAIN? PHYSICAL PAPER OR ELECTRONIC? both but physical paper is gonna be number one so we can observe and give feedback right straight and we all know that the research shows also when you write something down there's a there's a connection that really embeds the learning a little bit deeper and we are always looking for opportunities to reduce screen time and so I think there's a benefit here that we could certainly take advantage of and that is correct especially for the multilingual

[03:00:53] as soon as you see a multilingual how they take the pen you can make an inference what kind of support we need to give to that student and so I will look for those AVID night outs because I'm very interested in that and I look forward to your plan for next year's use of Cornell notes across the schools that have AVID thank you thank you Dr. Anderson Miss St. John Cunning so I just want to say that throughout the years that I've been in schools I've seen so So many students really take advantage of this program, and I've seen the success that

[03:01:30] it has engendered in them, and I'm really glad to see that it's been expanding and that it's starting at -- and that it's moving to elementary schools, because that's where we lay the foundation. I just wanted to bring up that when we did our mock forum topics with our school board leadership cohorts, one of our students, Sergio, that was his forum topic.

[03:01:51] He said, "I love Abbott. It was great, and we've got to expand it. We have to have more AVID programs so that more kids can take it. And I think that's the best testament. I think sometimes we sit here and we talk about what we think should happen.

[03:02:06] But I think that when our students are telling us that it's working, that's when we need to listen. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Ms. St. John Cunningham. Mr. Moon? Thank you.

[03:02:21] Ms. St. John Cunningham's question just prompted me to ask you this question first. Do we have a waiting list for AVID, for the secondary level? schools that want to become avid schools? Avid schools with the elective classes on the secondary level. We have a waiting list where students are not able to enroll in classes. I mean we have a limited number of the tutorial sections for sure. I think the number of students that might signal interest to enroll in those sections is going to vary by school so off the top of my head I wouldn't

[03:02:57] know. We'd have to consult with the DSS's and the principals at each of the schools. Okay when you said tutorial sections could you explain about sections yes I think there's two big buckets that we're trying to point out in this presentation about AVID there's the tutorial class that students can take at the middle school and the high school level so that's a period that they would take like as an elective class so when I'm referring to sections I'm saying how many sections of those classes are offered at each school and there's going to be some variance from school to school and I just don't know that off the top of my head but the other thing that we do in our Abbott schools recognizing that the strategies

[03:03:36] are good for all of the students is we work on embedding those strategies school-wide so reinforcing the note-taking strategies for example the critical reading strategies by training all of the teachers in the school to be able to use those strategies with their students in their own classes separate from the tutorial classes. Can the secondary level if you know these classes are elective where they are offering elective classes I mean we seem to have 13 middle and 13 high and two secondary all together 28 as of this year for the secondary level those are elective classes that's one full period

[03:04:16] if they have a block scheduling is every other day if am I understanding that correctly yes sir and and today have like a set of curriculum yes the students go through and then when you say sections in each that elective class they will devote certain amount of time for tutorials the classes I'm still lost no sections no you're you're explaining it perfectly well so when I say sections I mean the class that the student is taking the AVID class that the student

[03:04:54] is taking third period for example right you had asked the question about do we have a waiting list yes at certain schools so what I was trying to say is the number of students that want to take that class at each of our avid secondary schools is gonna vary and I don't know that data off the top of my head so schools will staff the number of sections that they can offer of that class based on student interest and staff availability so there's going to be some variance from school to school okay since you mentioned my tutorial are Are you trying to say that there are AVID classes just devoted to tutorials?

[03:05:33] The AVID class is the tutorial class. So they're doing a number of different things in that class. Some was what we tried to illustrate on the slide where you saw the five students working with the teacher on a point of confusion that a student had in one of their classes.

