Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Date: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 1h 30m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a-7wdJNKBk
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 2026-10-29. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] superintendent and staff before we get started on the work session portion of our meeting we will go ahead and certify the closed meeting that we just had as per law so in order to comply with section 2.2-3712d 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 september 16 2025 to the best of each member's knowledge only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements and only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening the closed meeting were heard discussed or considered by the board during the closed meeting do i have a motion

[00:00:40] mr mckelveen seconded by dr ricardi anderson all in favor that is unanimous for the board members at the table oh and this size morheiser away from the table thank you and there was no action taken and closed tonight all right so first of all way to turn around in a week because last week we were talking about legislative advocacy one week later so thank you to mr. Malloy and his team and staff we really appreciate that so we could all convene

[00:01:16] again on this topic so we will again be and we could I think go ahead madam clerk if you could please scroll to the second slide I'll review the first and second and then great so again we want to get some collective agreement and be able to advise the superintendent on the budget and legislative priorities that we want to seek and most immediately articulate that on October 7th when we have our legislative briefing.

[00:01:49] So today we want to be really prepared for that October 7th briefing. And we will have another meeting in the future after October 7th to solidify our legislative program. Is that right, Chair Anderson? We're going to have -- right. So we can dabble in that, but we do not need to decide on that today.

[00:02:07] So our objectives on the next slide, again, we'll have a status update on the board's current policies and the JLARC recommendations. We're going to reach consensus, hopefully, yes, on future board budget and policy priorities to help guide the government relations work, again, thinking about what we want to share with our colleagues on October 7th, decide on the focus and the content, which we did talk about last time, so you'll see that fleshed out here, and then share details.

[00:02:33] We'll hear from Mr. Malloy about how to go about making a budget amendment, doing the the bill submission process so with that we will hand it over to mr. Malloy to continue all right good evening everybody I understand we have a little bit less time than we originally had planned so I will go through a few of these slides relatively quickly we'll get you we'll get you to your discussion as quickly as we can so at your last at your last board work session on legislative matters I think a request was made to get a little bit of an

[00:03:03] update on where things were relative to your existing priorities and to the progress that's been made towards the JLARC report and the recommendations of the JLARC report.

[00:03:20] There are two attachments that are actually included as part of the agenda item that has a lot more detail than this, but just from a very high level perspective, I just wanted to point out that incremental progress has been made in several areas in terms of your legislative priorities.

[00:03:37] I think there was only one area where there was nothing either passed or even introduced that was related to your legislative priorities. Everything else had at least something introduced that was related to your priorities.

[00:03:53] Broader issues that are contemplated by your current priorities, they're still there. There's nothing that you can look at that list and say, well, that problem or that issue has been completely solved. So those priorities, I think, are still appropriate.

[00:04:09] State cost in most cases remains the most significant barrier towards progress. A lot of your priorities have price tags, obviously, attached to them, whether it's additional state funding or additional resources, and that tends to be the sticking point for a lot of them.

[00:04:27] The priorities you will see when you watch the legislative process will make it through a policy committee. The policy committee will agree with the idea, but then it will get to the appropriations or the finance committee and it's not in the state budget. So it doesn't move forward.

[00:04:44] So that remains a significant barrier. Although on the good news side of the funding ledger, there have been progress made on some of the jailer recommendations. We talked about this at the last meeting. They fully funded the support cap at 2026 prevailing staffing, and they did add a per pupil funding increment for special education students.

[00:05:09] So I don't know. I don't want to spend too much more time on this. Okay. So now, with that as prologue, the next few slides talk about some of your initial considerations for priorities that you may wish to emphasize when you come to your October 7th work session and also continue to emphasize even beyond that.

[00:05:34] But I think the first area really, this is kind of a budget, consider this a budget bucket. The idea is to focus on unmet needs and unprecedented uncertainty that's faced by school divisions. You'd be hard pressed to find a time where funding issues are under more uncertainty than we have right now.

[00:05:58] A couple of areas where you may want to place focus. One would be fully funding the Biennial Standards of Quality Rebenchmark. We talked about that at the last meeting, how important that is, that every two years the state updates its data and that usually generates additional funding for schools.

[00:06:13] And then there are several JLARC recommendations that remain either unfinished in the case of the support cap. It's almost there, but it's not completely finished. There are some other recommendations that you could pursue that would, again, benefit all school divisions in Virginia bring additional funding back to them.

[00:06:33] The impact of this, and I think one of the reasons why this is being lifted up, is obviously a lack of resources could affect the school division's ability to provide the highest quality programming for our students.

[00:06:51] Next consideration, and actually there are two slides that are focused on this, is to focus on continued excellence and the need to measure student and school performance appropriately. This suggestion here focuses on SOL assessment system revisions.

[00:07:06] We've talked about a bill that passed during the last General Assembly session, House Bill 1957, made some fairly significant changes in how SOLs are to be administered, who they can be administered to, the timing of them, the flexibility in terms of how those tests are provided.

[00:07:22] A couple of examples of items that may need to be adjusted, native language assessment is something that you've had on your priority list for several years. It continues to be an issue, continues to be a point of discussion and then the broader piece I think in relation to 1957 is some timing and administration flexibility.

[00:07:45] The impact there really is about those revisions could have what I'm hoping are unintended consequences in terms of students' ability to verify credits that they need for graduation, getting access to AP and IB assessments, and the changes because they're so focused in on standardized assessments could have a disproportionate impact on our special education and multilingual student populations.

[00:08:11] Yeah. Just thank you. You know, I think we want to make sure we have that time to discuss and get to some consensus, so if we could just keep going, Mr. Malloy. Thank you.

[00:08:26] Yeah, absolutely. So this slide, same issue focusing on continued excellence. This is about accountability system. During the next few weeks, we're going to get the first results of the state's new accountability system, how they're measuring school performance. We've talked and you've had work sessions on this, that the new accountability system is relatively narrow in terms of its focus.

[00:08:47] It's focused very heavily on standardized assessments, and that could end up misleading schools as underperforming. And then this slide really just focuses on federal resources, and the idea here is to focus in on the preservation of existing federal resources.

[00:09:06] Every day you read the newspaper, there were new threats to sources of federal funding, and those federal funds typically are targeted towards our most vulnerable populations. So cuts to those resources can have a disproportionate impact on student services.

[00:09:24] Now for the October 7th legislative briefing, I think really what you want to try and do do is you want to emphasize your identified priorities and additional initiatives as part of your agenda. Part of the evening or morning, I'm sorry, it's a breakfast, should really be focused on seeking input from legislators, including identifying specific areas where you might be able to work together on either budget amendments or on bills. The goal for, I think from a staff perspective is to provide some key impact data and some actionable recommendations,

[00:10:02] including some handouts that we can provide to our legislators as just takeaways on various issues and obviously those issues will be set by you all. A couple more, one or two more slides. I was asked to provide kind of an in the weeds perspective on how bills and budget amendments are submitted through legislators.

[00:10:25] You've got a handout that details that process in a little bit with more specificity. But the basic idea is identify a bill or amendment patron, obviously any recommendation has to go through a sitting member of the General Assembly.

[00:10:41] And then from your perspective, you need to clearly define the issue that you're trying to accomplish and provide as much information as possible, data, projected fiscal impact, bill or amendment language if possible, but that's not always necessary because any bill recommendation that comes into a legislator automatically goes to the Division of Legislative Services and their attorneys will turn it into an actual bill.

[00:11:08] The process for submitting budget amendments is more formal than it is for bill submission. Bill submission is really run by individual offices, whereas the budget amendment process, There are specific forms for Senate Finance and for House Appropriations that you fill out. But again, same exact idea, you identify the issue and you provide as much specificity as possible about why you're pursuing that or you're asking to pursue that particular amendment.

