Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County School Board Work Session, Tuesday, September 8, 2026

Date: Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Place: Fairfax County School Board, Virginia
Length: 4h 9m (video)
Official meeting video (YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1V5iL8IKu0
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 2026-10-26. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:06] And our first topic is pedestrian safety study that was done in the report. So I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Reed. Thank you, Miss Lady. And this report actually is the first time we've put it into print.

[00:00:23] And I really want to commend our team, led by Mr. Lambert, for marshaling our department and our staff to provide this report. It's not a very large department in this case. Mr. Gordon and Mr. Muick for their support roles I think that our student safety remains a high priority so I look forward to the presentation this morning and also the board discussion so mr. Lambert thank you dr. Reed school

[00:00:52] board all right just wanted to recap with the history of how we got to this position back in January of 2025 there was a work session such as this where school board directed an annualized product and myself mr. muick and at time the chief of facilities were on the committee in the spring we wanted to spring of 2025 we wanted to get a first touch of what this might look like and we did a small pilot with six schools varying from elementary middle and high

[00:01:32] school across the six regions and provided you last summer with a quick readout of what we determined but the first real iteration took place during the last school year and what we'll do is go through a little bit of who took part in this and what the methodology is and then some key findings and most importantly the discussion the idea was I think mr. Frisch you maybe even mentioned this that you wanted it to be something similar to the CIP where it could build upon itself year after year turn to the next slide safe routes to school had recently come to the Office of Safety and Security just wanted to say

[00:02:09] that Safe Routes to School consists of two full-time employees and two hourly employees and the main thing I want to take away from this slide you can obviously see what their main functions are but they're people focused and getting students actively moving so their their day jobs so to speak are all those activities underneath where we're trying to encourage active transportation and active movement of our students of which about 20% of our student body our walkers on the next page there's a safety specialist who also works for us one person and they are other people or vehicle focused so they

[00:02:48] liaison with V dot FC dot and this one person is probably the key at most of the kiss and ride assessment and mitigation so in between several other things like wincomatic coordination making sure the police know what time the lights are supposed to be on or whatnot they're helping with this my colleague from design and construction of facilities the chief of facilities their team obviously plays a key role in making sure that the infrastructure when we go to a site is all up to par and of course my colleague from transportation plays a

[00:03:26] key role with nearly 80% of our student body population taking a bus and so all All of these groups come together, and what we'll describe was the traffic and pedestrian safety study. So the methodology on the next slide.

[00:03:42] September, we realize, is a month where everyone is coming back together. Schools are getting their routines. So we don't interfere or ask administrators to do anything during the month of September. We want them to get into their battle rhythm, arriving as it should. And then the program kicked off in the month of October.

[00:03:59] And this is all subject to change, because Dr. Reed mentioned last year was the first year of this program but in October we asked the principals to do a self assessment and so we designed a set of questions that should be asked and answered and we learned a lot from the first year for example we're asking them how many students are arriving walking using the kiss and ride or biking and we have a mitigation toolkit that goes along with it because showed you that it's a small staff that works on this and the principals are leading our campuses to give them some ideas or

[00:04:36] ways to help mitigate some problems on their own but for example one of the lessons we learned last year that will implement this year is when we asked those questions about how many walkers bikers we actually want them to be out there daily clicking over a couple day period and not just taking the information from sis for example so we found that as one of the flaws in this year's report that we will correct for next year that it's more observation of what's actually happening then what people are listed in insist for example when the assessments are done the team sits back and looks at what data came in

[00:05:13] they also put on top of that their historical knowledge because as you see at the bottom of this slide I don't want anybody watching this to think that these assessments are only taking place as part of the traffic and pedestrian survey it's their full-time job there they're going out and addressing problems as they come up but through this program we're trying to get a more methodical data-driven approach where we focus on the 10 most and put our focus on the 10 most needed schools so in February or April the team now comes

[00:05:47] together mr. Gordon's team mr. muix team safe routes to school and they start doing site visits and the site visits would incorporate the principal they're watching how behaviors are taking place on a given day not just in theory and they're making recommendations to the principal and giving those recommendations to the principal to implement them and then by the end of the fiscal year June 30th we produce the report which is on our website if anybody is looking for that it's on the safe routes to school website on the Fairfax County Public

[00:06:23] schools website there is one overall not shocking observation district-wide across all the sites that were observed it's that kiss and ride and vehicle congestion are a major issue the report talks about several reasons for this change in behaviors of parents particularly following the pandemic that was when a noticeable uptick in parents driving their children to school took place infrastructure limitations we are a very large school division with many of our schools built for a different time built inside of neighborhoods where

[00:07:00] people's personal habits were different maybe that was built more for walking we've also done some programs that are excellent like immersion programs I think we have 17 of them but that very often does involve some level of folks driving to our campus to get their staffing limitations you know kiss and ride can be a very labor-intensive activity particularly if you have to control multiple parts to enter the school property or to navigate the way the campus is laid out because I say this often to the team if you've seen

[00:07:38] one of our schools you've seen one of our schools there generally is not a template that's fixed and repeatable across all the schools one of the major challenges is also making sure that bus traffic is not commingled to the extent possible with the kiss and ride traffic because mr. Mewick to make his routes and times needs to be able to get the buses in unloaded and candidly 80% of our population are on the buses we want to make sure those students are getting in and then of course unsafe driving behaviors and what the team noticed even

[00:08:15] myself going out to some schools recently is there are some behaviors that are really disappointing where instead of using the kiss and ride folks will get close to the school and let their children out in fact often letting their children out and watching them cross over busy roads and so they parents themselves have chosen to use the kiss and ride and then get frustrated with with the kiss and ride and so use an alternative drop-off in a neighborhood as opposed to waiting for the protocols then more specifically each of the ten schools and the report details it have some specific findings that were in

[00:08:54] there the team meets with them often goes back to see if they've been able to implement some of them some of them are immediate I think probably one of the most successful in this is the Ravensworth Elementary School changes where they were actually able to change how the kiss and ride operated I know that one of the suggestions you'll see for some places is trying different grades to come at different levels and they were fortunate that they were able to do that there but even with all the fixes we still get reports that there are some unsafe parent behaviors where folks drop off their kids and fortunate

[00:09:31] the staff there you know address those when they see them for 26 27 for the upcoming school year a couple of things we want to do is get the feedback to the schools a bit earlier not wait until more like the May June because schools are already starting to cycle into their end of the year we want to be able to get them their fixes a little bit earlier so that they can be implemented and see how they work the team did set up several meetings with FC dot and V who is a critical player in all of this because each of them plays a different role whether it's a county road or a trail or whatnot getting better

[00:10:07] relationships there and working on those meetings and the team has talked about ways to make that better better community feedback in the process through the month of October where we are gathering information we are going to work with communications to find a method to collect that information from each school community so it's more specific as each principal is filling out their own assessment of their school and I mentioned it earlier the data collection you know that we want it to be more exact that we don't want you to just take what your your profile of your student body looks like and putting that into the report we want you to actually observe it I think one of the

[00:10:46] things mr. Mewick and I have talked about that we are candidly able to see this year that we didn't see last year or we'll be able to is the new routing software that Mr. Mewick's team has deployed. Before, we didn't actually have anything tangible to see if there's 100 students at a school that are dedicated as bussers, how many of them are actually taking the bus. And so that's information that as this program gets rolled out, we're going to be able to look at a much more granular level and see where the breakdowns are occurring.

[00:11:21] Which walkers are not walking is a little bit more difficult to do because there's not a device where we're capturing necessarily other than than clicking so we know that we are losing a fair amount of our bussers and walkers to kiss and ride and so I think the report makes clear that it's a convenience that we try to manage but in Fairfax County Public Schools all of our students are listed as either bus riders or walkers and that's the method of transportation for them getting to school so that was a high-level overview of the report that again you can find on

[00:11:58] on the website and ask my colleagues if there's anything i glossed over on dr reed okay thank you uh we're going to get started with mr frisch thank you uh one small correction actually this work is the result of a follow-on motion from a 2023 cip that i brought uh with uh now senator pokarski um and that started from a conversation i was having with community members around oakton in elementary schools kiss-and-ride problems.

[00:12:36] And as I socialized what had started as a possible forum topic, I learned from people like Dr. Anderson and other magisterial members and at-large members that everyone had a hotspot or two or three or five or 10. And so it morphed into this.

[00:12:52] And so I want to thank everyone on the team for their hard work to pull this off. And note that this request and this report started long before the conversation around high school crossing guards. And one thing is made abundantly clear when you read this report, and I encourage anybody watching us for the first time in one of our work sessions, thanks to the media cameras that are here to read the report, is that regardless of whether there is a crossing guard, we have severe problems with our kiss and rides,

[00:13:25] where students are being dropped off, as was mentioned by staff, there are illegal U-turns, drop-offs in neighborhoods or unauthorized lots in the middle of the road when people get frustrated, et cetera.

[00:13:43] And so as we deal with the conversation around crossing guards, we must also deal with this fundamental issue and know that the solutions that many of these schools have put in place, including at Oakton, require constant vigilance.

[00:13:59] It's a bit like plants growing between sidewalk cracks. You can get the plant out, but if you wait too long before maintaining it, it will grow back. And so, as I've seen at some of the schools in Providence District, principals and staff will do a good job of maintaining good practice around kiss and ride.

[00:14:19] But if they let up for even a month, the bad habits return. And so one thing I've been talking with Supervisor Palcik about is how can the county and the school system coordinate, regardless of the crossing guard question, around kiss and ride and incentivizing, bus taking, and walking.

[00:14:39] And of course, with more walking requires increased pedestrian safety commitments. So there are all kinds of trade-offs for these different things. I do have some questions about some of the information. the only crossing guard element referenced in this report for a high school is Justice High School and I'm you know one of the issues that it raises is the safe routes to school data being used in that assessment is that safe routes data shared with the county with our county partners in their assessments around these questions good question mr. Frisch when the county

[00:15:17] establishes where a crossing guard will be the police department has what they call it a general order much like our regulation or policy their general order that governs this is number 611 which it's public it's on the website they have a list of criteria that anyone can bring to them if they believe they want it looked at and assessed it includes generally some factors about how many people cross at any given time and the number of cars that pass over over a period of time I have three seconds I'm gonna get my my

[00:15:53] other question and this has to do with what we can do on our side to address this issue one of the things that's raised is the amount of staff we have that supports this work which is minuscule in terms of the staff that we provide so in a go back I'll probably want to get in a little bit into what kind of investment would be required for helping to address the recommendations that are laid out in this report but very good job thank you thank you dr.