[03:05:49] So they're practicing their critical thinking skills, their problem-solving skills as the tutor works the group through that point of confusion sometimes there's direct instruction on some of the wicker strategies in the class sometimes there's individual support for students the the tutor working with the students sometimes it's peers working to support each other so there's a lot of different things that happen in the avid tutorial class so what kind of teachers get to teach every classes um well again i mean it could be somebody from any different discipline

[03:06:24] who's really interested and passionate about working with students in this way so again i mean it's going to vary from school to school there's not just one type or one certification that you would have but you do have to be trained by the avid organization you know for example if if in in the class if there are different students with different needs to focus on that if a teacher needs to be able to help those students whether it's a computer or it's a writing skills or or some

[03:06:55] some other needs then students a teacher should be really multi-talented to be able to work with all those different students with different needs i mean it's kind of a jack of all trades in a lot of ways yeah all right what's the average class size is just like any other elective class no it's about half the size typically or less. So that that is where we are putting in additional resources. Yes. Not just PD but also the staffing ratio. I mean I

[03:07:33] have a feeling that in those classes the relationship between the teachers and students gotta be very close because you know teachers will have to understand needs of each and every students in their class to provide what the students may be seeking or maybe needing yes and students got to be able to trust got to be able to go to teachers tell teachers that by the way i need some help in this area etc yeah we hear a lot of really positive feedback from the students not just about the strategies that they learn but the support from that trusted teacher that trusted adult in the school yes i i mean that having that kind of

[03:08:10] relationship is needed for everyone in every school not just in those in the elective every AND JUST ANOTHER PLUG FOR ADVISORY, THAT'S ONE OF THE, YOU KNOW, OBJECTIVES OF THE ADVISORY PROGRAM IS TO DEVELOP THOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH ONE TRUSTED ADULT FOR EVERY STUDENT IN THE SCHOOL.

[03:08:31] BUT THEY DON'T MEET EVERY DAY JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER DAY. BUT THAT'S TRUE OF ANY CLASS, THEY MEET EVERY OTHER DAY, YEAH, ON A BLOCK SCHEDULE, YEAH. OKAY, THANK YOU. THANK YOU, MR. MOON.

[03:08:48] MS. LADY. THANK YOU. JUST TO PIGGYBACK ON SOME OF MR. MOON'S QUESTIONS, I THINK I CAN HAVE SOME, OFFER SOME INSIGHT TO. Since I was at Chantilly when we implemented AVID, people need to understand it's a commitment to a program and you commit to the elective in 9th grade, in 10th grade, in 11th grade, in 12th grade.

[03:09:10] You don't just take an AVID elective if it fits in one year. It is a program of studies. It builds upon itself. The different grade levels, they introduce different things that are essential for college success. One of the most difficult things we ran into was kids willing to give up a period every year so they can participate in the program.

[03:09:34] I do believe that the larger the program is at a given high school, the more interested kids are in doing it. So I think when you see discrepancies, a lot of it has to do with the fact like Chantilly has an academy. Chantilly has a robust performing arts program.

[03:09:51] There are other things that will compete. But I want to continue to push on the need to train all teachers in AVID strategies so that they can be utilizing them instructionally.

[03:10:07] I've shared this before, but when I worked at TJ as a school counselor, we had IBIT, right? So integration of biology, English, and technology. As a counselor, all of my freshmen were in the same IBIT. I could walk into any of those classes, and those were my kids, A to Z.

[03:10:22] We spent the first month of school doing executive functioning. We taught them how to, because a lot of these kids just absorbed material and didn't have to even reflect on it because they were so gifted. But I also want to talk about homework. We've talked about this in governance, that we, as those of us on governance, are very interested in seeing homework be a part of every student's experience starting in kindergarten, first grade.

[03:10:49] Practice your letters. Practice writing numbers because we're building routines. What we have done is we've gotten away from those practices and we also have kids because of these distractions who aren't listening intently in class. So I can teach you how to take notes all I want to, but if you don't listen and then engage in the practice, you're not going to enhance your learning.

[03:11:12] So when it comes to homeroom experiences in elementary and advisories in middle and high school, we need to be embedding this instruction because it's crucial. AND IT DOES BUILD UPON ITSELF BASED ON HOW COURSES GET HARDER FOR STUDENTS AND HOW YOU INTRODUCE WORLD LANGUAGE VERSUS DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SCIENCE BECAUSE YOU HAVE DIFFERENT STRATEGIES WITHIN THAT.

[03:11:33] BUT I JUST WANT MY COLLEAGUES TO UNDERSTAND, AVID IS GREAT, BUT IT'S A MAJOR COMMITMENT WITHIN A STUDENT'S SCHEDULE. BUT IF WE CAN TRAIN ALL OF OUR TEACHERS ON THOSE STRATEGIES, HOPEFULLY THEY CAN START TO EMBED THEM LIKE PORTS OF A GRADUATE AND ALL OF THE KIDS WILL BE GETTING THAT EXPOSURE.