[00:11:35] There we go. Thank you, Michael. I know we'll have lots of questions. Dr. Anderson, did you want to kick us off? I don't see any placards. Mr. McElveen will be first. Do you want to? Okay. Sure. Mr. McElveen. Great. discussion we've been doing the priorities document for about 10 years now I think and I think it's been a very effective way to communicate to our legislators what we really want them to focus on I remember sitting at this table probably in 2012 2013 and Mark Sickles asked us you know what is your priority

[00:12:11] of the system and no one at the table could answer so this really does lay it it out very well. I didn't see it up there, but one of the priorities that we had last year as a new priority was on meals for students. So I'd like to see that in our program again this year. And I think it's no surprise to anyone that that's even more important this year with the threat of that funding being cut by the federal government. So I would

[00:12:45] like to see that restored in the priorities listing thanks all righty I'll go ahead and take my turn first of all thank you it was very helpful that you went over some of the updates but I want to kind of get a little bit more granular granular in your feedback to us in terms of where we are on the state priorities last time page 26 this is 26 nope 28 from the previous presentation you had for us, you listed our priorities from 2025.

[00:13:24] Can you just kind of walk me through the ones that were not touched in any way? You mentioned that some are in progress, which ones were completely still kind of out in the ether? So the only priority that you had that did not either get something introduced or passed was state funding for the wrap back program, for the continuous background check monitoring.

[00:13:53] Everything else at least had something introduced. Pedestrian safety had a few things about expanding the school walking zones. Obviously there were several pieces on assessment, on accountability, on school funding, workforce shortages and workforce shortages probably had the most things that passed that were addressed in terms of expanding expanding the pool of qualified applicants and and everything else but yeah I think everything everything on that list at least had something introduced if not with the exception of

[00:14:31] the Ratback as I said speak to what was introduced in the area of expansion of early childhood opportunities so actually what was introduced one one thing that was introduced was a proposal to go to universal pre-k obviously the price tag on that was relatively relatively sizable so that didn't get a great deal of discussion but that was I mean obviously that's the that's the big that that's the big thing others were we're dealing with the funding formulas in terms of trying to provide additional resources for additional additional pre-k slots for school divisions because there's still waiting

[00:15:10] lists in in most school divisions in terms of their ability to provide pre-k and the state share of that is a key component to places to being able to provide those services so I think those are some examples of what was that's very helpful and now I'd like for the same application to the federal priorities and I say this with ingest did anything happen there did we have any movement in the past year with the priorities that we listed so for the most part most of your federal priorities were focused on funding the federal government for the last actually I think we're going on two years now has worked on a continuing

[00:15:49] resolution which has kept funding at a level at a level over time so there's not been any positive movement there's not been any negative movement at least you know in terms of actual budgeting now there are proposals that are out there that are being discussed right now the house the house and the president proposed some fairly sizable cuts in the next budget which would begin on October 1st the Senate has already passed a bill that would essentially level continue to level fund those positions so that's that's very much in

[00:16:28] flux in terms of how the appropriations process is going to work but yeah in terms of progress no we all forward movement but also not much in the way a backwards movement because of the way that the funding has been structured thank you for that clarification and now I'll move into my comments in terms of the priorities as you've indicated there is a big bucket of funding priorities that impact the biennial the soqs and jlarks i think the jlark work and all of what that entails i think that's a good bucket to be a priority for us to continue i also i'm a very

[00:17:06] big big big supporter of the assessment bucket of priorities that speaks to not only the administration whether it is to be in native language also to the timing as well as the impact and I want to weave in in terms of impact the new cut scores I think that needs to be part of the overall assessment discussion and these are two big significant issues for the state where I think we'll be a little bit more we could put more eggs in that basket because it's a little of a friendlier

[00:17:41] environment so I would want to when we get to that space when we're providing consensus on these priorities that need to be developed for the meeting in two three weeks those are the two that I would be very in high support of regarding the federal priorities as I share with you on my one-on-one I think this is going to be a little bit more difficult and frankly I'm not sure if it's even worth a lot of time in this to change the fact that we're still not getting these being you know to be funded at the level that they need to be so I would be

[00:18:17] in favor of keeping it as is on the federal side but definitely we bucketing the priorities for the state side that's it for now thank you okay we have mr.

[00:18:33] Frisch is next and might we please the clerk team put up the slide that has the objectives for our session which is slide number three thank you on the legislative priorities for the federal I think I agree with dr. Anderson they're all important but I think it's more than keeping the same because they're not just underfunded at this point right like they're in danger of disappearing so you know I think most of the

[00:19:10] language is fine for that in our program we may want to adjust the way that we talk about it in our priorities the program itself speaks to the need for this that and the other which implies that they exist so and I'll be bringing a couple of amendments to the program that speak to other issues on the federal level in terms of the structure in terms of the state legislative program I've been thinking a lot about in addition to the funding question and performance question etc what are the things that dog us at the

[00:19:46] state level routinely and I think it's a lack of meaningful collaboration on the part of the Virginia Board of Education with local school divisions and so I would like us to consider a plank in there about strengthening that collaboration and the stability of that relationship between the Board of Education and local school divisions I know that various legislators are in conversations about legislation to do that and so it's not clear yet how that's

[00:20:22] going to take shape but language worded broadly enough that we can engage in the dialogue I think would be beneficial, and I think it's a needed reset come January. It's also one of the amendments that I have for the program that I'm happy to talk to colleagues about as I make my calls. Okay, great. And just to check me, we're getting just general feedback and then if you have feedback about the October 7th. So great, thank you. Okay, Ms. St. John

[00:21:02] So, what kind of movement have you seen, because this is something that for me, and I know I'm not new to the board, but what stymies a lot is our restriction in terms of how many of us can be in the room at the same time to discuss things.

[00:21:21] And I know that this has been on the agenda. Our work could be significantly more efficient if there was a percentage of the requirement of, you know, basically the sunshine laws.

[00:21:37] kind of movement have we seen on that and how long has this been in our legislative agenda I see it under the you know the Freedom of Information Act I think it's what eight but you know adjusting the threshold to open meeting requirement based on governing board size rather than the current standard that applies regardless of the numbers of members on the board and that doesn't cost money that's not a money issue that is a simple legislative issue that's not going to cost anything, but really for larger boards is going to allow them to be a lot more effective and efficient.

[00:22:14] So I can't give you an exact date. That language has been in the program for a while and obviously the issue has been there for several years. It's a more contentious issue than you might imagine because there is a viewpoint among open government advocates that having any conversations behind closed doors is inappropriate and every aspect of the public's business should be conducted in the public.

[00:22:42] There shouldn't be behind the doors conversations. There was legislation introduced, Kathleen Murphy, and probably five or six years ago at this point, put in a bill. It didn't go anywhere in the General Assembly.

[00:22:57] It was referred to the Virginia FOIA Council. The FOIA Council declined to take any action on it, and that was exactly the debate that they had was how do you balance government efficiency and the ability for a government to work well and do things in an efficient manner versus the public's right to know what that government is doing and how those decisions are being made.

[00:23:23] That's not to say it's not something that you can pursue and I think it's obviously, it's remained in the program for a reason, but I think it is a little bit more contentious than you might otherwise think in terms of the way the General Assembly and the state perceives it.

[00:23:44] - These restrictions do not apply to our state legislators, do they? - I don't believe so. - Okay, and I just wanna publicly say this because a lot of times it's as simple as receiving briefings and someone that's going to come and just give us information, it has to be done two at a time versus, you know, a percentage wise, and there's not like, I wouldn't say any discussion, it's just a presentation of materials, which I think could easily be up on board docs.