[00:16:23] Anderson thank you and thank you for sharing that a little bit of a history mr. Frisch because I came with a similar motion for Belvedere Elementary School because that's one of the spaces in addition to justice where there's been a lot of concern because of the track all of the things how do I get them to be a prioritized school can you talk about that criteria sure a specific school yes Belvedere Elementary making the list first and foremost always call our team

[00:16:58] so they getting on our team's radar is the most important so if you personally you know through dr. Reed and get it to me we'll make sure they're taking a look at it but it's the assessment that we want to look at how many are walkers how many are bikers how many are bust and not just those numbers but where is the competition between two things happening so examples when people are crossing versus a car that those are the issues that tend to create challenges that you know unwanted outcomes of our students be involved in something bad so just

[00:17:34] really detailing how many people in their survey and getting that community feedback in it and pushing to make sure that it's as comprehensive as possible for each school thank you and I will send you the email because I know I raised it prior the question regarding justices crossing guard justice does not have a crossing guard correct my understanding is that at the end of last school year justice was not one of the ones with a crossing guard and I don't think they had one the year before either this has been a long-standing conversation where that community has been requesting a crossing guard because

[00:18:10] I know they send lots of emails so I find it interesting that you raise it here and I'm raising it with you because I'd like in your continued conversations with the county to bring that part of the of the report into light for consideration because if we have these issues that are occurring at that site and that could be a mitigating factor that I'd like for that to be part of the discussion encouraging kids to well lowering kiss and ride means we need to have more riders we need to have more walkers it is hard to be a

[00:18:49] walking school in in so many places because of either crossing a main road again without a crossing guard and/or a lack of sidewalks because I've had parents from Wayanoke Elementary who'd like to walk but there's no sidewalks and they're afraid of the concerns for their children similarly with Mason Cress Elementary they can't get across gallows how do we increase just the safety around walking to reduce kiss and ride which is not entirely up to us it's a collaboration walk me through what could what that could look like potentially well I know one of the things that there are a lot of schools

[00:19:28] where you have children who literally live across the street gallows is is one and in working with mr. Muick's team they'll generally decide where a walking route would be but our folks some of whom are in the room today will actually go out with their team and look at it and go it's very close but we don't want to put the the children in that situation so we elect to make them a busser because given all options we'd rather although we want to encourage outside activity some of those places are just very very challenging without adding a crossing

[00:20:04] guard without some other way to get them across the street a light a sidewalk a Do you have kind of greater input than we do as regular citizens with the proper organizations about the installation of sidewalks? We advocate with FCDOT on certain places because usually a constituent raises it, to be frank.

[00:20:30] But there is a bit of a piece where you're looking at where is the sidewalk area that we're talking about. Is it back in a rural 25-mile-per-hour neighborhood, or is it, you know, along a busy roadway? But the teams go out, Mr. Mute, correct me if I'm wrong, and lay eyes on, oftentimes putting an actual wheel out, like a push wheel to see what the distance is.

[00:20:55] No, that's it, Mr. Lambert. And they also look at egress from those areas. It's like if there's no sidewalk, they're looking at the shoulder to say, even though there's not a concrete sidewalk, is there safe room for them to step out of the way when they see traffic coming?

[00:21:13] So they look at that as well. And that's kind of what FCDOT and VDOT look at as well, to say, hey, there is a safe egress. If it was moving off the road into a big ditch, then that would cause a greater concern maybe. I'll dig into that and might go back if we have the opportunity.

[00:21:30] But I do want to talk a little bit about some of the data you've provided. This was very helpful, but my wondering is these numbers don't necessarily represent the percentage of the schools. I went through and I did my math for some of the schools, because you might have some schools that are really large, and the number looks really big, but it's such a tiny percentage.

[00:21:54] Is there any way that we could represent that with the percentage? Because I'm looking at, you know, Hayfield. They have 280 Kissin' Riders in the afternoon and 225 in the morning.

[00:22:09] But that's 6% to 7% of the school. What does that tell us? I think looking at the data in a different way gives us a different sense of urgency. Yes, ma'am, that's good input. We'll look to add that for next year. Yes. And similarly to McNair Upper, their enrollment Versus their walkers and riders, 68% of that school population walk or bike.

[00:22:36] So I just have that wondering, and I'll take a go back when possible. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. St. John Cunningham. Thank you. And first of all, I want to thank you for all the work you've done. I know you've done significant work in my district, and I appreciate that. I know you may even be on first-name basis with some of my constituents.

[00:22:55] What I wanted to dig into was the kiss and ride situation. As someone who has worked in schools for a long time, particularly elementary, where I think we have the highest number of kiss and ride kids, Dr. Reed, is there an allocation for principals for how they would staff kiss and ride?

[00:23:17] I don't believe there's an extra kiss and ride allocation. Right now, we're really trying to focus on having classroom staff, right? in the-- we discussed class sizes here earlier.

[00:23:33] So I don't know that there's a kiss and ride allocation for staff at this time. So that's at the principal's discretion? Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Is there a way to evaluate what the capacity would be for the optimal kiss and ride volume at a school?

[00:24:00] I believe so, because different schools have some different options, like stacking or whatnot. But I think that's a fair ask to be able to see what a school could handle without it bleeding into the adjoining street.

[00:24:15] Because what we're seeing at some locations, Ms. St. John Cunningham, is that there's not enough room. And so folks are now parking along the edge of the roadway in communities, or worse yet, blocking a single lane road. I know that we're issuing Mr. Dunn's district where that's particularly profound.

[00:24:36] And then it's causing issues that make the safety situation candidly worse. Which leads me to my next question. The report mentions that a lot of the behavior regarding this that is not optimal behavior is with grown-up behavior that are not school staff.

[00:25:00] Do we have an education program, a parent education program for our families and our parents? I am not aware of one, with an exception that on the Safe Routes to School website, which I'm sure not every parent is perusing, there are some videos where a young student is telling her dad, like, I can walk, right? It's safe for me to walk.

[00:25:28] I know that dr. Reed used her back to school letter at the end of the first week to highlight many of the great things and then did make a call for action to our parents to hey please where you can help us out one of the areas is to utilize the methods we would like you to come to school walking bucking biking or using the school bus and so I think first and foremost there's an opportunity for us to communicate more at the micro level at each school level perhaps even using some of the data when we're asking our schools to do

[00:26:04] this analysis and say hey there were 225 cars that came through equating some of those things to for example greenhouse gases that get admitted over the cost of a year when we think about that bus is still going whether they're on it or not on it kind of putting it in that frame of mind I think for me a wondering is really understanding I mean I'm a parent as well so I do understand some why are we not using the methods that we provide to the children like what's what's behind that and then dr. Reed did you want to speak to this yeah just I

[00:26:39] think mr. Lambert's being really thoughtful in his response around the kiss-and-ride challenge I think one of the things that we hear from principals is as we tighten up kiss and ride guidelines rule supervision on site what we are then seeing is that two blocks away or down the street people are dropping children off sometimes in the middle of the street the car's not even fully stopped or we have backups in neighborhoods so I think we need to recognize that the safety of our children is a responsibility all of us share there were parents or not because we're all on the roads we're all on the

[00:27:19] sidewalks and I think that that this particular conundrum I think is one that we're gonna really have to wrestle with a bit because we could again we are I know our principals are working hard on site for those kiss and ride morning and afternoons and the tighter we get the more in many cases the congestion moves a block away which is still congestion and it's still dangerous potentially for children who are walkers right so we can move this around but at some point we're going to need to address that we need to be more patient and more

[00:27:59] thoughtful if we're going to keep our children safe on the way to and from school thank you but I have manned kiss and write so a lot of the questions I asked I knew the answers to but I wanted you guys to answer and I have seen an increase can you address the impact that you have seen with new bus lanes at schools and how that has impacted traffic I'm not bus lanes I'm sorry excuse me um bike lanes I don't know that I have any data that I could get that but I will ask the the team who's on site a bit more but what they're

[00:28:36] noticing on that and then the other question I would ask if if you could help the board and the public because when I first came on board and this was one of the first issues I had to deal with with a constituent and I was you know educated and I'm still being educated in terms of the division of who is responsible for what because there are some people that believe well this is fair fact FCPS is responsibility when no it's really V dots or it's you know FC dots and if you can address that because I know one of the things you address in the report is like if there's vegetation or shrubbery that is blocking impeding like then who is responsible for that so I think

[00:29:15] sometimes there's expectations that FCPS is responsible for it when we're not I'm I'm going to go to my last question and this is both to you and dr. Reed because in the letter that the correspondence that was sent to the Board of Supervisors, there was a reference to a police reverse a police report survey that was mentioned during the August 25 26 Board of Supervisor meeting where they had looked at traffic flow and had suggestions for safety have we have you received that have we received that report yet

[00:29:52] at all no ma'am okay i really do believe that the board of supervisors is as invested as we are in safety i think we have to collaborate more to get all of that information together and i really think that we have to look at the kiss and write situation um i'll just take a just let me finish i know a lot of schools in my district were built before massive infrastructure was built around them so they were little tiny community schools and now they're off of major exchanges and my wondering is how the planning and collaboration is

[00:30:30] between the board of supervisors and the school board is that as that happens thank you mr. Danon good good afternoon I kind of build on the kiss and ride thing so just to clarify is our schools required to offer kiss and ride to parents I don't think there's anything in policy or regulation that that says so but one of the issues you raise is my team and I were talking we want to

[00:31:05] excite kids about using the buses and so as we were talking through some of these issues you know the focus at departure time at any given school should be like getting those walkers excited and on their journey home and those bus riders on the bus as quickly as possible, and then Kiss and Ride can be dealt with.

[00:31:29] I'll just admit, I kind of knew the answer to that question, and I learned it when I was volunteering with the PTA, and it shocked me as a parent, because I thought you had to offer it. And they're like, no, we kind of do this as a courtesy, and we really want parents to use buses and so forth, and so I appreciate it. In my kid's school, it's part of the kindergarten orientation.

[00:31:46] Kids would get on a bus, get to do a loop around the neighborhood and get excited about it. We also had a parent, God bless her, for eight years coordinate our walk and roll to school day program every year. Is that something that FCPS is a formal partnership with them that can help kind of spur? Because that's a huge turnout now because we had that parent doing that.