[03:11:50] SO THANK YOU. Thank you, Miss Lady. Ms. Sawant. Thank you. So I love AVID. I talk about it all the time, and that's because I hear from other high school students about how it affects them, how they go through that program. And actually, Sergio, who mentioned AVID at that forum, when we got to the discussion, half the students were like, what's AVID?

[03:12:09] I don't know what that is. So we had to start by explaining it to them. And a lot of students tell me, I wish I had AVID. I wish I was able to do that. And one thing that Sergio mentioned is that at his school, students do have to apply into that program. Centerville, which has a bigger AVID program. And so I'm really excited that we're having AVID programs that title one elementary schools.

[03:12:28] But I'm wondering if there is a plan to expand it to more of our high schools, if not in the next school year, the school year after that, because the students who take it have really good things to say about it. And all our research schools have the College and Career Center. But having that teacher that you can make that relationship with and that connection over four years is different.

[03:12:46] It is. I am not aware of a plan at this time to increase it at high school. unless no I we do not currently have a plan for further expansion any particular high school who would like to do that certainly can and we would support that but there isn't a plan in place at this time we've been really focused on the elementary the last two years and then my other question since most of these elementary schools are title one is this implementation next school you're going to be affected at all by the budget and what happens to that it will BE IF THERE'S ANY LESSENING OF OUR TITLE I FUNDS.

[03:13:26] AS LONG AS WE RETAIN THE TITLE I ALLOCATION WE'VE BEEN RELYING ON, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ROLL THE NEW 21 SCHOOLS OUT. THANK YOU. YOU BET. I DO REMEMBER, THOUGH, MS. SAWANT THAT WE TALKED ABOUT ACCESS TO THE COLLEGE AND CAREER CENTER WAS ONE OF THE BIG PLATFORMS EVEN IN SAC AND HOW TO MORE EFFECTIVELY USE THOSE RESOURCES.

[03:13:47] SO I APPRECIATE THE COMMENT. THANK YOU, MS. SAWANT AND THANK YOU, DR. Agenda Item 7, Consent Agenda. Our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure, Roberts Rules, provide for a consent agenda listing several items for approval of the board by a single motion.

[03:14:03] Many items listed have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members in the public in advance. Items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any board member prior to the meeting. The consent agenda is being displayed on the screen. Is there any objection to approving the consent agenda?

[03:14:21] Seeing and hearing no objection, CONSENTA AGENDA IS THE CONSENT AGENDA IS APPROVED AGENDA ITEM 8 NEW BUSINESS THE FOLLOWING ON THE SCREEN ARE NEW BUSINESS AGENDA ITEMS THEY ARE NOT UP FOR A VOTE THIS EVENING BUT ACTION IS SCHEDULED FOR A FUTURE MEETING AGENDA ITEM 9 BOARD COMMITTEE REPORTS I CALL ON MISS SEIZE MARHEISER OUR BUDGET CHAIR FOR A BUDGET COMMITTEE REPORT SORRY THANK YOU VERY MUCH I APPRECIATE IT AND I I appreciate the chance to get an update on the budget committee report.

[03:14:57] We had a really great budget committee meeting work session on Tuesday of the Committee of the Whole. As a reminder, the budget committee is the entire school board and there is a chair and vice chair that helped facilitate the work. And also just as a reminder, the goal of the budget committee is to reflect the priorities of the board towards the superintendent and help work with the superintendent on a budget.

[03:15:18] In addition to our budget committee meeting, we had a great conversation about the crossroads that we're at and some of the talking points that we've then memorialized into a letter that we sent that our chair sent on behalf of the school board to the Board of Supervisors today where we respectfully reiterated our request for full funding of the advertised budget.

[03:15:36] And while we're waiting for the county to amend its advertised budget, currently its advertised budget is underfunding FCPS to the tune of $149 million or $120 million if the governor signs the current state budget proposal.