[00:24:19] I mean, so, I don't know, I just, the fact that this is a restriction for school boards and not for other entities in the state is something that concerns me. - So I think that, just to clarify, only the state is, or I think only legislators are exempt. I believe that the same rules apply to local governments, So the Board of Supervisors and everything have the same restrictions on that.

[00:24:45] - Okay, Ms. Seithmerheiser followed by Ms. Anderson. - Thank you, so a couple things. In terms of, I think a status update, if we're talking about October, the October 7th meeting, I think giving our colleagues what our priorities were last year in the status update would be good.

[00:25:05] Sorry, I'm not talking about these colleagues, I'm talking about the October 7th meeting. So I think that would be a good idea so they knew what we asked for last year and what the status, at least on our priorities, not on all of it, I think that's important.

[00:25:20] I do think that we've got to figure out what our top priorities are, sketch those out very quickly, and specifically target certain legislatures that we think would be friendly or open to carrying those.

[00:25:37] I think if we just give this whole packet like this, even if we give a set of priorities, if we don't then build the relationships or outreach to certain people to then carry that for us, I don't know what's gonna happen with it. So I think that's what we need to figure out, what our top priorities are, and then who's gonna carry it.

[00:25:58] And then we need to give them specific language. I cannot emphasize this enough. When I talk to people at the state level, they don't wanna know what we wanna do. They wanna know how we wanna do it. And as easy as we can make for people, we can say, all right, we want this bill on facilities, and we know these legislatures often carry bills on facilities, or we want this bill on CTE, I'm making this up, and we know these legislatures have a passion for CTE.

[00:26:24] That's the planning we have to do, but I think between now and October 7th, there can be some, when we narrow our priorities down to the top view, we need to target that. The other thing I think we really need to say on October 7th is we've gotta help provide information to our state and federal colleagues who are going to attend as to what this current atmosphere, what the impact of that is on us now.

[00:26:46] People wanna know what's going on at the federal level. What is at risk at the schools? What have we heard? I mean, there's things that we can't share, I understand, the things that we can, I think we should. I think we should come up with some ideas. All right, this is what we're challenged at the federal level, Department of Ed, what's happened to that, all of these things.

[00:27:03] By the way, colleagues, here's what you can do at the state level to help protect us from that or help protect the students who are losing their protections. So I think we can't do this legislative program in a vacuum of the environment that we find ourselves in.

[00:27:19] And I think that's a piece that's really important to add. These are the protections that we've lost the Department of Ed because of lack of implementation staff and here state is what we want you to do because at the end of the day it's about our students and their education and having the protections that they're federally guaranteed to be able to be implemented and watch so I think and it's to make sure we have the resources and support we need to be able to provide that education for the students and that our teachers don't feel afraid because of the atmosphere we're in with the funding that we're losing that we have other places we can get it so we can make sure we can abide by the law and our

[00:27:55] policies that's a big chunk that i think is not in here thank you miss anderson um i wanted to pick up on something really fast i i know that we it was one of the first things that i noted when we came on the board that these conversations are particularly hard on a board our size when we have you know the the telephone game that we play with 12 people and then we go back to the beginning because something has changed um and it is a significant aspect of our work just to to have have those phone calls ahead of time and so I I don't think anybody on the board wants a lack of transparency in terms of the work that we're doing but putting

[00:28:33] three people in a room sometimes is far more effective to to just for accountability and understanding you know having that work it would just ease up so even if we could go to a percentage of the board which wouldn't necessarily mean that we were over the voting amount or anything else but to that end I also want to point out that there are other guidelines and stipulations that actually cost our school board office a fair amount of money every year and one of those is that we are right now we are required to advertise public hearings and newspapers in physical newspapers and so being able

[00:29:09] to change to a newspaper or an online notification would be extremely helpful for us madam clerk could you share how much the school board office spent on on this last year? - So we spend about 300, it could be upwards of 500, depending on how often we have to note, per hearing.

[00:29:29] So every time we do a hearing, it also raises issues because the newspaper takes significantly more time. So last year, an issue got raised about whether or not we could do an additional hearing for something. It takes an additional week or two for our deputy clerks, she's saying two, for our deputy clerks.

[00:29:48] So really it ends up being three to four weeks out that we would know we needed additional hearing. So it's money and it's time, which hinders our ability. So it would be helpful. We already notice on bulletin boards outside of our office, which we're required to.

[00:30:03] We also notice online, which we seem to get a lot more feedback. We don't know that anybody ever seems to notice it in the newspaper, because if you see it in the newspaper, then you would be calling us to sign up for hearings, and that very rarely happens.

[00:30:18] So we think we would be more effective with the online and save our school board office actually thousands of dollars by taking that route? - It's just, it's a small thing, but it's the things that add up, that add to the workload required to our office and just the general way we do business.

[00:30:35] So it would be something I think that creating, and I need to dig through to find out where the exact location it could be. But I do think, and I know we've done work on this in the past, but bucketing these items together to tell the story of what we're trying to accomplish, I think is where we're going.

[00:30:51] And I think I always believe strongly that creating an attractive document means that people are gonna be less likely to ignore it. So anything we can do to that end I think is also really important. - Thank you.

[00:31:07] Before I take my turn, Dr. Anderson and I were just talking because we're trying to just make sure that we're capturing what everyone's saying and getting to consensus and facilitation. So Dr. Anderson's gonna kind of just summarize for a moment where we're at, and then I'm gonna have a turn, so.

[00:31:22] - Yes, okay, speaking to the state priorities, obviously what was recommended on the agenda, I know I spoke to that, just the funding bucket and then the assessment bucket. Also heard advocacy for a collaboration, and I'm just gonna say bucket, 'cause it might include a couple of different things in there, as well as meals.

[00:31:41] Those were the four major points that arose in the conversation for state priorities. In terms of the federal priorities, the only thing that I heard was to repackage some of the priorities that already exist to really be more focused on kind of current state.

[00:31:58] Because we've always wanted those funding sources to be provided, you know, and to be provided in their entirety. Now we're speaking to the elimination of the little bit that we do get. So I hope that has captured the priority positions that were just discussed.

[00:32:15] I did hear other things about other positions that I think we'll be seeing pop up in the, when we get to the next work session when we're adding more things to the program. But that's my summary of the priorities piece.

[00:32:31] - Thank you, I really appreciate that because I'm trying to make meaning so, and again, and that does outline those, the first three topics, the funding, SOQ and JLARC, the standards of learning, the native language and timing, and the accountability systems revision that was in the presentation.

[00:32:48] heard school meals and by the way so last night i went to delegate irene shin's build a bill workshop her fourth year in a row because i just wanted to see how she engages the community and support that effort and it was really great and so she shared materials that actually delegate sam rasool has also shared and um there were probably about 20 people there and so one of them was actually interested in school meals and he just emailed me and i said oh my gosh we're talking about it right now so um mr mckelveen i'd love to connect you because there was a real discussion people want there to be access to food and I tried to explain the barriers that we're in but so that's exciting and and I also share with her the handout that's

[00:33:26] on the board docs page of like how to submit a bill she had some different content that delegate Rasool also uses but we do have that also kind of a related segue so this Friday some of us I'm not sure who exactly are gonna go to Richmond for the VSBA legislative conference and so I'm gonna bring some of these handouts, and we'll have an opportunity network there, and then again in November when we go to the conference down in Williamsburg.