[00:32:05] Mr. Dan, I appreciate that question because some of the things that Safe Routes to School is trying to do is find creative ways other than just you're a walker or you're a busser. in some places depending on the you know the environment they're looking for locations nearby where a trusted adult will greet kids and so you kind of get two things happening at once you get a kiss-and-ride ish drop-off but then they're walking the you know the final section with an adult so it alleviates pressure at the school and it puts a large group of children with a trusted person there's also bike busing that the team does so they go out and meet with

[00:32:45] PTAs and if a PTA is interested that's exactly the type of activity where we'd love the PTAs to get involved and helping out at the very tail end of the report talks about some other things like storybook walks so that as students walk this is more of an elementary school thing they're almost like for sale signs metal signs that change and I know the team bought the first couple sets that are in both Spanish and English so that as you walk every day you're getting little bit more of the story so yeah yeah and in Del Terrace I believe was

[00:33:21] really successful at using it I want that on my way to work gosh is there speaking of funding for things like that are there is there funding allocated or is it the school level for things like bike racks so I know what the PTA does something that we had to raise funds to purchase one of those included ed specs at all say frost the school has a very very small budget but whenever it's something where we're trying to encourage that behavior we see what we can cover I'll say that a lot of what safe routes to school does is actually scraping grants grants are what allow a lot of safe routes to school to do some

[00:33:55] of their initiatives I know several of you were at the Bailey's upper traffic garden the other day that was almost entirely grant with some leftover money that mr. Gordon's team was able to put together so grants are a big deal and I know in tight economic times we do try to make sure there's a bike rack for for all the places got it I appreciate that this is it's a really wonderful effort and good report I want to commend my colleagues for using what could have just been a one-off anecdotal thing to spur comprehensive action and using data and comprehensive planning and so forth so I also appreciate the flexibility given to principles and so forth and direction given there so building on the

[00:34:35] the slide here in terms of the second bullet better coordinating with the county and so forth what can us board members do to help assist with this what do you need from us I think just knowing that you you support it and when you speak to your magisterial counterparts on these issues which I know you all are I'm just letting them know hey this is this is a partnership and you know a lot of the work has been done by the folks sitting in the back of the room to build build these relationships this was the first year so we do expect it to be you know better going forward we found them when when you get them you know one-on- one they've been responsive it's just they also have many of the same

[00:35:14] restraints there a lot of the projects they do are going to be a lot longer term other than you know cutting back vegetation or whatnot and while I'm on that I'm going to use mr. Dan and the end of your comment to address something st. John Cunningham said if constituents are frustrated because they don't know where to go for help like please send them to like our safe routes to school website or whatnot they may not be the person who answers it but I can assure you that the team's customer service will get them to the right direction or it's very often easier for one of my team members to take the issue and they go to FC dot and V dot since they have all that I don't want any of your

[00:35:54] constituents feeling like they're they're floundering looking for where to go no I appreciate that I think we had one or two constituents reach out and got a really quick response from your team, so we appreciate that. I'll just share, I recently met an elderly neighbor who lives right around the corner from us, and we've been walking to our school, and they showed that there used to be a walking school bus, and I don't know if anybody has heard this term recently, but it kind of surprised me, because nobody in the neighborhood had ever used it, and a group of kids just kind of collected each other, so it's interesting seeing how Kiss and Ride and this kind of thing has evolved, because I know, and I'll admit, we would often, before I knew about

[00:36:29] that Kittsman and I thing not being optional we would drive sometimes because we're over running late let's just drive and so I appreciate that it's somewhat it's a cultural shift as well so appreciate the report and looking forward to more good things thank you all right thank you Miss Marin I've been thinking non-stop about pedestrian safety since day one of school and what I'm coming to is there's things in our side of the house at FCPS that we take care of and there's things that are connected to the rest of the community so regarding our side of the house is there a dashboard of every school's

[00:37:05] safety needs or will there be dr. Reed I think we could certainly add that to the queue of work for the team to establish I do know that there that we do get anecdotal reports from school staff right now that go to our office of safety and security but we can add some type of a dashboard to the list what I I hear is it there's inconsistent information and I don't hear an urgency for this information so that's what I'm taking away from this I think it's critical that the superintendent make a few things clear what is happening at

[00:37:42] each school what's in danger or need and what specifically and consistently is being shared as information so people are informed and can adjust behaviors I've heard so far in this conversation well we could put that information out there and go to our website and let me know what school and I'll help you that does not work in school in a district with 200 schools.

[00:38:03] FCPS was there trimming branches away from a pedestrian signal light that was not our property. We need to know, is someone monitoring the property of where kids are coming to school? And if it's not our job, we get the people to do it who are. I want to mention Kiss and Ride.

[00:38:20] It's a big issue here. Look, I still remember standing at the corner of Flint Hill Road, where when I was there for back school events me and the two leading advocates who've been working on this for seven years heard tires screeching through that intersection the principal was standing out there so instead of being the instructional leader of that school that principal is dealing with traffic that is not our job this brings me to well I'm going to stay in our house we know that we need more staff to deal with operations and safety we're hearing it about the weapons detection

[00:38:55] I think that the school board needs to be really clear on what we expect to the superintendent I just looked up for executive limitations that we review December 3rd is EL for human resources our safety needs being staffed appropriately I say no but we can ask for data so we can evaluate that second EL EL number three relationships with family and community members I'll speak to that further but in this report it says inconsistent participation from some partner agencies we can't control that but what is happening to make this very

[00:39:31] consistent EL number 13 on February 25th safety and security that's our opportunity to say we want a safety dashboard I want to know at every school I can't understand why we have students flagged as bus riders and walkers but not kiss and ride in a culture where we're so data driven I don't get it how could we not be tracking how many kids are given the permission for kiss and ride and finally yeah executive limitation 11 facilities and transport I gotta tell you I met a constituent this weekend who is an international expert in pedestrian safety she travels the world she could tell me with a bunch of

[00:40:09] orange cones how we could slow down the speed on South Lakes Drive with zero money today we got to get on top of this and it's got to be consistent thank you miss Anderson I want to say thank you for the report I've found I read the whole thing and I found a lot of really good information in here I my biggest concern at this point I agree that we need to be tracking or trying to figure out why we're losing the kids to kiss and ride if they're the kids the furthest away from school and there's not a safe route then maybe that if particularly I've said this before if we have a bus that's driving by already it would be

[00:40:47] awesome to be able to pick up those kids and get them on a bus I'm hopeful that we're going to continue to look at that related to the crossing guards that we've lost at the high schools to ensure that anybody that's across the street front that is utilizing an intersection that has a crossing guard, that there's a possibility to potentially maybe pick up some of those kids, particularly since we know high school buses don't tend to always be full.

[00:41:13] And so that's one area. The other thing that I'm a little bit concerned about is I appreciate the fact that this first go-around that we were looking for the 10 schools that were going to be the focus but if we follow that procedure potentially these ten schools could if they're if their recommendations are not implemented then potentially they can be on the list forever and we have 190 other schools that we need to be able to look at the other thing I'm concerned about is while I understand the limitations of the office ten years to get to a school for safety is not necessarily the best timeline and so my guess my question is how many how are we

[00:41:51] as a division looking at the after-action report that we can provide to all schools that could potentially implement the things that they recognize in their own school community that we could do immediately like it doesn't have to be that we wait for them for wait for you guys to come out is there a possibility that these are these excuse me these are things that the schools can already do as a way to learn from what we've witnessed because there's so many similar suggestions I also get very concerned when we talk about prohibiting kiss and ride because we know for a hundred percent of the fact we have about

[00:42:28] 120 kids walking across the street across rolling road to get to West Springfield and that's partially because we have an illegal kiss and illegal kiss and ride going on across the street because it's far easier for parents to just drive through the neighborhood drop the kids and then they walk across but that's created a problem without that crossing guard there not to mention that we know that there's a light that's coming in already so I just get concerned that anytime that we say that we're going to stop parents from doing something like that it's gonna pop up somewhere else and so I want us to make sure that we are being careful about how to do that the other thing that I'm gonna say really fast is from now on I'm going to be extremely careful

[00:43:07] about any program that we put in any school that is going to require kids to come in in a car and so I think that is a hundred percent in our purview that we can take care of today and so we need to start thinking about that because we do have some kids that are designated as kiss and ride because that is the way they get to school I'm gonna change something up real quick the sticks it needs to leave some to jump to her and then mr. moon thank you thank you so much for the report I'm just you know really enjoy reading it but there were no Sully schools listed here so I couldn't read specifically to what's

[00:43:47] happening in our area though I have some knowledge because I do go to schools and during the bus you know kiss our kiss and write time in the morning drop off and some schools are better run than others and I wanted to see like you know the best practices if there is lesson learns we are doing from schools were running it very efficiently than the other schools which may need some improvements that's a great point I think mr. Anderson may have mentioned it that I think one of the things that we can do a good job on is encouraging administrative staff from schools that we identify as struggling to go watch

[00:44:23] another school you know staffing permitting there's another program that I manage where we found that very effective where the school was struggling we had folks go see a different school how it might look I

[00:44:35] think there's also in a couple of the 10 schools because getting mr. Mewick's buses out onto Stonecroft is is a challenge and so the team was out there

[00:45:10] watching it in an afternoon and giving some suggestions for how to actually get those buses turning so that because that's our priority we want those buses to get out and get those students home and so we do continue to visit sites all the time nothing is no one is immune from the from the challenge yes I can I can watch that that is a very difficult turn yeah we have some schools which are like you know Shetley High School there's a lot of Sully students ago which has a very you know foot traffic and and there is not you know sometimes there is very prone to accident they almost come to close to accidents there on that

[00:45:50] site Centerville High School huge congestion on that road on Union Melvin students and my own child attended you know we would wait sometime 30 minutes on that road to get to school and my house is literally like three miles away so we I mean it's a morning rush traffic added to like people commuting to work and then going to school so I almost know I don't know it's possible or not but dedicate like one lane if possible there are two lanes in a busy road like this for people going to turning to school like sometime you're

[00:46:25] like getting stuck in that lane where everybody else is there and you cannot make your turn effectively on the timely manner I definitely think schools buses are the way to go definitely our county has the biggest bus fleet and in the country and remarkable work has done in proficiently running them but I do understand that a lot of parents do prefer kiss and write for several reasons and I think it's hard to bring the data of how many kiss and write

[00:47:02] because even when my child was going to school in the bus there'll be one or two days in a week which I might be dropping them to school or picking them up for you know an after-school event or soccer or other games so I think that data is really hard to pick up if you know you can do that that would be great but I think parents kind of make the decision like you know kind of on the regular basis ongoing basis what they want to do for that their child that day so but overall I would appreciate a more so one of the question I had is and sorry about that I should have started with this what is the total estimated

[00:47:40] cost of this identified safety improvements how much is currently funded and what amount would be required annually to move from assessments and recommendation to timely implementation that this I just want to see if it's budget-neutral or not or we need money thank you for the question and I'm going to slide in there that some of the schools you suggested when we learned that the crossing guards weren't going to be there I just want to point out a partner that was very helpful VDOT our technician of safety specialist in the back immediately wrote to the places that have traffic lights at least not all

[00:48:15] them have traffic lights and asked to please extend those cross times and VDOT within the day had extended those cross times at a couple of our high schools so that's where those like relationships are important to answer your question there's no specific budget for this program thankfully most of what we see and just as a reminder we control the borders of our our school inward so much of it you know for example if we find something like a crosswalk on our property that needs to be repainted.

[00:48:45] That's coming from Mr. Gordon's budget. Most of it is design work, which is really not-- it's our labor force that's already dedicated to this that are going out and helping redesign. Maybe some minor costs when we're asking schools to buy more cones or barriers to block off, like, for example, the teacher parking lot.

[00:49:08] Nothing that has come forward that I would tell you is so cost effective. but I just want to remind you we can only control what goes up to the to the edge of our property and that's where those partnerships with with the county for some of your suggestions come in thank you mr. moon first of all I want to thank chairman lady for scheduling this conversation because I think this came up at the last school of the meeting and then we just did not have enough time at that time to have more deeper conversation so grateful for this opportunity and thank you for the presentation thank you for your 68 page

[00:49:46] report that with a lot of information and it also report lists you know many many good recommendations you know strategies to be implemented etc but this is something that I said at the last group of the meeting and I want to repeat is obviously there are some or many undesirable behaviors on the part of perhaps you know parents or even on the part of the students or community members you know creating certain risks and they may be choosing to do that but

[00:50:23] however we also can choose to address you know those risky behaviors in with a more urgency and also more authority I mean that is our choice and let's not wait until another person, another student, staff members, another committee member gets injured or gets killed for us to do that. That's the emphasis I want to put on. If that requires, you know, superintendent to make certain recommendations to us for the board to take an action, please do so.