[03:15:52] As we've talked about in the meeting, our public schools really are the foundation of the county's strength, not just for centers of learning, centers of the community, but really the employment and economic engine of Fairfax, especially given the ongoing uncertainty at the federal level. FCPS is one of the most stable and trusted institutions that businesses and residents count on when choosing to relocate to Fairfax County.

[03:16:15] And yet, we talked about that we're at a crossroads now. Our student needs are increasing and the demands in our workforce continue to intensify. And we have unprecedented fiscal pressures. At the same time, we're asking to do more to prepare our students in an increasingly complex world.

[03:16:32] Over the past decade, we've implemented reductions, cost avoidances, and fee enhancements of more than $800 million to align with the funding levels we're provided. And in the meantime, we remain laser focused on the classroom with the bulk of our staff and our funding to the classrooms.

[03:16:50] Four things that we specifically asked about in our Board of Supervisors letters was we know that our Board of Supervisors are considering a food and beverage tax, which we really appreciate as a way to diversify the tax revenue in the county, but we're asking if they do have that tax that the revenue be given to the schools to help cover that deficit in funding.

[03:17:10] We're also asking for restoration of the proposed reductions of spending and programs that impacted the schools that were part of the county budget. This includes the middle school after school programs. We're asking them to restore the funds for that high school crossing guards and several other programs in the tune about 7.7 million.

[03:17:30] Given that we're currently at $149 million gap, it would be very difficult for the schools to absorb that additional 7.7 million. And then we're asking to look really at the county year end surplus and share that surplus in the same percentage as our county transfer, which I've heard is similar to what we did in the past.

[03:17:48] And at the crux of this all is I think as we're going into these tight budget years, we really need to focus on collaborative future budget planning and earlier in collaboration. We all, I think the board of supervisors and the board want to work together for what's best for the county.

[03:18:04] So that was sort of the crux of the letter that was sent. I look forward to hearing back for our chair from the county. A couple of things I wanted to mention that the bulk of our budget focuses on salaries and this increase for our teachers is really necessary because while we are about the middle of the pack for salaries now, the longer our teachers stay with us, the further they fall behind.

[03:18:25] So we really want to make sure that our budget keeps our experienced teachers because we cannot have excellent schools or excellent teachers. So thank you for the hard work of the team. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dunn for a report on the Comprehensive Planning and Development Committee.

[03:18:43] I can't promise to be as detailed and lengthy as my colleague. But I am excited to share that the Facilities Department provided detailed updates on various construction and renovation projects taking place at 15 schools across the county.

[03:19:03] This was prepared by the facility staff and will be shared shortly with all of my colleagues so that you can see what schools in your district, the great work being done by the facilities department. I also want to share with my colleagues that we've received a report on multiple, multiple queues that have been developed for everything from playgrounds to asphalt and this provided unique insight for the first time and just how many queues exist we have asked to receive more information on exactly how those schools were

[03:19:39] prioritized for each of those queues and examples of the spreadsheets the queues don't always result in work being done every year for every queue but it depends very much as with everything else on available funding we did ask for more detailed information and we will be getting that at the next CPDC meeting.

[03:20:01] In addition, CPDC approved a motion, though there was some initial debate about parliamentary procedure, but did approve a motion directing FPAC to revise its charter to incorporate the content into its bylaws, consistent with the direction received from the Public Engagement Committee.

[03:20:18] FPAC is seeking feedback from the school board on topics that they would like to see in next year's report specifically on memos that they that would be useful to school board members as we approach the CIP and other school board priorities. Finally we receive positive reports that outdoor classrooms currently under construction should be substantially completed by early May which I know will be very exciting for some of our colleagues who love outdoor classrooms. In addition the stadium bathrooms will also be completed estimated to be by late June which I

[03:20:56] know will be or late June early July which will be greatly appreciated by everyone who attends football and other outdoor athletic events thank you thank you mr. Dunn agenda item 10 superintendent matters I call on dr.