[00:33:53] So I do would love to go for the Sunshine Law updates. I also wanted to -- related to facilities funding, and this relates to the bill that was passed last year about HVACs, and I'm not sure if that fits into funding when we talk about soqs and jlark so maybe that's an additional standalone piece when it comes to facilities um and the general umbrella of unfunded mandates but that would be something that i'd like

[00:34:26] to work on and i think those are all of my um yeah the facilities however and even last night in the build a bill workshop i was talking with there's a group of constituents who are interested energy and sustainability and I said well you know if we could have more funds to make our buildings more energy efficient like like again trying to connect the dots of it's not just about kids which is enough I know for all of us a reason to do this work but it's actually a cost savings and I do think the more we can pair the data to show the savings and the benefit and just like

[00:35:02] JLARC I mean that's really changed things so and maybe we even want to ask them to do a JLARC report on facilities I mean if that's what it takes to give us that data but I also think that no matter how much great data Fairfax provides we still need to make sure we're partnering with the other parts of the Commonwealth who also carry a large part of the delegation and so okay you want to go now it's kind of the next step again we wanted to do a couple of things which is landing on the priorities and I think we're really circling about getting there the second piece that I did not summarize what was about the content of October 7th before we get to that piece of the

[00:35:41] conversation I want to make sure that we don't have any other speakers to priorities I see lots of placards up so are there any other speakers to priorities so seeing okay two minutes please for the second round just really quickly I didn't have a chance my first round of comment on the FOIA comments of my colleagues. I think there is a little bit more interest this year. I've seen some of the state delegation who have felt surprised when they have constituents they wanted us to meet with and realize that they could not meet with us except the constituent had to

[00:36:19] do six separate meetings in order to do that. And also, you know, I think the other piece on the FOIA that perhaps would be helpful is, you know, five or six years ago, the FOIA council discussed it but the reliance on electronic communication which all of which is foiable anyway so it's not like we're meeting in a room that no one knows what's happening because those electronic communications themselves can be foiled I think that changes the conversation a little bit about even if we still have the same two-by-two requirements perhaps there can be some more clarity and guidance around the use of email about replying all some of the

[00:36:59] folks I've talked to are like, what do you mean you can't reply all? It's considered a meeting to reply all. And maybe some more guidance around what is real-time communication that looks like a meeting versus email, which may not be real-time communication, or working on a Google Doc, which again is also foiable. So if the public wanted to find out what we're doing on any of this, it's foiable. We could post things on board docs if we need to. But I think maybe instead of saying, let's get, you know, reduce the two by two requirement or nothing else. Maybe we can find some common ground in community and constituent meetings where we're not making any policy

[00:37:35] decisions. We're getting information can be larger. Maybe we can get some clarity and guidance around and around emails and use of electronic. That would also help us a little bit more. So I just think that there's maybe more space in this conversation that we should have. Thank you, Ms. Sizemoreheiser, just one clarification question was, is your statement to lift the FOIA conversation into board priorities or just to revise how we currently capture it in the regular position program?

[00:38:10] - Both. - Okay, so that's what I thought. So I'm thinking for that clarification. So as of right now, we have six different priority areas. To make this easier, instead of going one by one, I'm just going to ask, are there any objections to these six areas?

[00:38:26] I had named five previously, and I'm adding the FOIA as the sixth. Read them one more time. Okay, we have the funding bucket, and this is a state priorities that I'm speaking to. We have the funding bucket and all of the money therein, the assessment bucket.

[00:38:43] We have the collaboration bucket, the meals, the facilities, and the FOIA. - Dr. Anderson, the accountability system revisions. - All of that is under the assessment bucket.

[00:38:58] - Okay, I had that as separate. 'Cause aren't there two different bills speaking to it? So that's why I thought. - It would functionally be, you would need separate legislation 'cause they're separate sections of the code. But yeah, I think it's probably better if you keep them as two separate issues. - So then we'll separate that and then we'll have seven priority areas.

[00:39:16] - Plus federal though. So I had seven just state. - Right, this is just a state piece right now that I'm going over. - Yes, and then I'd love to share a comment, Dr. Anderson. So, are there any objections to these seven areas to, and we'll worry about the wordsmithing at another time, but these are going to be our priorities to be presented on October 7th.

[00:39:38] Okay, there are no objections. - Go board. - So, why don't you go ahead and take it over, and then we'll need to very, very, very quickly talk about the October 7th schedule, 'cause I've been capturing the notes as well. - Right, and just to be clear, Superintendent Reed and Mr. Malloy, for these priorities, we want to say what the status is and why we need it to change.

[00:39:59] And this really speaks to what Ms. Leismerheiser was saying, like why is it so detrimental to us? And I think it would help too to remind us about the bills that are attached to each of those, right? Like the SOL bill and the HVAC, you know, bill, right? Or something, so we could talk about that. I want to mention, I did ask Delegate Shin last night about sometime, and I saw this with FOIA, it started in the '80s and things just get added on and added on and it's like super hard to just untangle.

[00:40:23] So do we, are we like proposing new legislation or are we trying to edit previous legislation? And she said both. And so that's something when we really think about the nitty gritty, and maybe we just talk about that with you, Michael, like how do we go about giving them that exact language for sure.

[00:40:40] But it seems like we could do that after October 7th. So great, okay. - So now at the second piece of what we wanted to arrive to today in our objectives, what does October 7th look like? Obviously, I think weaving our priorities into a fulsome story of our current state is really important.

[00:41:04] So that's one, just the communication piece, the education piece. Secondly, I think it's also important to articulate to folks in the room and to ask. I don't necessarily wanna put them on the spot, but I think we do need to put them on the spot, like who wants to partner with us on which of these components?

[00:41:22] So I think that's going to be the ask. We have to ask for something. And so I see that leading into the bill submission and the amendments work that Michael just outlined. And of course, the presentation of the priorities is going to include all of the discussion that we've just had, atmosphere, impact on certain students, and also where we have some conflict regarding what is being done at the state level as it relates to what federally are, that students are allowed to do.

[00:41:54] So we will weave that in. And I failed to talk about the, I failed to ask for consensus on the federal priorities. So I'm gonna go back a little bit. As we talked about the federal priorities, again, just recapping that in the language that I described earlier, are there any objections?

[00:42:14] Seeing none, that is settled. Final feedback on the October 7th agenda. What did I miss in my recap? - Okay, seeing none, thank you.

[00:42:30] Do you have anything else? Mr. Malloy, have you anything else? - No, I mean, I think you've set forward an actionable plan. We can put together information on all of those various priorities. We can have handouts that legislators can take away, and we can also start to work on the real specifics, as Ms. Sizemore-Heiser mentioned, trying to get to the point where you're actually talking about amending certain sections of code, or the very specific language that's necessary for some of this work.

[00:43:00] - Okay, thank you. So as we did last year, Ms. Marin and I will work with you to develop the presentation. We'll be sure that the board sees it in advance and not at the meeting, so that we can gather feedback as quickly as possible, because it's just a couple of weeks away.

[00:43:15] And then we are hoping for a very productive briefing. So with that said, Ms. Marin? - I was just wondering if we had gotten the responses And if we need to follow up with any colleagues, you know, just want to make sure we have as many of our representatives there as possible.

[00:43:30] Because the invitations have been sent. They have been sent, yes. We have, just to let you know, we have a handful of RSVPs, probably five or six at this point. And you know what, I want to ask this. I remember one year when we had a virtual, or rather it was a hybrid meeting.