[00:51:02] Please do so. Let's not just be passive about this. If it requires on the part of, in the view of school principal or central staff to remind or just engage certain communities much more frequently, much more actively, let's do that.

[00:51:25] That is my request I want to make to the superintendent and other staff and my colleagues. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. Thank you. I want to understand whether the Safer's to School assessments include the assessment of the signage on the street, because driving around the neighborhood schools in my district there's vast inconsistency whether there's even the yellow triangle with the kids crossing whether flashing lights accompanying it whether there's a sign saying this is what your speed limit is whether there's a wink-o-matic etc so can you talk a little bit about what your assessments includes and doesn't include sure so

[00:52:04] that's actually wouldn't be safe routes to school that would be our safe single safety specialists who liaisons with VDOT and FCDOT so school zones require being established and so there's a fair amount of permitting I know that one of the things that's become very popular to talk about are wink-o-matics for example the the flashing that tell you hey you're entering a school zone it's 25 miles per hour that is done through our safety specialists who would reach out to them and ask those questions I will say safe routes to school has done a messaging campaign a signage it's not what you're asking about but they've

[00:52:41] taken out those little like stick in the ground signs I think they may have been out there with you miss Marin encouraging better behavior of some folks like put the phone down head up no drop-off zone that we've received a lot of feedback that was a relatively simple low-cost thing to do to change the behaviors but to answer your question that would be a VDOT and FCDOT for establishing those zones but we are your touchpoint if there's concern about them all right are you suggesting that some of our schools are not labeled or designated as school zones I'm suggesting that some of them may not

[00:53:18] have school crossing zones okay is that something that FCPS is seeking to remedy to designate all the areas where students cross each day as school crossing zones I think if there is if there is a crossing we would if there's if it's a school that's designated as a walker zone we would look at that and I'm happy to hear if there's some that aren't I would point out that my understanding is we have applied for 10 more locations for permits with VDOT and of the 20 we currently have my understanding is we have to redo there's

[00:53:51] something the permitting wasn't done correctly and these were pre-covid wincomatics so we have to update 19 of the current 20 wincomatic crossings to meet permitting for VDOT and we have applied last spring for ten more. I don't think those are wink-o-matics Dr. Reed I believe those are speed cameras to what you're referring. Wink-o-matics are different than speed cameras. I believe that it's the wink-o-matics is what we were referring to based on the school zone metrics and the school zone something about those changed and then

[00:54:29] we had 19 of the previous 20 that need more permitting. The wink-o-matic if we could go back a slide it's on mr. Gordon's slide that is is this and so what dr. Reed's talking about is in order for speed enforcement cameras to take place on the back of these some of the permitting needs to be changed okay so there's one person in all of FCPS out of 40,000 employees who goes and reviews signage but is that person tasked with going and looking at each school to establish a standard set of signage signals for people who are

[00:55:09] walking and biking to school to ensure consistency and consistent safety across the entire county you're correct that there's one person who does all that amongst his other duties I don't believe to your question is there a uniform package at every school I don't believe every school has a uniform package okay so that means variation and that means there's some places more safe some places less safe and I think that's and and it sounds like it's not even a full 1.0 FTE it's a part-time duty of someone with multiple duties so I just think that reflects that we need to organize as a school division as a

[00:55:47] school board to put a greater emphasis on identifying the deficiencies because Vita and FC Dodd aren't going to do that for us right I mean they'll be partners but until we identify what what the issues are what the deficiencies are what our beliefs are until we advocate for solutions I don't think they're going to come and solve our own problems for us recognizing we have boundaries right and we can't control the things outside the boundaries as a school system we kind of make a promise to every parent to make sure that their kid arrives and and gets dropped off at their home safely every day and so that's the most sacred duty and obligation we can have as a school division I believe can you

[00:56:26] talk more about the the speed camera how long will it take to get those 20 speed cameras you know re permitted so that then we can begin to add speed cameras to more schools to reduce speeding in those areas hey sir I'll take that thank you for the question so currently the county overall has a goal of having 50 a total of 50 cameras that are signed with the wink and Maddox so they're currently 20 of those we've just submitted for 10 more with the county so the county tracks us they have active on their speed camera site so it's active

[00:57:04] and it says in progress and the next 10 so they've identified what the next 10 will be or with a 10 other in progress that we've submitted for permitting and then the next 10 after that so they answer your question don't know the process because it's a you know we working with we're working with the county and V dot an example I've asked the staff to look at is looking at Loudoun County takes typically about three months to work through V dot to do that and so I think similar timeline as well but don't know that for sure we're working through that and as we work through this next 10 we'll actually work through with the cost development will be for that as well how did we come up with the figure of 50 was that based on an analysis that only 1/4 of our schools

[00:57:42] need speed cameras or how did we arrive at that mr. done the speed camera program has nothing to do with Fairfax County Public Schools that's entirely the police department so they that was their choice on where they put them and have asked for them we don't have any input on on that they can only do it though when there's a wink-o-matic okay so we have nothing to do with it but we have to submit the permitting package that seems inconsistent school divisions by the law are responsible for the permitting for the wink-o-matics and police departments to do the speed camera which has gotten more restrictive

[00:58:20] in the last couple of years are reliant on our wink-o-matics to be with within a code and I did want to clarify one thing not all schools are going to be able to get wink-o-matics we've gone through a couple with some school board members recently our person will meet up with VDOT and they'll do a courtesy review there's a lot of like engineering things like how many feet it is away from the most recent traffic light for example Stenwood Elementary School was one that we spent a lot of time on in the Providence District and they're just there's not enough space between where a traffic light is and where they would

[00:58:53] want one so just for these alone there's like a hundred and school zones that have these 100 we have 107 wink-o-matics today we have 277 I believe of the things that actually go blink and 107 zones so some zones may have multiple lights from different directions okay and keep telling me more about the revenue split because there was a suggestion that you know if the revenue split was changed that then there would be more money perhaps to pay

[00:59:30] for crossing guards too much I don't believe we receive any revenue from the speed cameras and we outsource entirely to a third party to I think you're talking about bus stop arm cameras which is a different safety initiative that we finally brought home after almost a decade of work and that does have a split but the the speed cameras connected to the wink-o-matics we don't get any part of the revenue for those and that money just goes into the general

[01:00:09] Treasury of Fairfax County I don't know where it goes it doesn't come to us well that seems like something we should figure out I mean I'm not sure they're they're both you know problematic you know cameras capturing problematic driving behavior not stopping for school buses and speeding on in school zones so perhaps that should be discussed with the county and the Board of Supervisors I think it's certainly a topic of discussion there are a number of fees collected by the county that we are not a partner in revenue sharing well certainly that seems like an ideal source of revenue for improving student

[01:00:42] safety indeed thank you Dunn I'll take a turn so kiss and ride I would love to maybe see an application enlisted and a reason and permission granted because there are definitely situations where that's the only option has to do with maybe custody agreements it might have to do with you know I'm training as a you know ice skater and I have to get to the rink I mean there are reasons but I can

[01:01:18] tell you and again I'm old but when there was a bus my mama put me on that bus there was no oh you'll get to sleep in 15 minutes more so I'll drive you it was not an option in my house but I also think that there's a lot to be said about the socialization that happens on a bus and for young people to be you know you know learning in kindergarten to ride a bus with their friends positive yes there's sometimes not so positive things but but that's just the thing we provide a bus ride the bus that's gonna deal with a tremendous

[01:01:54] amount of this problem and in it if it is up to us then I think we need to we should look into something like that and also a training right I mean a training of if you get a you know permission so to speak to ride to kiss and ride and you don't follow instructions just like our kids who have parking passes they get revoked when they don't do as they're supposed to do with the parking pass so I also like the idea of making the kiss and ride folks wait let's get our buses loaded let's get them out so they're not competing with cars exiting

[01:02:29] and then let's get our walkers safely across our streets and headed home and then we can release kiss and ride because I think that would be a deterrent if that was was delayed so the other thing is you know I 100% agree with my colleagues around the safety issue but we just talked earlier about the budget and a reduction of 5% from central office the past two years, and we're looking at it for a third year.

[01:02:56] So I'm not sure how we make this one individual full-time just doing what we're asking or add somebody. I mean, we can talk all we want to about different reports and different expectations of the superintendent, but with a limited amount of staffing, there's only so far that money will go to enhance some of these things that we're talking about.

[01:03:20] and the other thought I had is do we do any training I understand I don't want my safety and security specialists out directing traffic but do we do any training of those folks at our middle schools and high schools around you know like turnaround training it takes up less time and less cost so it's just an idea but definitely I think you know and I appreciated dr. Reed's letter to the community about kiss and ride I thought that was very detailed, and it was an outreach, and folks just have to listen to that.

[01:03:59] So we're now back to go-backs, but we're also 20 minutes behind. But I'm going to go to Dr. Anderson. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Mr. McDaniel, I did not see your placard. Mr. McDaniel first. Well, in slight defense of Kiss and Ride, as a Kiss and Ride parent myself, I enjoy an extra half-hour day with my daughters.

[01:04:17] I've memorized every K-pop Demon Hunter song there is because they put that on loop in the car. but Kiss and Ride works at some schools just fine, and we don't have the challenges that we have at other schools. This is a very interesting conversation because I think Mr. Lambert hit the nail on the head.

[01:04:35] We control the borders inward. Fundamentally, that means that we have to have relationships with VDOT, with FCDOT, with the police department. I've dealt with these issues at Rose Hill with Ms. Stankjohn-Cunning. I've had constituents reach out at Hunter's Woods. I've had constituents at Langley, Cardinal Forest, where I had to work with the HOA.

[01:04:53] it's a multi-faceted challenge but the underlying methodology of handling that challenge is collaboration and maintaining those relationships and I think we've gone through some of the minutia of the permitting process the funding mechanisms who's authorized to put cameras where who has to get the permit first or second and these are all very complicated things but fundamentally it means everybody's got to be at the table having the conversation that depends on productive relationships so thank you for the work you've done thank you the superintendent for the work I know she's done all over the summer to kind of manage this issue and yeah kiss and ride sometimes works

[01:05:31] sometimes doesn't but I my little girls I like them in the car with me for extra half hour a day thank you I do want to yeah thank you mr. McDaniel I do want to share explicitly the V dot collaboration has been incredible if you recall I just want to remind as we move into the winter weather for the first time ever Mr. Mewick and Mr. Lambert's teams worked with VDOT to map all of our bus stops so they wouldn't plow snow on to the top of the bus stop.

[01:06:01] So there is a lot of collaboration going on behind the scenes, and I appreciate your comment on that. Thank you. Dr. Anderson. I just kind of want to pick up on Kiss and Ride. I appreciate that we can do some things a little bit more strategically to make it a deterrent. Again, when I was a school principal, I didn't want all those cars in my building because it was an issue.

[01:06:21] What did we do with kindergartners as they came in? We made riding the bus the most fun thing possible. When they came in for orientation, we did a bus ride just to get them excited and to keep them as consumers of the buses. Because if the kids are excited, then their parents will be more willing.