[03:21:12] Reid thank you chairman Frisch it's been a busy couple weeks and I say that because spring break there was a lot of activity here in Fairfax County Public schools during spring break i had a chance to visit pine springs elementary school which is one of our 31 schools that offered programs over spring break the two programs specifically were spring sprouts which was the pine springs and many other title one elementary schools where the staff worked on addressing chronic absenteeism and provided students many hours of attendance

[03:21:50] recovery options and it was really it was great to visit Pine Springs and see all the work going on and getting an opportunity to read a book or two with some of our young students and it's nothing can be more fun than that our blooming readers program also gave students in third grade or higher some extra support and literacy so it was really a lot of a lot of fun and want to congratulate the Bobcats for their strong work and all of the staff and families that supported that as well as transportation I've had the pleasure of

[03:22:26] attending several ribbon cuttings to celebrate building renovations being complete both at Frost Middle School and Oak Hill Elementary School and really appreciate our capital projects team design and construction and our facilities team that brought those programs in on time and then this week I had a fabulous visit at Oakton High School on Wednesday morning and talked with their robotics team and there's going to be a video coming out shortly because they have answered the eternal question that every math student has

[03:23:01] asked since the beginning of time when will I ever use this right so they were able to answer that so stay tuned spoiler alert it is it's an impressive group and just really excited to talk math and science and also shared with them my intent to recommend to you as a board a requirement for our students to be able to pass algebra trig prior to graduation and to a student in that group they're like they were surprised we didn't already require it and said that you know trig is just central to life itself so look forward to the

[03:23:38] video and uh that's my report this evening chairman fresh thank you dr reed did principal harris take you on the roof of frost middle school uh i declined that it was a uh it was a rainstorm the likes of which would have made seattle uh cringe he brought me up there it felt like it was starskies and hutch it was very took my life into my own hands i guess all right uh it is time for board matters agenda item 11 i call on miss st john cunning thank you yesterday our school community was shaken by a senseless act of violence at West Potomac

[03:24:14] High School of which 41% of families live in the Franconia District. My heart is with every staff member, student, and family affected. We're grateful the injured student is recovering and that swift action ensured the suspect was quickly taken into custody. To those who witnessed the altercation and are processing the trauma of what they saw, please know your reactions are valid.

[03:24:38] This kind of experience can leave a lasting impact and we are committed to ensuring mental health supports are in place for everyone who needs them. In moments of crisis, the first priority is always to protect students and staff. I want to commend the team at West Potomac for their calm, decisive response under incredibly difficult circumstances.

[03:25:00] As a parent and former school employee, I understand how distressing it is to be on the outside during a lockdown. You're desperate for information. In an era of instant alerts and viral video, uncertainty can deepen fear. We must follow emergency protocols first, protecting students and staff before sharing information that is accurate, verified, and responsibly communicated.

[03:25:25] Now we must look forward, not just at what happened, but why, and what we can change. We must review the incident and assess where the protocols worked and where they can be strengthened. We must look at how we're investing in school security and whether we are maximizing limited resources in the most effective way.

[03:25:43] And we must engage directly with students around conflict resolution, emotional health, and digital responsibility. Too often we see a culture of spectatorship, phones raised instead of hands extended. This has to change.

[03:25:59] When I visited West Potomac this morning, I saw a community hurting, but also one that was calm and resilient. this board owes them more than thoughts we owe them actions please hug your kids tonight thank you miss st. John Cunning miss lady thank you miss st. John Cunning for those remarks I also want to share my condolences for the passing of Janie Strauss long time Drain'sville school board member Janie was a preschool and elementary teacher advocate PTA president and mother of four FCPS students she was appointed the school board in 1991 as that large

[03:26:38] school board member where she served for two years when the county moved to an elected school board, Janie was elected as a Doreensville District Representative in 1996, where she served for 24 years through 2020. In tandem with her husband Bill, she promoted arts in the Fairfax County Public Schools community with their work to create the CAPI's Critics and Awards Program, an international program launched in Fairfax County Public Schools.

[03:26:59] Recognizes, celebrates, and provides learning experience for high school theater and journalism students and teenage playwrights. Speaking of the arts, it is high school and middle school spring production time. To view the possible 2025 Cappies nominees, check out Langley's High School's Mousetrap and/or TJ's Big Fish this weekend, or Hernan High School's Footloose, McLean High School's Amelie, TJ's Big Fish, and Westfield's Sound of Music next weekend.

[03:27:27] Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. I was honored to be part of the DMV areas Unto Every Person There Is a Name that pays tribute to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust by honoring them as individuals by reading their names aloud. This year's video will be published to YouTube on Sunday afternoon.