[00:43:47] We did have a greater level of participation when we had that as an opportunity for those WHO ARE NOT ABLE TO MAKE IT ON PER IN PERSON I KNOW THE IMPACT IS DIFFERENT BUT IT'S BETTER TO HAVE SOME RATHER THAN NONE I WONDER IF THAT'S A CONSIDERATION THAT WE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT AS WELL I THINK IF THAT'S THE IF I CAN I CAN WORK WITH THE CLERK'S OFFICE IF THAT'S THE BOARD'S WISHES TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT WE CAN WE CAN SEE WHAT WE CAN MAKE HAPPEN SO BOARD MEMBERS ARE THERE ANY OBJECTIONS TO PURSUING THAT CALL I'M SORRY MR. FRISH NOT GENERALLY I

[00:44:26] I think what's more likely is that more staff attend the meetings, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think it also dissuades members from showing up in person. And if we want to do it a little differently, and I quite like the idea of trying to pin people down on what they might be interested in partnering on, specifically, I like that a lot, depending on how we approach it.

[00:44:48] Write the bill now, you're not getting out and tell. Don't worry, we got plenty of eggs. If we want to have that kind of a signup commitment, I think we need them in person. And maybe we say, and if you know of colleagues who would be a good fit, please let us know.

[00:45:07] So maybe we'll find that out too. - Ms. Seismohyser, then Ms. Anderson, and then Ms. McElbeen. - I think if we really wanna impress upon them what we want them to do and the specific asks, I think hybrid makes it easier for people to not come in person.

[00:45:27] And so I think we could offer to record it or we could offer to send out a summary afterwards for those who couldn't come, but I'm not sure I would offer a hybrid option because I think then it's just easier to say, I'll do it from home and not come.

[00:45:45] - I think logistically sometimes the hybrid option doesn't come across as solidly. And so I would love for us, I love the idea of us sending out some sort of follow up for the folks that maybe couldn't be there in person, but I do think that, I mean, I was impressed with how many people we had out last year, And that was more than we had the year before.

[00:46:05] So I'm hopeful that maybe as we gain momentum, particularly this year, I also know that this year being an election year is gonna be busy for a lot of people. So, but that's another benefit of having this be earlier in the morning. So hopefully we'll feed them before their busy day. And I'm making cinnamon rolls, so we'll bribe them.

[00:46:23] Not really, but I just wanna put out there that I wanna make sure that we get as many people there so that they can hear what we have to say. So I'm at Ms. St. John Cunning, or is that Ms. Seismar Heiser, yep, that still hurts.

[00:46:40] Okay, Mr. Moore-- - Yes, I just wanna know my concurrence with my colleagues on not wanting to have a hybrid. - Ms. St. John Cunning. - So I just wanna say publicly that it's worth it just for the cinnamon rolls. So maybe that will entice some of our state-- I'm telling you. - But it didn't make the invitation.

[00:47:05] I also like the idea of a follow-up, if they were not there for us to talk about what, instead of just sharing the summary, but for us to really put a personal touch on it, not necessarily just from Michael's office, I think we should assign ourselves individuals to follow up with that were not in the room.

[00:47:24] So I want to mark that as an after action. But having said that, I think we are done with this part of the presentation. It is 7:04. We will take a five minute break and we will start at 7:10.

[00:47:56] - Well, I didn't unconvene, but we're gonna meet up. Come to the table, please. And we're gonna turn to a very important topic, our facilities. And this particular discussion is gonna talk about the environmental approaches and ways that the school division is trying to sustain our buildings and also be very efficient so that we can get the best bang for our buck.

[00:48:26] We know there's so much technology out there. We have said many times though that we are very limited in the funding and the way we are funded. But so, and just a reminder that the annual budget that the school board approves is the operational budget of the year that does not pay for the capital programming and, excuse me, the capital facilities funding.

[00:48:46] That is what is on the bond very soon. Early voting starts this Friday on the, by our citizens of Fairfax. so we are going to talk we're going to hear about a new program called green globes and um thank you to facility staff um dr reed do you want to mention a little something yeah i'd like to if you're when you're ready i'll introduce staff in the program we are ready okay thank you ms marin so this evening uh we haven't talked about uh green globes uh in a work session with this board

[00:49:19] but we think it's important as we think about our um jet goals and the work that we've been doing as a school division to be environmentally thoughtful and good stewards of um good building here when we are able to do that in fairfax county public school so i asked staff staff this evening to bring us up to date and also our community who may be watching that we are committed to the green globes process and there are also statutory requirements currently in line with

[00:49:53] this work so the building certification will be something that's described and then we'd like to make sure we're able to answer questions from the board and have a discussion about this commitment so i'm going to turn it over to staff to present a slide deck that is posted both online and in board docs for board members dr may i just clarify i mentioned it's a new program is it new in the way it's being implemented in virginia i thought that there was legislation that maybe or maybe i'm just misremembering this exists it's part of the um what we'll hear about more about but it's not new in virginia it's not necessarily new in virginia or new to us quite

[00:50:30] honestly it's uh but it's something we haven't spoken about or talked about publicly i think uh there we've and i think staff will review that but there's lead certification and then and Green Globe certification, both of which are intended to talk about green building and environmentally sound building practices.

[00:50:52] And I think we've had a lot of discussion both related to our CIP and our board priorities and just wanna make sure our board knows that this is a commitment that we are working toward and that there's statutory basis for it.

[00:51:07] - Thank you, go ahead, thank you. - Thank you, Jessica Gillis, Executive Director of Capital Improvements and Planning, and I'd like to also introduce our Director of Design and Construction, Scott Eschbach. Getting started, good evening.

[00:51:26] We appreciate the opportunity to discuss the strategies that facilities, services, and capital programs employ to continue their commitment towards environmental sustainability. Through this presentation, we hope to share what our approaches to reaching these goals are, both past and present, as these strategies have been affected by the updated legislation.

[00:51:44] we will provide a brief overview of the certification programs available and the process undertaken by facility services and capital programs to evaluate those programs. FCPS maintains a strong commitment to the design and construction of high performance school projects in a manner which is environmentally sustainable and responsible from both an energy efficiency standpoint while also enhancing the comfort levels of those learning environments.

[00:52:15] This commitment aligns with the core principles of the Joint Environmental Task Force achieve net zero energy for all county buildings and major renovation projects in the future following our commitment to those goals and through the direction of the school board the facility services and capital programs staff moved to develop all new construction or major renovation and addition projects whose planning and design begin in 2021 or later achieve net zero energy readiness or move towards net zero energy recent legislative changes at the state level have prompted a transition in our high-performance certification strategy.

[00:52:55] Okay, past and current approach, CHIPS, so what is CHIPS? The Collaborative for High-Performance Schools is the building rating system that promotes healthy high-performance learning environments.

[00:53:11] Historically our projects were designed, documented, and constructed seeking certification through CHIPS. This rating system focused on developing the healthy and high-performing environments for students and FCPS currently has 42 projects registered with CHIPS and that are either in design or are being constructed or completed and six of those projects have received their final certification with many others on track to achieve that certification upon construction completion.

[00:53:45] In 2021, the Virginia State Legislature passed House Bill 2001, the Virginia High Performance Buildings Act. While the initial passage of this legislation did not impact the manner in which sustainable buildings were developed in our system, an update to House Bill 2001 in July of 2024, or the Virginia High Performance Building Act rather, required greater efficiency and resilience in Virginia's public buildings.

[00:54:13] This update also added language clarifying that the word locality is to be inclusive of school systems. And as such, the legislation is now a major driver of how FCPS designs, constructs, and verifies our school's sustainability design and energy performance.

[00:54:30] The paths available to track and verify this performance and achieve certification of our projects is limited to two rating systems. Green Globes, as overseen by the Green Building Initiative, and LEAD, which is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, as overseen by the United States Green Building Council.

[00:54:49] Under this legislation, CHIPS is no longer recognized as an acceptable certification pathway. Staff from the Offices of Design and Construction and Facilities Management conducted a comprehensive review to evaluate the LEED and Green Globe certification pathways.