[01:06:40] But we also don't do ourselves any service when we put people in a position to have to get in their cars. The middle school morning start times, hopefully something we could resolve. I rode my child to middle school because she got an additional 30 minutes of sleep and it wasn't anything it wasn't convenient to me it was just to provide her with more sleep so when we do that we increase the kiss and ride when we have these academic centers whether they be academies or AAP centers where we have more people coming from further away they also take more advantage I do not think eliminating it is the thing to do because it will be the wild wild west because

[01:07:19] parents will still do what they do except it's going to be a lot more disorganized which is going to increase our safety issues I do want to lend some support to what mr. moon and miss Marin had said have said regarding the plan there seems to be a lot of suggestions here for recommendations and I always wonder dr. Reed are these recommendations guidelines or expectations how are you reviewing some of the changes have been suggested by this in this report so again student safety remains a paramount priority I know that the team is working

[01:07:59] with VDOT we've done permitting for new flashing speed signs and school zone signs the team is working on daily reviewing walking paths and so forth so So we're absolutely acting on the recommendations, in particular, doing what we can around congestion.

[01:08:23] So I think we're definitely working on being responsive to the concerns raised in the report. And I should have been a little bit clearer, because I think some of these have to be recommendations because they're outside of FCPS. We can't compel any other organization to do anything.

[01:08:40] We can ask and collaborate, et cetera. some of the recommendations are internal are those no longer recommendations if it's internal and fully under FCPS control although do those become expectations and if so who is responsible for their monitoring well at the end of the day I am so I will make sure if we can go to the slide for recommendations mr. Lambert I want to clarify as we look at this so each of the schools that received a list of recommended improvements it's my

[01:09:19] understanding the team will go out and work with them to make those improvements again this was based on the schools visited and I believe the end size of that was 10 so I know that there's going to be direct work excuse me with those 10 schools and we've already begun communications related to those circumstances the V dot FC dot obviously those there are some actions that are going to be required that we can request but I can't you know guarantee that those will occur but we can certainly request those no thank you

[01:09:56] and lastly I know my time is up but I just want to underscore what mr. Lambert said earlier each of these schools is so unique the land the footprint of the schools the size the size of the lot the size of the student population each of these are individual problems so there have to be very specific findings to each of these sites that don't necessarily carry over in specificity but in terms of the broad you know we need to approach this but that makes it a little bit more challenging to have recommendations that span across a number of schools because of that level of specificity thank you do not abolish

[01:10:33] kiss and ride mr. McElhain for a first term thank you so sorry for missing the presentation but I will just start off by saying that you know having been an advocate in the community as a PTA member trying to get infrastructure improvements through VDOT and through the county it's really a nightmare as you know just if if you're a member of the community you want to get a crosswalk installed you want to get a wink-o-matic installed you want to get a speed pump

[01:11:08] hump put in the kind of the hoops that you have to go through the inordinate amount of meetings you have to have to get nowhere is absurd you know we tried it at my school to do a whole host of improvements just to the the street in front of the school and the best that V doc could do after years of that advocacy was to repaint an existing crosswalk. So ultimately I think that those that need to be in this room that aren't in this room are VDOT and FCDOT.

[01:11:45] The the backlog of concerns that have been sitting out there with our infrastructure is massive. There is a long list that's underfunded and we at this table are not responsible for that. That being said, the Safe Routes school program is fabulous we started it in 2014 after advocacy that began in 2009 I believe in wolf trap community where they started bike trains and other things to help facilitate students getting to school it's it's been

[01:12:22] underfunded those that are there do great work we those of us who are at the traffic garden launch last week saw the fruits of that great work but ultimately it's it's very much underfunded in terms of kiss and ride you know I'm of the belief that there are pockets in this community where we can add bus stops to prevent the massive congestion that we are seeing as an example my home lives with within a mile of the school by the way the crow flies but if you factor in

[01:12:57] all the the roads you have to travel it's well more than a mile but we are not eligible for bus service and there are probably 50 kids in my my neighborhood that do kiss and ride because there's not a single bus stop in our community so I think as I've shared with dr. Reed there are efforts we can do working with individual principals to identify places in each individual school community where we can add bus stops to as one tangible solution short-term solution to this problem so I hope that that's one of the things we walk away with today and finally I will agree that middle school start times

[01:13:37] need to be adjusted to ameliorate some of these issues and I'm looking forward to working with the board and staff this year on that thank you miss Marin I agree that now that we have the report and we have the discussion that it's time for the superintendent to take some of these recommendations into practice on page 10 there are a bunch of potential operational solutions and there are also operational constraints that seem that they could be addressed and again I think that as the board if we want these things to happen I don't I don't quite understand sometimes why the board needs to recommend things that

[01:14:12] seem pretty common sense or like that the superintendent has produced but if we need to recommend human resources staffing better communications with families about what's really possible safety and security and facilities and transport our opportunity to do that well is really during those executive limitations so I hope that we can work on some directives to ensure that these solutions you know get put into place however works best I want to say that what is coming up for me is what's happening in facilities we are overly accommodating we are operating beyond the capability of our facilities and our

[01:14:48] staff again I do not want educators doing traffic duty so we need to appropriately staff our schools the best we can. The same situation with weapons detection. I also don't want buses to be half full because Kiss and Ride is being used. There's a real economic you know need here. I do want to say something about the partnerships and again it was interesting to flag also on I guess it was on page eight it said improved coordination across departments. It says while the pilot generated valuable insight inconsistent participation from some partner agency has affected coordination and implementation timelines.

[01:15:25] That's disappointing, but not a surprise. It's just a continuation of our discussion from this morning. The fact that the superintendent of our public school system has staff engaging with state Department of Transportation people, that is not our job. But we do it because we do what we have to do for kids. We should not be seeking permits for roadways outside our school. Not our job.

[01:15:45] That's the county's job. I just want to mention real quickly this project. It's It's called Vision Zero, and it's where it's nationwide. Arlington County has it. It's where preventing pedestrian fatalities, and I'll send it around to us, but Arlington is leading this.

[01:16:02] I don't know what our county is doing. Thank you. Okay, so not seeing any additional questions, we are going to break for a quick lunch. Hopefully, colleagues, we can maybe be back in 20 minutes instead of 30.

[01:16:37] We'll now move on to naming rights portion of the work session at 1.35 p.m. Dr. Reed thank you mr. McDaniel the seat this afternoon it's my pleasure to have miss Roman and mr. Horn here to talk about naming rights this has been an interest of the board to contemplate revenue generation and in particular I think our theme today in some ways has been resources and how we are going to be able to allocate those so I'd like to turn it over to miss Roman and mr.

[01:17:10] Horn to present the report and then I'm very interested in the board conversation about it thank you great well good afternoon everyone today we do have a presentation to talk about potential naming rights program for FCPS facilities and with us is Tom Horn who's our executive director for student activities and athletics who will be sharing the information with us so with that I'll turn it over to mr. horn thank you for the opportunity to talk about this there are few opportunities in sports that are as exciting as full

[01:17:48] venues with corporate partners community partners everyone in in full support of what's going on and naming rights is something that this board over at least a couple of decades has contemplated in the past and in various times staff Staff members have taken stabs at large corporate partners, local corporate partners, looking at the possibility of new revenue streams related to those activities, including naming rights.

[01:18:22] And then, of course, most recently here in March of 2026, this board directed staff to present some options for the continued exploration specifically of naming rights, but I do anticipate our discussion today can expand beyond simply naming rights and signage deals and other partnerships that would benefit the division so the current state of things in policy 8170 governs the sale of naming rights and it's important to note probably for all of us that specifically directs a process that would permit the

[01:18:55] board today to enter into agreements involving the sale of naming rights for a school facility or for school grounds in recognition of and commensurate with specific financial contributions so policy permissive today 8170 directs that those funds would go into a specific facilities fund and it also directs that each disbursement from that fund would also be directed by the board 8170 requires the current 8170 requires that the school board of course would approve all naming rights agreements and the 8170 suggests that

[01:19:34] there's a five-year minimum term. So it's important for us to set the baseline on where those things are. Given that the policy already makes it possible, what I hope we will do today is walk through some of the key decision points for the board to see if there's an appetite for exploring the possible given that the policy is permissive. One of the constraints that we'll recognize and that we'll grapple with in our discussion, I'm sure, is that across our 26 high school campuses which are the primary locations for our athletic facilities that have been contemplated by this work where we will draw more than a million

[01:20:14] students families community members to just FCPS athletic events over the course of a year we have a long history of naming those facilities in honor of individuals as an example 20 of our high school stadiums have an individual's name already attached to that facility, the complex or the field in some varying degrees, either stadium field or complex names. And a question that we will not answer in our discussion today but we will certainly explore is, if there's an

[01:20:50] appetite of course, is the value, is there still value remaining on those campuses where some facilities have honorarium type names already attached to them and the community impacts of merging corporate names with honorarium names is something the board will will discuss I hope you know an example would be horn company field at John Smith Stadium right like there's some merging that would be required across the many facilities that already have some type

[01:21:23] of name there the it's probably reasonable for us to assume that even with a large number of facilities already named. There is space for corporate partners who would want to capitalize purely on the number of visitors, both school and community uses, to our athletic facilities each year.

[01:21:47] And as we contemplate further exploration of naming rights and partnerships to support athletics and activities, we'll be mindful of a few very key areas. The FCPS departments that have participated and will continue to guide the work, include the Chief Equity Office, the Procurement Services, Division Council, of course, and then, of course, facilities will have a massive role to play depending on signage, installation, locations, maintenance, upkeep, et cetera.

[01:22:18] And because we've identified that the current policy does not specifically call out a distribution plan for new revenue sources but simply says that's at the discretion of the board, we can probably predict that the market will tell us that certain venues will have certain values that may exceed other values.

[01:22:40] And the board will recognize a significant operational risk in creating further inequities across the divisions, athletic facilities and programs as just sort of a marker for what those valuations could be.

[01:22:58] We have a disparity, for instance, in ticket sales, which is one indicator of attendance at each venue, which would certainly be part of a valuation of an asset for naming rights. Ticket sales at some schools will approach $200,000 in a year, and at other schools top out around $50,000 or $60,000 in the course of a year.

[01:23:22] So we can't anticipate different valuations for our stadium facilities specifically, but other facilities generally Those ticket sales as a for instance stay within that school community And currently the naming rights if they were allocated to remain in that community Would potentially create even further disparities in in both operational purchasing and then and then facility upkeep and maintenance of those places So the Board will have to weigh the reputational risk, additionally, of over-commercialization of those places.

[01:23:59] It would be important in a policy and a regulation to identify the types of signage, the location of signage, the appropriate places, maybe even the number on each campus.

[01:24:17] The Board will have to contemplate exit clauses, morals clauses termination clauses for partners that may not meet the board's vision or may damage the board's reputation the division's reputation by being in partnership with them and obviously there'll be significant legal review of agreements both beforehand and then ongoing review of those agreements should we get into long-term deals so to sort of jump to where I I think ultimately our staff recommendation would be if there's an appetite to explore naming rights.