[03:27:44] I want to offer congratulations to the Drainsville awardees of the National Merit Corporate Sponsor Scholarships, Claire Chen of TJ, National Merit Geico Scholarship, Jayden Lee of Langley High School, National Merit George Watts Hill Scholarship, Riley Sewer of Langley High School, National Merit Boeing Scholarship, and Aileen Wu of McLean High School, National Merit NVIDIA Corporation Scholarship.

[03:28:10] I've been out and about. YESTERDAY I ATTENDED THE HERNDON HIGH SCHOOL BUSWORTHY AWARDS THAT HONORED THE 97 STUDENTS NOMINATED BY THEIR TEACHERS, COUNSELORS, ADMINISTRATORS WHO HAVE MADE PROGRESS ACROSS ACADEMICS, ATTENDANTS, AND ATTITUDE. I ALSO ATTENDED THE HERNDON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CAPITAL PROJECT COMMUNITY MEETING.

[03:28:26] EXCITED THIS PROJECT IS MOVING FORWARD. YOU CAN SEE THE COMMUNITY MEETING PRESENTATION ON THE HERNDON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CAPITAL PROJECT WEBSITE AND PROVIDE FEEDBACK THROUGH MAY 8TH AND LOOK FOR THE PRESENTATION AND feedback from the Herndon Elementary School capital project website I'm also looking forward to I guess it may be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Cooper Middle School their final capital project community meeting is on 4:29 at 6:30 p.m.

[03:28:51] and then lastly I'm excited to go to Kent Gardens tomorrow morning for a PTSA meeting and also to experience a kindergarten orientation at Great Falls Elementary that's it for my board matters thank you thank you Miss Lady mr. Dunn yesterday West Potomac High School witnessed a horrific act of violence an unacceptable act of violence that should never have happened I believe with greater measures we can prevent such incidents from ever

[03:29:29] happening again it was my concerns are with all those who are involved and my heart goes out to all the students and staff who are unnecessarily exposed to this trauma I pray for the students who are injured I pray for everyone who witnessed both this incident and its aftermath. No one should ever have to experience or even witness violence in a place of learning and no student should ever be asked to step over a pool of blood to exit the school building. I am grateful for the quick and competent response of our FCPS

[03:30:03] staff, our school administrators, our paramedics, law enforcement personnel, and security personnel. By no more must be done to ensure that our schools are a safe refuge for each and every person who walks through our doors. I'm committed to working tirelessly with FCPS staff and our partners to strengthen safety and security measures for all of our schools. Over the days and weeks ahead I will look forward to partnering with my colleagues on the school board and the superintendent to advocate for new protocols and resources necessary to strengthen our layered security measures so

[03:30:39] that when parents and families entrust their children to us they can be assured that they are safe. I want our children to feel safe because they are safe. For too long we have talked about bathrooms that kids are afraid to enter or bathrooms that are locked because bad things happen in them. That time must end. I know that my colleagues agree that we must work with the fierce urgency of now to ensure a situation like this never happens again. We must ensure that we don't turn a blind eye or act with complacency when our students are fearful, when our parents

[03:31:16] are afraid, and when parents have a choice, frankly, in making a decision on whether to send their children to public school versus private school. I look forward to sharing the next steps of our collaborative efforts as we work to achieve a permanent resolution. Finally, I'd like to also thank my colleague for her beautiful remarks, which I found very striking. Finally, if you haven't heard, on a positive note, a Montessori program, a public Montessori program, is coming to the West Potomac Pyramid at Bucknell Elementary beginning this coming fall, the 2025 to 2026 school year. It will start with multi-age classrooms at the pre-K

[03:31:54] and kindergarten levels. Families of current three, four, and five-year-olds are invited to apply through a lottery process. The program is free, let me repeat that, a public Montessori program with free admission and free transportation. The application is available online now through May 1st, 2025. Please visit fcps.edu backslash Montessori for more information. Again, the deadline is May 1st, so please act with alacrity to ensure that your child,

[03:32:31] Three, four or five year old can benefit. Thank you, Mr. Dunn for the excellent vocabulary. Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Sorry about the delay there. Firstly, I do want to say thank you to Teresa Byrne and to Principal Nowak. A couple of weeks ago, they put together a beautiful memorial for Amy Baker with a bench dedication at Falls Church High School. It was a wonderful moment. And to be able to see the class of 1989 be able to