[00:55:10] The evaluation process considered a variety of factors to ensure a well-informed decision. We did some research on best practices and the team conducted extensive online and in-person research and reviewed industry best practices to understand the current landscape of sustainability certification.

[00:55:28] professional expertise and project feasibility. The evaluation incorporated the professional experience and insights of the staff, focusing on the feasibility of implementing such program and real-world projects, and expert consultation. They held discussions with the sustainability experts from the school system in the region with comparable experience, Montgomery County, and we also consulted directly with the representatives from Green Globes to gain a deeper understanding of the process and benefits.

[00:55:58] Our staff currently has experience with LEED and of course, chips. So it wasn't necessarily to have conversations with the US Green Building Council. Following this evaluation, we recommended adopting the Green Globes certification track for future projects to comply with the legislation.

[00:56:19] And Green Globes, one of the biggest reasons is Green Globes provides a flexible approach that allows project teams to collaborate with the Green Building Initiative. We get to prioritize keys to sustainability aspects such as energy efficiency, water conservation, sustainable site development, and indoor environmental quality.

[00:56:40] This certification also requires an independent on-site inspection to ensure compliance throughout the construction process, resulting in the official Green Globes certification. Additionally, Green Globes is expected to be more cost-effective while still meeting our high standards.

[00:56:57] Montgomery County Public Schools, which has a similar portfolio to FCPS, has successfully implemented Green Globes for over a decade. Many architect and engineering firms in the region are already familiar with Green Globes system, further supporting a smooth transition for FCPS projects.

[00:57:14] Based on these considerations, we decided to go forward with the Green Globes certification as a replacement to chips. So this is a table of the staff findings just mentioned. In the categories of certification costs and process flexibility, Green Globes is evaluated more favorably for the needs of FCPS.

[00:57:38] Historically, LEED was often viewed as the primary rating system used regionally by school systems, but as I mentioned, Montgomery County Public Schools and FCPS share many of the same architect and engineering firms, and we do not anticipate concerns with familiarity of Green Globes.

[00:57:57] What is Green Globes? It's a science-based building rating system that assesses a project's environmental impact across multiple areas, including energy, water, materials, and indoor air quality. The biggest thing, and I'm gonna keep harping on this one, is the flexible approach that Green Globes allows for each of our project teams to collaborate with the Green Building Initiative and prioritize key sustainability aspects.

[00:58:25] So following the progression of the previous slides, Green Globes will give our system the most flexibility in the achievement of certifications as the path is not prescriptive and development of the pathway is collaboratively done with the Green Building Initiative staff throughout both the design and construction phases.

[00:58:43] And the final phase entails a walkthrough of the completed project with those Green Building Initiative representatives to discuss the project and move towards that final Green Globe certification. Alignment with net zero goals.

[00:58:58] The use of Green Globe's rating system for certification not only keeps us in compliance with Virginia's High Performance Building Act, it also is consistent with our commitments to the JET, NDE initiatives as Green Globes criteria have a strong focus on energy usage and overall energy efficiency, getting our projects as close as possible to being energy neutral.

[00:59:22] By adopting Green Globes, FCPS ensures that all future projects will contribute to a more sustainable and environmentally responsible future for the county. To summarize, our past method of certifying our school's sustainability performance was through the CHIPS rating system.

[00:59:41] And due to recent changes enacted by the state legislature, we are looking to transition from CHIPS to Green Globes Rating and Certification Program. While this transition will keep us in compliance with the High Performance Building Act, it also keeps us aligned with those net zero energy commitments, all while using that flexible approach to meet the standards.

[01:00:06] The move to Green Globes certification is a proactive step that positions FCPS to meet both state legislative mandates and its own ambitious sustainability goals. The new approach will allow us to create healthier, more efficient, and more resilient school buildings for our community.

[01:00:22] - Thank you. I think that's really exciting. I remember if our previous board member Elaine Tolan were here, I think she was always talking about chips and here we are, next gen. Dr. Reed, did you wanna? - I did, I just wanna also mention to the board that we did, and thank you to staff for creating a one pager, which you have at your site.

[01:00:41] It's also posted and it's a bit of a summary statement also for the public watching about the Green Globes building certification just in a very brief summary. So just wanna make sure we have that. - Wonderful, Mr. Dunn.

[01:01:05] - I've got too many microphones now. I wanted to ask, was this topic originate with the superintendent or with a member-driven request? - This was my request to bring forward, if you will, an explanation of how we are providing compliance with the JET goals.

[01:01:32] - Okay, is there any effect on our, we had discussed in a previous work session and previous board meetings, a desire to shift from design bid build to construction management at risk and design build.

[01:01:48] Does the adoption of green globes have any impact in terms of slowing or hindering our ability to do that or just no impact? - We don't anticipate any impact to that.

[01:02:05] Is there a reason we didn't use Green Globes previously if Montgomery County has successfully used it for 10 years? - So we started with chips in 2008 and we actually were a huge part in creating the Virginia-specific chip standards.

[01:02:26] So I think that we were pretty committed to that from quite some time past the weeded chips because it aligned with what we were looking for at the time. And I think that Montgomery County took a different path. So it was only the passing of this legislation that said that we were no longer allowed to use chips that we started looking at other options. Can you explain what was the legislative path that Fairfax County, being the largest school division in the state,

[01:03:00] somehow had its green building approach outlawed by the state legislature? That seems like there was a failure of consultation between the county and and the state or state legislators just deemed what we were doing insufficient i'm just trying to figure out how did we end up in that situation i'm not sure exactly i do believe that the chips group approached the state to see if they could be considered as one of the certification pathways and it was not approved

[01:03:33] we know why it wasn't approved i don't know that i do know that chips just announced that at the end of July that they are now merging with LEED under the U.S. Green Building Council. And sorry, is the Green Building Initiative that sponsors Green Globes different than the Green Building Council? Because it sounds very...

[01:03:57] Two separate things. Okay. And what's the difference in the organizational makeup, if any? I'm not sure. Are there limitations in Green Globes in terms of the materials you can use, for example, requiring sustainable materials like timber and not allowing you know concrete rebar things like that no there's no restrictions per se in the materials as far as i understand it's essentially

[01:04:33] we've got a thousand points you get to the number of points you want to get to any way you want to get there and they work with you in that regard so i don't believe there's any material restrictions um can you take like one of our ongoing design projects that we have underway like least corner elementary school that was approved in january or any other that you choose and just explain how shifting to green globes might require changes to the design process in terms of the

[01:05:08] decisions materials etc that get made i think that there's a lot of overlap between chips and green globes i don't i'm not prepared to give you an exact like overlap but i think that we're still on the same sustainability track regardless of the certification process that we use.

[01:05:28] So do you think any of our existing designs will have to be modified in any way to meet the Green Gold's criteria and the state legislative mandate? Perhaps, and that is a question that we're looking into because we have several that have been registered under CHIPS. The horizon year for CHIPS is July 2027, so there will be a few projects that have either started design under the CHIP registration or in construction that will no longer receive a CHIP certification because it will not exist. So there's a transition that we're looking into, like what will that look like? It's a good question.

[01:06:08] When does this state legislative mandate go into effect for projects beginning design what month and year? I believe it was January 18th, 2025. So any projects we had in design before then can be grandfathered in, perhaps with CHIPS?

[01:06:30] I think it's any project that was already permitted, not just permitted prior to January 2025. So if we were currently in design, and we're still in design after January of 2025, it's no longer under CHIPS or anything else we would have to transition, which is one of the big question marks.