[01:24:57] And I appreciate the board feedback which generated and led to ultimately this recommendation. Given that there's great uncertainty in the valuation of our assets today, the interplay of existing names and how that impacts valuation and what we could reasonably expect to return on a naming rights deal And perhaps a desire among this group and certainly of staff to extend naming rights deals beyond such a simple facility or a simple building, but to larger scale

[01:25:33] paired bundlings of assets, we would recommend, if the board has an appetite for further exploration, that we begin with a request for information, which signals to the market that there is a real interest, but more importantly, allows those in the industry to provide us the essential elements to create a policy and a regulation, which is both attractive to the partners that we may have and efficient for us to manage as a staff.

[01:26:06] The primary function, of course, of an RFI being to test the market feasibility of this. Given that there are implementation costs, especially as something at our scale, There are opportunity costs, because once the name is provided or sold, then that opportunity is locked up for a term of years.

[01:26:30] We should make sure, with some industry input, that the expected return in the valuation will exceed those costs. And there is a need to validate assumptions that we make about the valuations.

[01:26:46] There are some dangers with throwing out a number. school divisions that, let's just say, start with an RFP and say we're going to have $300,000 for this stadium naming rights are likely to get $300,000. But they maybe have gotten $4,000. Could they have gotten $5,000?

[01:27:03] Or if you threw $300,000 out and don't get any responses, did you overvalue your assets? So important for us to test the validity of the assumptions we make with regard to valuation. The additional insight gained from potential industry partners in this would be what are the types and locations of signage what are the types of in-kind partnerships that could be generated from pairings of corporate businesses and FCPS in addition to simply dollars and then

[01:27:41] although not contemplated specifically by policy 8170 we could explore the relationship between FCPS as digital media assets and particularly our streaming and the ability to partner in additional revenue creating ways that are not just physical signs on campuses and and in RFI gives us a low-risk effort to see if there is a tie-in and and some efficiencies gained by that and then both because the policy and regulation permit it today in RFI could

[01:28:21] be an initial effort to generate that important intelligence about how our policy and regulation could be adjusted to ensure that obviously both the board and the division are protected by the effort, but also making the opportunity more valuable to our business partners.

[01:28:41] Because we have a permissive policy today, but we are not seeing a flood of unsolicited offers come to us, nor are we seeing school and community programs initiating efforts at wide scale to secure naming rights, it's possible that we learn that some ambiguities that exist in our current policy and regulation make it less attractive to both sides-- the school and the community for seeking them out, and the business world for engaging in unsolicited offers for those things.

[01:29:19] A commitment to explore naming rights, ultimately to entertain agreements corporate partners connected with our athletic facilities and programs should ensure that the board has sole and retains as the policy does today sole authority over each agreement in addressing the disparities that are potential in situations like this in other words what we're saying is that we should not shift the effort to local schools and school communities to go out

[01:29:51] and find their own partners. The board in policy and regulation would identify with with specifics eligible asset categories. What we mean by that is stadiums always come to mind first, but there are many other facilities on our campuses that the board could contemplate and some of them can exceed and go beyond simply athletic facilities, tennis courts, tracks, weight rooms, concession stands press boxes but there may be laboratory spaces auditoriums and other facility areas that the board may contemplate as part of a comprehensive

[01:30:31] naming rights program and again I'll point out the divisions digital media assets could be specifically called out in policy as part of a naming rights policy the current policy which does not outline eligible asset categories perhaps leaves a gap in attractiveness to to potential partners so again an RFI could be used to provide additional data to support the review of what eligible assets we actually have and and what value those assets may have obviously

[01:31:09] ensuring trust and transparency in this process will be paramount to any effort that we have and and especially in the valuation tests that we do and conducted with a baseline understanding that the board would likely set both minimum and maximum term limits within a comprehensive policy the board would have a strict revetting instead of automatic rollover type provisions potentially even requiring rebidding if RFP processing is the preferred path an And agreements will have morals clauses, reputational harm

[01:31:48] clauses, absolute rights to terminate by the board, et cetera. And while we can imagine that those restrictions would have some impact on the overall valuation of the assets, nevertheless will be essential elements of a program going forward.

[01:32:04] And again, I'll harken back to NRFI would be able to tell us what impact those restrictions would have on the valuation of the assets. Perhaps the most consistent theme in the conversations that we have had as staff and with community members who have reached out to us in anticipation of what the work might look like.

[01:32:25] The most consistent theme internally and externally is the concern that the well-resourced schools, those with high ticket revenue, those with high attendance rates, those with active booster clubs, would receive a disproportionate amount of both interest and benefit from a naming rights program.

[01:32:43] I know that in conversations with many of you, We have identified schools that maybe you represent where those schools seem to struggle with providing the basic necessities for their athletics and activities programs, covering the basic operating costs for those programs.

[01:33:03] And because FCPS's budget does not fund equipment and uniform purchases, just two specific items, although there are other things in the athletic activities world that we also don't fund, We don't provide for the long-term replacement of certain capital assets, think cheer mats, wrestling mats, high jump mats, utility vehicles, batting cage nets, et cetera.

[01:33:29] Additional revenue through a program like naming rights or corporate partners presents an opportunity to revisit some of those funding models and, importantly, revisit the impact of the existing burden on school communities to fundraise for some of those large capital items often over the course of many years and often a fundraising campaign for what seems like a normal piece of equipment would extend beyond the high school life cycle of a family. So they start out in the campaign and then eventually graduate and then the campaign finishes then sometime later.

[01:34:05] Those are significant challenges that we currently face and and a naming rights digital partnership corporate partnership model could be an opportunity to explore ways to mitigate some of those risks with our our communities one of the assumptions that we would certainly test through an RFI is the value of asset bundling and division-wide partnership agreements and and that is a strategy to mitigate the risk and concern that certain communities

[01:34:41] with higher valuations may also have disproportionately high benefit. In other words, we continue to scaffold the communities that need less resource support from FCPS would derive greater benefit because their stadiums are more full on Friday. We can hypothesize that a partner interested in one venue could be made to be interested in multiple, but an RFI could confirm some of those

[01:35:11] assumptions for us the essential elements as we take this away are to know that at no point should the board have an appetite for exploring this that it becomes something that has the potential to get off guardrails or or or go rogue we would want to make sure that each process each agreement undergoes the same internal review process including the offices previously mentioned the the Chief Equity Office, the Office of Facilities, of course, and Ms. Frohman's Chief of Schools

[01:35:50] Office, its impact across not just the school community where a partnership may first live, but the greater school division community, integration with other partnership programs that we have in the division, and then ultimately placing the responsibility and authority for for entering into agreements specifically with the board.

[01:36:16] The policy and regulation checklist is not a proposed revised policy, because again, I think we would learn through a potential RFI process what elements would make our policy and regulation more attractive to partners.

[01:36:32] We might learn some efficiencies about our own internal workings, what is the workflow when an agreement makes its place, or even a potentially unsolicited agreement makes its way to us, what workflows do we follow?

[01:36:48] But the policy insight to be gained is that a well-defined policy would not hinder revenue generation. In fact, by removing ambiguities that might currently exist, because while the current 8170 naming rights provision is a full page long, it is lacking in specifics about how does the process get started, where does the money flow, how do we determine what the best and highest use of those funds are, who ultimately has the authority to even negotiate.

[01:37:24] We know that the board has the authority in 8170 to approve, but it doesn't specifically call out some of the workflows that are there. So a well-defined policy will remove some of those ambiguities and hopefully provide the smooth runway that a corporate partner would expect from a division like ours if they're going to invest significant dollars.

[01:37:51] So I think the list is longer than these four bullets. But this is some areas that, as staff, we've certainly identified as important to know boards position the board's input on the level of commercialization it is often debated by school school divisions and communities when naming rights deals are first mentioned the contract scale and the appetite and this is one that's you

[01:38:29] know particularly important for us to understand valuation I think we can take some examples from folks around the country when they had decided that naming rights are okay and they tell their schools go out and secure them schools can often secure a naming rights deal in a matter of months now those dollar figures don't necessarily change the budget for any of those schools and certainly if we sent 26 folks out we would get 26 very different deals so the the contract scale and appetite how many contracts for naming on one campus would we would we entertain? How many facilities on one campus with different

[01:39:08] names would we entertain? And then I think something I would hope we would learn through an RFI process is what is the corporate appetite for length of term? You know we have examples in in Western Pennsylvania where Heinz Field moved from a professional venue to a high school venue because it's the location of the Heinz company. They were willing to invest over a million dollars in a single high school facility but that's a lifetime and they're deeply rooted in that community we have local community investors to our to our west

[01:39:46] in Loudoun who had a particular interest in a school and said we'll give you a couple hundred thousand spread out over ten years for this one school in particular so that there's just such a vast array of opportunities depending on how we turned it loose so in other words the school in Loudoun that has a Stadium naming rights deal was a school-done deal.

[01:40:09] It was a school connection with school staff generated by school interest. The Aliquippa, Pennsylvania example is a corporate deal with probably many stakeholders in the division reaching out to Heinz and saying, you've lost the NFL stadium, but we have the next best thing here.

[01:40:28] So the marketing and procurement strategy, I have talked about the recommendation would be gather specific industry intelligence through an RFI. We would also uncover what the preferred market method would be for folks to engage with us, whether they be unsolicited offers or RFPs or some other procurement vehicle.

[01:40:56] And then I think the board discussion about are there partnership availability, partnership elements beyond dollars that would be just as valuable, depending on the nature of the industry that we are partnering with.

[01:41:13] And I won't speculate on what those industries could be, but you could think about tutoring and teaching and enrichment activities might be things that corporate partners could also bring to a school division beyond simply dollars.

[01:41:33] The final slide would be-- I always believe we can go fast, right? This is about sports, after all, right? So if there's an appetite for doing this, this would be the absolute fastest. And I don't know that I have the full support from Procurement Division Council, et cetera, for reaching this timeline.

[01:41:51] But we would push, should the board decide that there is an appetite to do this, that an RFI could be issued in this, let's call it fall, window with specifics around the board's questions that they still have about this process, leading to any policy and regulation changes that were derived from the discussion and the information we learned in the RFI process.

[01:42:18] And probably the fastest track would be going to market, so to speak. Again, depending on what procurement method we took, you could shave off a month. You may have to add months, depending on the complexity of the procurement method.

[01:42:34] And there may be some practical reasons to time up going to market to give yourself enough time to implement. So if you had a partner come on board in November, would you want to start a naming rights deal? For instance, in the middle of a school year, would there be some value in creating a calendar where there is procurement and solicitation and receiving of opportunities timed up to be completed, constructed, installed, and built around the start of school each year.

[01:43:09] So that is the slideshow. I know that there will be some lively discussion. So looking forward to it.

[01:43:24] Dr. Anderson. Thank you. Three main points that I want to share, and then I have some questions. And I think we could talk about this for a long time. Currently, we have gate tickets, as you've just shared.

[01:43:40] Different schools are able to have different draws, which creates an inequity in our schools and what they're able to provide for those schools. To me, that is a problem. That has been a longstanding problem that Sandy Evans, the person in this seat before me, had been working on.