[03:33:21] to participate in that moment for their classmate who has been slain and the case was finally closed this year after over two decades and so thank you for that um i also do want to extend my condolences to the family of janie strauss so thank you for sharing those beautiful words uh Ms. Mary, Ms. Mary, Ms. Lady, this lady totally escaped me there and I too want to extend my heartfelt condolences and thoughts with the community of West Potomac. Our students experienced

[03:34:01] a horrific event yesterday and I too will commit along with the rest of the board members who've already spoken to this um to do everything that we can in order to prevent future activities of that sort um that is not the purpose of our schools um but we do know that some of that violence is beyond us but we will try as much as we can to take care of our students when they are with us i do want to also thank um the community that came out for the community conversation at mason

[03:34:36] crest last night with dr reed thank you for your thoughts and all of the questions that range a number of topics i had the opportunity i believe yesterday to visit belvedere elementary school it is one of the two ib elementary schools in fairfax county and for many years it was the only until Doc Wood joined it two years ago.

[03:35:02] And it's it's just a fantastic opportunity for our students to really have that deep learning and also our teachers who are just continuously questioning and learning and bringing that back to the students. I also have had the opportunity to participate in the evaluation that comes from the IB leadership when they have come to Belvedere.

[03:35:30] I do want to say congratulations to the following Mason District students who were selected to perform at the 2025 All-Virginia Band Chorus and Orchestra event that is taking place this week in Richmond. From Anadol High School, we have Lina Abu El Hawa from Falls Church High School.

[03:35:51] We have Colt Armstrong from Justice High School. We have Kyle Allward, Max Hoffman, Rachel Kessa, and Saran Watling. And from Woodson, we have Catherine Morton and Maya Moses. Theater season is upon us, and TJ Theater's premiere of Big Fish is tomorrow evening with additional showtimes on Saturday and next weekend.

[03:36:17] And also we have several productions coming from Annandale Theatre Company, Little Shop of Horrors, Falls Church will be Spotlight Theatre Company, The Addams Family, Luther Jackson, Mean Girls Jr., Woodson, Mamma Mia. So please come on out and support those students.

[03:36:35] Good night. Dr. Anderson, Mr. McElveen. Thank you. And I just want to join my colleagues who have remembered Janie Strauss tonight. AND JUST TO SHARE THAT AS A COMMUNITY, WE WILL BE COMING TOGETHER ON MAY 18TH AT 11:00 A.M.

[03:36:53] AT MCLEAN HIGH SCHOOL. SO I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING PEOPLE THERE. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, MR. MCELVEEN. MS. MARIN. THANK YOU. GOOD EVENING. I DID SHARE WITH THE COMMUNITY MY OWN THOUGHTS ON THE HORRIBLE INCIDENT AT WEST POTOMAC HIGH SCHOOL. AND YOU KNOW, I WANT TO CONVEY THAT THERE ARE MANY PLANS AND SUPPORTS IN PLACE TO HELP KEEP CHILDREN AND ADULTS SAFE IN OUR SCHOOL FACILITIES.

[03:37:18] however there's no way to guarantee anyone's safety whether it's in a public place or at home there is much though that fcps could do with increased funding for safety measures and personnel but you know parents and caregivers they're children's first and foremost teachers and they are the first line to prevent children from accessing weapons so i think you know we need to continue to include our families help them with strategies and also really think that these today's students and children are different you know in so many wonderful ways and maybe we

[03:37:50] need new strategies uh certainly more counselors more support smaller class sizes so um it's uh yeah just wanted to speak to that on another solemn note i appreciate missing john cunning reading the holocaust memorial proclamation and i think i've shared this but my husband is a first generation survivor of the Holocaust. He was hidden as a child in an attic and survived. And this means that my children are survivors of attempted genocide because on my side, my ancestors fled the Russian pogroms in the 1800s. And, you know, there's a pattern of bigotry that is anti-Semitism