[01:06:55] We did not realize there would be a horizon year on CHIPS. so that would be dissolved until the end of July, which you know is a pretty busy time for us. - To what extent does Green Globes mandate net zero buildings?

[01:07:17] - I don't know what the-- - Like net zero ready, net zero-- - Yeah, the mandate, I don't think it's a, it's not a mandate. - So that's, so whether we design our buildings to be net zero ready or net zero energy buildings is still an option at the discretion of the school board.

[01:07:38] Yeah, I think that these are two different things in a way. So Green Globes is we want to have as many as possible schools that are energy neutral, net zero energy. I think that some of the sites will cause a restriction on becoming truly net zero.

[01:07:59] So I don't think that it has a negative impact or has an impact on it on our approach towards net zero. I think that it's we are still looking for to comply with the state's requirement that we have high performance buildings and that's net zero is not a certification.

[01:08:17] So we had to choose between two and that's where we're going with this. If I understand correctly, you need to you have a thousand points. You need to get 35 percent of the thousand points. What are the main methods by which FCPS can achieve at the most cost effective price the certification?

[01:08:36] That's kind of the next step of our exploration of what is our current design? What would that net us in terms of the number of points that we could achieve?

[01:08:52] And I think that's our next step. But I don't think that it requires significant alterations to the way that we do business. I think one of the important things to note is that even with our, like, under our CHIPS designs, we are still 30 or 40 to 50 percent energy reduction without focusing simply on energy reduction only, right?

[01:09:17] So I think that we're already on a good track to get there. We'll see what, like, how much more effort and energy that it will take for us from the CHIPS sustainability efforts to Green Globes. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:09:33] Mr. Fresh. Thanks and Miss Barron's right about what Miss Toland would be saying right now I had the pleasure of serving on the joint environmental task force with her for basically the entire previous school board so I'm in my second reading of abundance which is something that I think a lot of local elected officials are reading right now and I appreciate the work that's been done here and the adjustments that have been made i know that it's never easy to change systems internally especially

[01:10:10] ones that we helped build and essentially led on for so long i am intrigued that it seems that this has a little bit more flexibility than the lead systems and you know as we continue to kind of to navigate as a board, how we get as close to reaching our JET goals as possible. And let's be clear, like the overall JET goal is like basically carbon neutrality by 2040. That's what all of the

[01:10:43] individual goals are all leading towards. And so for me, given our budget constraints, the most important thing for me is that everything that we're doing is the most impact we can have with the dollars that we're spending towards getting to that goal. And that may look different than how we began this conversation. I think that whether it's CHIPS or this new initiative, those are going to help us go in that direction. And so as we have further conversations in the

[01:11:19] months leading up to the CIP and around the CIP, I'll be looking at how we're making the most best use of every dollar to reach those goals. For many places, it's a bigger hill to climb to achieve these significant savings in energy usage. It's a lesser hill to climb to achieve these energy savings because they've done so little. Here, we've done so much to conserve energy, even if the buildings are not net zero yet or not achieving that goal. We're saving

[01:11:58] $10 million a year in energy that would have been spent otherwise in money that would have spent it been spent otherwise and that wouldn't have happened were it not for all the work that led up to this moment today so I appreciate the presentation and the work that's gone into it and I look forward to working with my colleagues in the superintendent on how we can maximize the impact we want to have with the money that we have thank you mr. Frisch dr. Anderson followed by mr. moon yes I'll be brief thank you again for sharing this I think I need to kind of wrap my mind about what around what we're doing so as I

[01:12:36] understand it chips is no longer available so we have to find a way to be compliant with all of the things you've listed on the last page and so you're offering the two options between lead and green globes and we're leaning into green globes because it's more flexible than leads and it's a lower cost is that accurate thus far? Yes, ma'am. What I'd like to get a better understanding of is how will we see the differences? What differences will we see with this new process or with this

[01:13:07] new structure? We're not exactly sure. Okay. I don't anticipate huge differences with what you see, but we will have to look at what investments we need to make to the designs or what changes we need to make for the designs from CHIPS to meet those green globe standards.

[01:13:30] So part of that flexibility is, which was so enticing to us, is that there are other options besides just looking at the fixed environment. We can look at the site, we can look at, you know, the other fixtures, et cetera. But this is a move that we have to make.

[01:13:47] It's required. Yes, ma'am. And so it's required. And so the recommendation is the green globes. So is that something you're looking for the board to vote upon or it's just you're just telling us we're going with Green Globes?

[01:14:02] I didn't intend for the board to vote on it. It seemed like it was an operational decision that facilities has made based on their analysis of the two options. If I'm happy to go back and look at it.

[01:14:18] We haven't done a great deal of Green Globes work yet. We happy to go back and take a look at it. The comparison that was listed does make the Green Globes more, I believe it's more financially efficient if I recall.

[01:14:33] So I expect that that was part of the calculus for the facilities team to, given our budget circumstances to go with perhaps a more financially feasible, assuming that there are similar outcomes in terms of environmental positive outcomes.

[01:14:51] outcomes no i mean i see that and we definitely know the dollars are tight right now i just want to understand what is the role you want us to play in this it was more so informational this evening because really haven't talked about it really that this is something that's come into effect that's not enabling us to use our chips strategy previously and honestly i learned quite a bit as we were as i was reviewing the documents as well that this is a journey to net zero and in many ways, and I think both LEED and Green Globes provide a pathway, but I think the flexibility

[01:15:30] and economic efficiency of Green Globes makes it maybe a bit more enticing. - Sure, I would just love to hear, once you kind of wrap your minds around this a little bit more, because it's still fairly new, like what are the impacts? Like what should we look to seeing in our buildings based on current practices that are CHIPS-focused, and as well as some of the questions that Mr. Dunn asked regarding our building when we are constructing, designing buildings.

[01:15:58] How does that come into play? So thank you. - Thank you, Mr. Moon, and then Mr. McElbeen. - Thank you, just one, maybe two quick questions. From CHIPS, which we used to rely upon, that used to be the standard, which is no longer available for us, to us.

[01:16:25] from going to chips to green globes, and also difference between green globes and LEED in terms of cost-wise, would you be able to describe whether from going to chips to green globes cost might go up by this much, and the difference between green globes and LEED is this much difference?

[01:16:50] - Yeah, I understand the question. I'm not sure that I ran those numbers. I'm happy to run them and get back to you and what their cost difference would be. - Okay, thank you. Just wanna, whether it's a 5% difference, 10% difference, twice the amount of LEED versus something else.

[01:17:10] Okay, thank you. - Thank you, Mr. McElbeen. - Thanks. And so, you know, back in the day, I had many conversations with Kevin Sneed about CHIPS. And I always ask Kevin why we were not using LEED and using CHIPS instead.

[01:17:27] And what he, how he explained it to me is that CHIPS is much better suited to school buildings, whereas LEED is more industrial, commercial based. And so I think it makes sense that we would try to find an alternative to CHIPS that suits our facilities better than LEED.

[01:17:47] So it makes sense to me to go forward with relying on the Green Globe certification. That being said, I agree with Mr. Moon. I think we do need to see the cost differential the two and because I think that would be helpful and at the same time I also believe it's an operational decision so I don't envision us being too deeply in the weeds on this thanks thank you I will go ahead and share some remarks so just to gather where we're at so we're moving to align with the certification

[01:18:23] system that is authorized by Virginia law that makes it very clear what the school division has to do to achieve high standards to be deemed having efficient buildings so you know things change we have a new system it's got a snazzy name so that's one takeaway from this meeting the next thing I want to touch on is of course we know that we need money to do this we know that we really would need a billion dollars per year for the next decade or more to renovate our buildings and that is such a big part of our work you know this $8.7 billion in public facility assets, and so we've got to look to our main funders,

[01:19:03] and those are the county government led by the Board of Supervisors and the state government led by the General Assembly and ultimately the governor, you know, especially since we're working to achieve this Green Globes program, that is by law from the state. So we just had our session about state advocacy, and we did talk about facilities needs.