[01:43:57] Second issue, we have the same situation with our parking, our ECA funds. Our schools get to keep a certain percentage of the parking that spots that they sell to students so if you have a school with a larger parking lot or a larger student population then you have more of that revenue if you have a school in which you have higher students that are FRM that buy a parking space for for a very discounted amount then that also limits the revenue for those schools so we've already have in place two very

[01:44:34] significant things that create such inequity in our system and it's all what the school is able to handle able to do to go fund some really important things that are not centrally managed I cannot state enough how I do not want this to become a third thing I think there's some value in investigating this further but it cannot be structured in a way that schools that can receive the lion's

[01:45:11] share in schools that cannot continue to be in the position that they are that we've placed them in through our structure of the ECA funds through our structure of gate tickets I really cannot overstate this enough so that's point one point two what gives me a little bit of a heartburn and again I I think all of this is manageable, is the fact that I would not want for our schools to become like the back of a soccer jersey, just sponsored by everybody under the sun.

[01:45:48] I am really concerned about having limits that allow our schools to still look like schools and not just corporate sponsorship. And again, the way that we see that everything is brought to you by Sprint, you know, has become.

[01:46:08] And thirdly, I think this is a space, and this is for my colleagues. I don't think we need to go at this alone. We have to bring the community along. I would definitely share that-- well, request, if we are going to engage in this, that we have a public hearing to hear the things that we don't necessarily think about just amongst the 12 of us or with staff.

[01:46:33] I would like a go back, please. MR. Mr. Moon. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Without necessarily disagreeing with everything that's been said by my colleague, Dr. Anderson, a couple of points that I wanna bring for my fellow board members' consideration is, long ago, boards had this discussion, and then we were not able to reach a consensus on a couple of big points.

[01:47:09] There's a role of each school community in this naming rights, decision-making process. Of course, I think everybody agree, Ultimately, the school board is going to make a final decision about what is the role of local community?

[01:47:26] If a local community doesn't want it, what does want it? Want certain names? Do not want certain name? Along with that, along with that, as far as fund distribution is concerned, how does, are we okay, Dr. Ivey?

[01:47:57] All right, how will the Distribution of the funds will be at the end going to affect the communities that's going to have these names Those were very contentious issues and district board members including at large different views on that and and the board was not able to reach a consensus And that stopped the discussion. I'm not saying that we should not have this good discussion

[01:48:33] Thanks for, I think, Mr. Donner, I think Mr. Mek, both of you brought this topic, and it's an opportune time for us to discuss, but we need to keep those in mind, because I don't want to face a situation where the board is going to impose a certain name at a school for a certain facility in directly opposition to what the community's desire may or may not be.

[01:49:00] And a lot of times, it's not just names, but funded distribution also affects how each community is going to react to that. So we have to look at why do you want to look, why are we looking at these policies?

[01:49:16] What's the bottom, why are we doing this? Is this to raise the money, raise the money? Then let's find, let's find a way for the schools or our FCPS to be able to raise the money. That's what our goal is.

[01:49:35] Because we sometimes got to talk about, Dr. Anderson, with a full respect to you, what you've said. We, at times, also talked about it is so unfair when a particular PTA can raise this kind of money when others don't.

[01:49:54] And we should take money away from one PTA, fundraising to send over to other PTAs. And that no BTA would willingly, willingly just give away their money raised.

[01:50:10] So this was also perceived in such a way. So I just want the board members to keep that in mind, because there will be those perspectives given to us. SPEAKER 1: Ms. Dixon.

[01:50:27] So thank you for bringing this forward. And I am actually a little hesitant about this idea. And the only reason I come from is that I concern the use of corporate names on our public school buildings.

[01:50:44] It just maybe gives the impression that we are sponsoring them or we are becoming more commercialized. So I want to be very careful about doing an RFI. I wanted to continue to study this a bit more. And I understand previous boards have done it or previous board members brought it.

[01:51:03] But this group, this board, this is the first time We are looking at it, and I would be giving $100,000 for putting my company name on a school gymnasium. Yeah, I can do that, but there will be thousands of other people who would be willing to do that too.

[01:51:23] But then where do we stop? Where do we put a line that this company is allowed, this company is not allowed? Are they in the interest of our county, our education? What about the commercial software companies who want to then put their names on their building?

[01:51:41] So I just wanted to have a bit more discussion with the board itself, and then maybe then move to the RFI stage. So I do agree, its initial discussion is fine right now. But I also don't know how much of money we are going to collect.

[01:51:59] Seriously, I'm doing all of that work. And if we can find more money through using our space, which, you know, Ms. Marin and many board members have said that we have so much of space, we give it to outside facilities and county programs, county uses that too, can we make more money through that program, which is literally space rental.

[01:52:23] So please forgive me if I'm not jumping on this right now, but I just, I'm a little cautious, thank you. - Ms. St. John-Cunning. Thank you I think the fact that we're even discussing this is a sad state of affairs in terms of public education And funding because we're having to look for resources and we're trying to be creative for looking for resources for our For our school for our students for our programs. I Have a couple questions number one are there comparable?

[01:53:05] Local situations that we could look at to model and I'm just talking about in you know in the DMV and local areas Well that we can look at So we're not aware of a large school division that has done this in a coordinated effort. There are comparable models throughout the country of schools That have sold naming rights. I mean again, we talked about the loud an example Specifically foster city sold the naming rights to a stadium years ago for a specific capital program Those are I'm gonna I'm gonna essentially call them one-off situations where there was an identified gap in funding

[01:53:43] And they found someone to fill that Large school divisions that have been permissive in naming rights have had stadiums in their division sell But the dollars and the articles that you see that make the news wires Are often in very large venues and in areas where there are sort of single high schools So I can't say that I am aware of a comparable large division that has taken a comprehensive 26 school create a list of assets and then strategically

[01:54:17] Seek partnerships for each of them. So another thing that I'm thinking of because is How would we then mitigate the situation where there are already spaces that are named? Recognizing teachers or recognizing coaches that the community has named and I believe at the time with the expectation that that name would Live in perpetuate will live on forever because I'm having trouble pronouncing that in perpetuity Then all of a sudden this is going to be up as how would we mitigate that?

[01:54:51] This is all of a sudden going to become an issue where we can now sell that when it was named in honor of Someone yeah, so the I think it was a question, but I don't know that I have an answer But the strategies would be to to look at merged Facility name so where a field is named Perhaps the stadium is not where the stadium is named. Perhaps the field is not And again that goes to the appetite for naming conventions

[01:55:25] You know, there are college examples of Nick Saban field at X Stadium on X campus right in Amanda It's not that one So I think through further discussion community input etc. I think we would learn what the appetite for merged naming conventions could look like but certainly there would there is a risk a reputational risk of sort of Devaluing what was an honored naming at some point in the past. Um, I I too have issues about the equity

[01:56:03] Concerns that some of my colleagues have brought up, but I also recognize our funding shortfalls and that we're trying to be creative Let's see. I had another question here that Of course, I've lost the question the other one of the other things you mentioned is that there might be Ambiguity in our policies and that they could be cleared up like could you do you have an idea of what those ambiguities would be if we were to move forward. Yeah, I think the specificity of the assets that we're talking about is is one of the ambiguities that exists for instance it simply says naming rights to facilities

[01:56:41] but we don't necessarily call out what that asset category is as one example we also don't necessarily prescribe terms beyond it's a five-year minimum the current policy is of course the board has the discretion under current policy to waive or adjust the five-year but that is the suggested language in the policy today it doesn't call out what what do you get for a naming rights deal in the policy or it doesn't call out number of signs it doesn't call out a number of connections the ability to have your name on community events held

[01:57:20] at that stadium right there each deal would have to be put together from scratch today and that may signal disincentive to schools in particular to go out and seek those partners today. It just came back to me what I was going to ask, because this has come up just recently where I had a huge community input about a sign that had been put up by a booster.

[01:57:45] And this has consistently happened with boosters, because the boosters put up the signs, and then the perception is that the schools have put up the signs. And then I've gotten many requests. One just came in where it's like, we're going to rally. We're going to go take down that sign. We don't agree with it. So, and I did have a discussion with our superintendent about, is there any way that we can also say, you know, this is a naming right, but a disclaimer, we're not necessarily supporting this because legally, my concern is anybody can buy this.

[01:58:15] like are we gonna have do we have to have certain classes like are there certain organizations that if it's open it has to be open to everyone and there might be some that we don't want this to be open to because they do not align with what our philosophy as a division is I mean in other iterations have you seen like this is a corporate sponsor but the disclaimer that you know FCPS is neither supporting or do you know what I'm saying yeah which is which is

[01:58:50] challenging to do on on you know a number of signs on a campus if if they see XYZ company at many places each of them would signal some level of partnership and that would be the expectation I would think of our corporate partner that people would be able to recognize they are partners of ours so I think it is through the procurement process in the Office of Division Council that that creates those guardrails which gives the board the ultimate authority to select partners through the proper procurement channels that do align with the divisions priorities thank you I'll take a turn I

[01:59:28] appreciate all the comments of my colleagues and what I what I really appreciate mr. Horne is that you have put together a very thoughtful and well-constructed presentation and proposal for consideration by the school board along with a no-cost option with the RFI that doesn't require a single dollar of expenditure by FCPS but could yield potentially useful information on what you know what kind of revenues we could generate and that could lead to informed decision-making by the school board so I don't support a delay on the RFI because then we could get information that can actually inform our

[02:00:05] decision-making whether we want to even do this or not I I do want to be cognizant that having been at several football games as I'm sure all my colleagues have been in recent weeks you know the stadiums and our daily schools are replete with advertisements from water bottles and coke cans to sneakers t-shirts the stadiums are filled with as my colleague mentioned many advertisements for dentists for orthodontists for elected officials for realtors for all kinds of things and there are dozens of them on the inside and outside of the stadiums I've been at so it's not that our public schools are

[02:00:41] free of advertising in their current form and certainly most outfits worn by students every day display brand names and they're sought-after brand names and it's popular to have certain brand names so it's just a matter of whether we are able to leverage the market to raise funding so I often like to ask what is the problem we're trying to solve well I'll tell one story at a high school I'm familiar with in Fairfax County the the football team is unable to secure sufficient funding to pay for the most advanced football helmets to protect against concussions so every year the players do a little game to see who gets

[02:01:20] the good helmet that will actually protect them from concussions so naming rights could actually enable all students on all high schools to have sufficient money to get protective sports equipment and that's one small story another is there was a marching band that took 15 years 15 years to raise money for new uniforms and I think mr. Horne alluded to situations like that that is inequitable in our county and either we need to fund equipment and uniforms and similar athletics related as well as you know for extracurriculars

[02:01:58] like theater and orchestra things like that we need to fund out of our central budget or we need to find a funding source that will and in a situation where we have you know budget cuts we're looking at I think and and at a time when property taxes are at an all-time high we need to look to alternative revenue sources and so I thank my colleague mr. McDaniel for bringing this forward and offering me the opportunity to partner with him on it thank you mr.