[03:38:29] and it's now at the highest levels it's ever been in America. So again, I really appreciated the thoughtful reading of it and just know that the Holocaust is not in the past. It's still here and what made it happen is is increasing again I want to say a huge congratulations to our Madison high school war bots the robotics team they were in Houston over spring break for the world championship they are in the top 200 in the whole world six in the Chesapeake region and third in Virginia so that's like the top one percent in the world but I think what really sets them apart is that they had a lot of fun it was a total team experience and I even had the good fortune to fly

[03:39:08] on spring break and I ran into my friend who is the lead mentor whose son has long graduated in Madison but he continues to volunteer including flying to the other part of the country to support these students so it was it was really fun and while I was on the plane I did choose to watch Going Varsity and Mariachi because I know that Dr. Ponce is trying to bring that music to schools and I want to learn about it and I'm so excited and I can't wait till it comes to our schools So and then finally, the budget, you know, TGIF tomorrow.

[03:39:40] It's been a long week of budget advocacy and I'm just so pleased that our board put out a statement. And, you know, it's I don't understand the continued pleading and begging. It seems we have to do our teachers. I mean, look at what they went through in the high school yesterday.

[03:39:57] This is not a typical job. And to think that they're doing the same kind of thing as other people who might be doing very hard work. but at an office with security guards and other adult like it's I'm glad we were able to do what we could highlight of the week was the students who came out I saw students students who were in the debate club in Carson Middle School one who had been there formerly and I was a Southlake student the one who got the Jefferson scholarship who's going to UVA they you know buddied up and got their friends to show up and then one of the moms got advocated and that's what it's about

[03:40:32] right. So on the one hand it's it's disappointing that we have to keep asking so much but on the other people are learning about what's happening and they're not happy. They're actually really in disbelief that this is what's happening that things like middle school programs are being cut.

[03:40:49] So onward and hopefully we'll get to that end of the road budget in a really great place. Thanks. thank you miss Marin I'll just take a moment I was grateful to represent my colleagues speaking at the board of supervisors budget public hearing on the first day where I expressed the critical importance of funding a budget that allows us to raise our staff pay so that we can attract and retain the world-class educators our students deserve yesterday I was able to attend the falls church pyramid art show which was incredible there was art from every school in the falls

[03:41:28] Church Pyramid and we all received little punch cards. I say we all did, but it was the children and I got one too. And so I have a little punch card stamped by all of the different schools from the Falls Church Pyramid and I got to see some really great artwork along the way. I also met recently with Dean Fairchild from University of Virginia's Northern Virginia campus and am connecting that great institution which is newly opened in Providence District in Falls Church with the administration the superintendent and her team so that we can partner in innovative

[03:42:06] ways going forward some shout outs the 2025 Fairfax Student Peace Award winners want to congratulate two students who are from my district Gaila Sockley from Marshall High School and Shree Bhoula from Falls Church High School.

[03:42:23] I want to also congratulate the 2025 Regional Scholastic Art Award winners. Congratulations to Chloe Doan from Madison. And she was one of four FCPS students who were nominated for Best in Show American Visions Award.

[03:42:40] So incredible work there. And then, of course, nine FCPS projects received the grand prize awards at the 2025 Regional Science and Engineering Fair. and I'd like to congratulate two students from my district who won the grand prize and are eligible to compete in the Regneron International Science and Engineering Fair in May. Ethan Lee who attends TJ for Biomedical and Health Sciences Modeling Risk and Richter Transformation with and Without Chemotherapy Treatment on CLL. This is a high school student. Thomas Sparling from Oakton whose project was Energy Sustainable Materials and Design Micro Closed Loop Pumped Hydrogen Power

[03:43:19] system turbine assessment yeah and so obviously we're going to expect great things from these students and for FCPS students projects that received the grand prize at the 2025 Virginia State Science Fair congratulate Alina Albeek from Marshall High School who won for her project Implications of Resverstorol on Memory Retention in Dugesia Tigrina.

[03:43:54] We have incredibly talented students in FCPS. And I'm not going to read all of the drama performances that I get to attend over the next few weeks, because several have already been mentioned. But I'm really looking forward to the Mantua Drama Club's performance of the Frozen Kids Edition that I will be able to attend this weekend.

[03:44:15] So with that, I would like to say it is 10:43, which means that the pool of our staff did not work out in their favor. This meeting is adjourned. - Janice won. Janice won. - Janice won.

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