[01:19:20] And in particular, there was a bill passed into law about checking, you know, HVAC's useful life and i think our facility staff is well aware that our hvac systems are you know where they are in their useful life we know many have been pushed further we had funds during covid through esser to try and extend it but um we know from some recent events too in our schools that you know 20 years well that's the useful life of facilities especially if they haven't been upgraded over the time the way that we would like and we know our professionals and our staff would

[01:19:53] like so um you know i i so that's the one piece the state piece the board of supervisors so they run the bond program and this november every fairfax voter can vote on the bond and this year it is for the school facilities and every other year it's for the schools and then it is for county facilities think libraries emergency services parks what's interesting about the way that it goes back and forth is that we actually have four times the amount of square footage and our facilities are used pretty much seven days a week as we know from data shared last year that we had half a million public events through

[01:20:31] our community use program in addition to educating children and being a place of employment for staff so I'd like to see us get to a real like apples to apples comparison with our county use buildings and I'm very eager to begin the work with the Board of Supervisors on the joint facility review committee we were told that was going to start in October I'd love to get that on the calendar because it's already quite busy but you know I think ultimately when I think about the joint environmental environmental task force JET well accomplished so much I don't yet see the partnership realized to actually make

[01:21:05] it happen we have to talk about the funding so just in summary you know we want to maximize how we're spending limited capital funding we've got the bond we've got our CIP which is leading to a facility condition assessment and that's in tandem with reviewing our renovation queue we've got policy updates our board last year we did in governance and or maybe just the work session different ways that we could do contract and procurement to save money and maximize the costs so I hope I'm eager to keep talking about this I hope we can keep reserving time on our agenda for this especially knowing the

[01:21:43] facilities condition assentment is somewhere in the near future so I'm happy to have the superintendent or anyone else respond before we go on to mr. McElveen are you no okay well dr. Reed I mean I echo the sentiment you share it I think we have work to do and partnering in that work is gonna provide the or yield the best results for the entire county seeing as there's no other comments I would like to share another round of comments yes okay I'm trying to

[01:22:21] think tactically about what it how we put into motion the work with the board of supervisors and their staff and we know that our the two entities do talk especially when it comes to you know the permitting and trying to do the estimating on membership and what that's going to need down the road how do we take it to the next level and that's actually the question I asked Donna Volkman a few years ago about get to green and that's what ended up getting us the outdoor classrooms and the expanded teaching staff so like if we really want to get next level with our facilities what's the next step because we we've talked about this a lot we've got a lot of community concern we're

[01:22:59] clearly trying to be efficient I mean Western High School purchase we saved over 200 million dollars of what was planned we are savvy and frugal so how do we elevate that you know our schools are not only places for instruction but they actually are employing tens of thousands of adults and places of polling in elections, like what do we do? What's the next step? You know, I feel like I'm waiting for the Joint Facility Committee, and I'm getting, you know, that's only one part, so I don't know. How do we, and this also even relates, I'll just share it to the budget meetings and, you know, questions about how are we really aligning the effort, you know,

[01:23:38] in the budget, in the calendar of budget meetings this year, our school board is, or excuse me, county executive is to present his proposed budget and then it's only a week later that our school board is to adopt the proposed budget so hopefully we will be working with the board of supervisors all that time but then like just a week like how do we really sit down and get our timelines together and really talk about these facilities that are used by so many people not just

[01:24:08] kids and not just teachers and staff it's just conferring with dr. Reed you

[01:24:50] this time of year is again when we put forth what is on that bond that we're going to ask voters to invest in and while the school board does have the authority to move some of that funding around like when we have an opportunity like a beautiful high school comes to market and we want to you know be savvy there also are things on the bond that our voters hopefully you know we'll see is an investment so dr. Reed thank you for sharing a little bit more about that sure thank you miss Marin I you know we're really excited to be able to to bring a bond to our community that will benefit our students here in Fairfax County.

[01:25:23] We know facilities play a huge role in the environment for learning. This bond, primarily, it's gonna be, there will be funds for, obviously, for the new Western High School purchase.

[01:25:41] There will also be funding within that for certain other projects. I know, Jessica, you probably have a list in your head. I didn't bring the bond rack card with me this evening, but I know that we are looking at, I wanna say there are a couple elementary schools that we're continuing that are in the construction queue.

[01:26:03] We're also looking at moving Twain Middle School, I believe, into, essentially we're following the CIP, right? That the board spends time every year to review, but we're looking at a couple elementary schools that move into construction.

[01:26:21] We're looking at Twain Middle School, which will move into design. We know that we're continuing the work on the Silver Line Elementary design process that was on a prior bond, but we'll be moving some funds to complete that design in the next cycle.

[01:26:38] We're looking at Centerville Elementary School, which is in the queue to get that moving on this bond. And what were the other couple elementary schools, Ms. Gillis? - So Cub Run Elementary School for construction, Center Ridge and Union Mill for construction also, and then Twain for the planning and design.

[01:27:00] - I don't know if it's Center Ridge or Centerville Elementary. - Centerville High School, we identified as needing additional funds. - And Centerville High School will be getting some funds for continuing the phased part of their construction. So there are a variety of projects that are in different parts of the county that are planned and we'll provide a more detailed list of those bond projects in the rack cards.

[01:27:26] It'll be going out very shortly this week. And again, a big thank you to Len Forkus and the team that is supporting that bond work, which is really critical work for our community. And all of the buildings, obviously moving into design this point will be utilizing the green globes initiative checklists and sustainability goals within those design projects before any kind of permitting is going to be done thank you dr. Reed so I just also wanted to elevate how

[01:28:02] often our school buildings are used and it's not just the use of the physical building that's important it really is the center of a community we see that by how attached our families and students are to their school and how much it means but i think that sometimes what we fail to recognize is that this these buildings are not used nine to five and then closed and that's a lot of warrant term buildings we have those buildings open early in the morning we have a lot of them being used for for community meetings for after school sports

[01:28:37] activities uh our high schools for the games and you know the gyms and all kinds of things So all of that is wear and tear on a building, and we love to have the community there. That's important. We wanna have the community there, but it's not a nine to five use like other buildings.

[01:28:57] And so all of these considerations have to be taken into account in terms of how we're going to run them efficiently and effectively in getting them to green. And so I just wanted to piggyback and lift that and let our community know that we're invested and doing the best that we can with the resources that we have because we know that our schools are not just the centers of education.

[01:29:22] And let's face it, that's where most of our kids spend the majority of their time. So it's important that those buildings be a safe, supportive and welcoming environment physically as well as emotionally.

[01:29:38] So I just wanted to raise that to the level of awareness because our buildings are more than just buildings, they're community centers for our families. And it really is important that we have these discussions with our partners so that they understand the meaning of them other than just a physical meaning.

[01:29:59] I mean, they really are at the heart of our communities. - Well, I think we're just about closing for this discussion. I guess I just wanna add that if we aren't updating and upgrading our public school facilities, we are not achieving environmental sustainability.

[01:30:20] and energy efficiency to realize savings and comfort and access to all Fairfax residents. There's a group of wonderful advocates in the Westfield Pyramid who are all about solar. And yeah, I'm all about solar too. But if we have places that are not comfortable and have dying systems, we have to take care of that for comfort and access as well.

[01:30:41] There's so much to achieve. So I'm really eager for that joint committee. And I suppose we're adjourned. Thank you.

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