[02:02:25] McDaniel miss Marin yeah thank you so you know I'm wondering how the board wants to dig into this you know I respect what was said about waiting to release requests for information you know it sounds like well and I wanted to mention the audit committee is looking at booster spending and some other things so that information will come to light sometimes though it's like only a few it's not like a whole again like a dashboard I too have examples of you know inequities and sporting equipment like I don't know like what's the basic

[02:03:02] menu of things every high school is guaranteed to get and and so I wonder like how do we as a board find that information and then talk about it I really appreciate that today we talked about budget I would love us to talk about budget every work session maybe that's a topic maybe it's during the EL when we talk about student activities it could be related to my work on the Athletic Council but I feel like it's more the information that's here I wonder if during our time this afternoon we could figure out okay like what's the next step if we're gonna wait to put out an RFI which again I agree with what do we want, what information do we want, and when, and like let's carve it out and

[02:03:42] learn about it. So thank you. Mr. McDaniel. Thank you. And again, thank you, Tom, and for all the work that you've done on this. I know it's been a heavy lift. You've leveraged all of your Rolodex. For the kids out there, that's your phone book, but you've leveraged everyone that you know to pull this information together, so I appreciate that. One quick question, and how much leverage, not leverage, but how much authority would a board like this have when setting up a process to really zero in on one of the issues we've discussed which is that morals and

[02:04:19] values type of constraint is it truly just the Wild West or do we have the authority to narrow this down and tailor it whoever would like to answer well I'd like to clarify it's the Wild East but further I you know I do think that there we could create a filter by which that could be determined we you know we have those filters for a variety of other topic areas so I think we could

[02:04:54] create based on board input and feedback a filter for the clauses that you're discussing gotcha okay and I presumed as much to go back to a point that dr. Henderson raised I was actually thinking about NASCAR not soccer teams but yeah Yeah, we don't want NASCAR.

[02:05:14] I think I said that at the dais when we brought this originally. And on the equity point, which I think is going to be the second salient point here as we go down this process, my vision is not, I mean, whatever is put in place, if anything, has to plug and correct equity gaps, not create and exacerbate them.

[02:05:31] And I think the point that Mr. Dunn raised about the football helmets or the team uniform, things like that, these are the types of things that we need to identify as we're going through this process. I think that goes back to what Ms. Mirren said about a data request, effectively, where we have these gaps, what is the baseline, where could potential sponsor dollars baseline, what some high schools can afford, sponsor dollars potentially filling in some of those gaps.

[02:06:01] We have lots of homegrown success stories in Fairfax County. Capital One is one of the most famous success stories. We have corporations, you can swing a dead cat and find 30 of them around here, that are great public sponsors, they're great corporate partners.

[02:06:19] Those are the types of companies I'm very interested in approaching. And by the way, DC is home to over half a dozen major sports teams. Some companies can't afford to slap their name on the football team's field, but maybe they could afford to put their name on our high school fields. I don't know.

[02:06:35] And I think that's why the RFI route is probably the best way to go to flesh out some of that ambiguity and to really get us the more information that we need in conjunction with some of the data requests to make a more informed decision. So thank you. Ms. Lady.

[02:06:51] Thank you. I was kind of thinking similar along the lines of who we already have contracts with. The example was made earlier about Sprint versus Verizon versus AT&T. well our contract for our cell phones is with one of those companies and you know would that be something that we you know in exchange we buy down that contract overall for some savings um i too agree that there is uh there are a lot of corporations around us um looking to give money

[02:07:28] um and certainly supporting public schools because that's how they recruit people to come work for their company is because we have the robust public school system so those are a couple of my thoughts but I also need to lift up the this this has to plug inequity gaps it can't it can't result in any additional ones and I just remember when I was a director of student services and we would get together with all the schools in the county and we would talk about something as simple as professional development you know there were some schools who had funding for it and some that had none. Sometimes it had to do with what your principal would

[02:08:07] authorize, but some had to do with other things like the revenue your PTSA generates. I mean, these are definitely, I really struggle with the helmet analogy because we have to be providing our athletes with the best equipment, especially in that particular sport for safety.

[02:08:29] So, you know, again, I don't know if our local football team would purchase helmets for all of our teams, and somewhere on there would be their logo in addition to the school logo. I don't know. But the other thing that I will give credit to my colleague, Mr. Dunn, that we were talking at one point, and he shared is just buying en masse, right?

[02:08:55] I mean if we outfitted all 26 high schools with helmets we pay way less per helmet than every school doing it I would think now the differentiator there is that they're all going to be painted differently, right? So you still have 26 products Which potentially may not save us, but it's certainly worth You know Navigating so so I don't want to run with scissors here But I also don't want to sit back and not find out more information if something can be a revenue

[02:09:32] Razor for us. Thanks. Miss Anderson So I am in agreement with my colleagues that I think this is good at least to go out and find out more information Because what we don't know we don't know For me, I always assumed that this money would be used to offset money in the budget that was used for her athletic facilities which is try it often is is aiming to be equal across the board I'm not going to say equitable because it's not it's what we're trying to make sure everybody has the same thing and if I'm understanding I'm not going to put Miss Burden on the

[02:10:09] spot but I believe it's about 3.5 million dollars a year that's just for the turf replacement and so if we could do anything to offset that in addition to not because that frees up dollars to do other things and so for me I was always hoping that this this money could be used in that way just to kind of because I've got schools that need new tracks and I've got schools that need new scoreboards and things like that so we have actually and that is another place where equity does come into play because we have some schools whose boosters can support those items and some who can't and so that's where I

[02:10:46] I definitely see a place that we could go here I'm not sure I think that there's a place to talk about how we can ensure to make sure that all teams are created equal being a parent of a player who plays another extremely dangerous sport one of the things that I will tell you is that the kids are told that they are not allowed to buy a helmet which is a major problem because if you have parents that can then it diminishes the number of helmets that you need and then the and then in we're advertising our schools every time we go do something else so it just is something to keep in mind that I'm wondering if there are small shifts in

[02:11:24] our in some of our other regulations that might actually open it up so that maybe the buying requirement for schools wouldn't be as significant for for those kiddos that need to have a provided helmet so it's just a thought that I'm wondering if there are some other things that we could do to kind of equal the playing field just a little bit no pun intended dr. Anderson for go back I I think one of the things we need to consider is to set the expectations before things start rolling.

[02:11:59] As Ms. Dixit said, maybe to have more conversation. I'd like to hear a little bit more. I think we need to have an RFI amongst ourselves in terms of to determine, is it helmets? Is it turf field? For example, I know that the athletic directors, the ATs, they don't get supplies from us.

[02:12:21] I know at Justice High School every single Band-Aid comes from their fundraiser, which is the physicals. Some years they don't have a lot of physicals, which are just 50 bucks. So we have a school that could have maybe 20 physicals a year, and that is the entire revenue for their supplies for their athletic trainers when they don't get anything from central office.

[02:12:44] And another school that may do 250 physicals or not even need to do that because they have APTA that can write the check. I also think two more things we need to be super considerate of. Mr. Moon raised this. How do we navigate the fact that you brought this signage into my school, so it should be my money, and you brought the signage into my school, and it is offensive to my community. Even though we have these guardrails, I'm going to put it out there, everybody loves Chick-fil-A, but not everybody wants to have their politics be stuck in their

[02:13:21] faces every day. Those are the things that I'd like for us to work out way before we go out. And before you know it, we have an avalanche and we're too far down the lane to stop. And then everyone becomes upset. So I'd like a little bit more discussion, too, in terms of what do we want out of this? What are the no's?

[02:13:42] What are the non-negotiables? Where do we see this money going? Because I heard five different things just for the people who've it in this room mistakes it so I'll pick up from what dr. Anderson said that first of all before we issue our RFI the board should establish clear ethical and commercialization boundaries understand the likely net financial benefit protect school identities and hear from our student families and our community and the you know just to know what the input is I also want stronger

[02:14:20] safeguard concerning prohibited sponsor conflict involving FCPS vendors use of student facing space so I think in an RFI should test a framework that board and community has already shaped not become the process through which private business help define that framework so that is where I want to do is this board need to do a bit more work and I'm happy to discuss this further at other work sessions and I agree we need to be talking about revenue generating ideas more and more often in this work session that way we have to see how we can

[02:14:58] strengthen our schools in any possible way we can from our side thank you mr. moon well dr. Holton that is RFI cost free to us defer to miss burden as needed but the answer is we can issue an RFI with nothing but additional staff time Our staff, we would not need to engage consultants. Our procurement folks can certainly handle the mechanism.

[02:15:32] Okay, I was wondering whether there's any a consultant outside who will provide us information. We could, there are, there are innumerable number of consultants who would like to engage with us, but we do not need that to issue an RFI. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. With that, I'm gonna go a little deeper since, you know, Dr.

[02:15:52] Dr. Anderson invited to have a little more information, even from, you know, among us, is that I think when we could not reach an agreement long, long ago, both could not reach an agreement was, I think the board agreed that not all the money should go to a particular school community, so, you know, sharing the, you know, sharing the, you know, fund was basically agreed to, however, what should be the split?

[02:16:19] What should be the split? theory is that to be any split what should be the ratio they couldn't agree they can know what could the money use be used for they couldn't agree so those things are some of that we need to start thinking about because after all with all the information we cannot agree on that it will be difficult to craft amendment to the policy so start thinking about those and and and earlier we talked about, you know, with due respect to Ms. Anderson and other board members about

[02:16:53] helmet and dangerous sports. I don't want headlines to go out that, you know, FCPS, you know, are forcing our students to get, to be involved in dangerous sports, wearing unsafe helmets. I hope that's not the headlines because we want all our students to play sports in a safest possible manner provide the helmets that are safe that is our duties and I hope doctor doctor we should make sure that we do that yes sir my expectation would be that our sports equipment meet minimal at least

[02:17:33] minimum safety requirements and hopefully be some of the safest equipment our student-athletes could utilize mr. Horn do you want to confirm that because I think that's a clear expectation it is but it's also a clear obligation for the local school to raise those funds and I think to the specific point that mr. Dunn raised there are levels of acceptable helmets all of our football helmets that we own that we recertify meet the expected level of performance but there are expensive helmets which have the perception of greater safety and there are communities where there are fewer of

[02:18:09] those helmets because of the resources available to those places so to miss Anderson's point about the purchasing of helmets as a for instance we have many parents who have the means and would like to donate equipment to us for those reasons because they know that the cost is solely borne by the school and there are there are paths to providing there was a question about do we even know what the bare essentials are to operate an athletic program as for instance the

[02:18:44] answer to that is a very easy yes we could identify the base cost to run all of our programs we could identify what it would cost and how we could save money by centrally purchasing those things and it would simply involve a shift in the way we allocate funds both budgeted funds and community revenue ticket sales funds in conjunction with a partnership or naming rights program you can cure several of the concerns that you have in other words offset capital asset replacement facility replacement cost shortening the cycle that's required because that's often where we see the disparities in communities is is not

[02:19:24] because they're not on cue but it's been 20 years and so their neighbor was recently redone and they are still waiting so we can certainly create what a central purchase, centrally managed, baseline operation for athletics and activities would look like, and then we may have a better idea too of what dollar figure would be required to actually make that plan executable across all 26.

[02:19:53] Ms. Levy. Sorry, I just thought of this. So do we have any authority to limit what booster money can be spent on?

[02:20:10] The current regulations require principal approval for both the fundraising efforts of school support organizations and then the distribution of the dollars that come from those efforts. So the theoretical answer to your question is principals have complete control over what they receive in from boosters and how they distribute those funds.

[02:20:33] Operationally, boosters as separate entities can purchase things on their own, And then it's up to the principal to decide whether they accept the donation of the material or not. So I want to say that we have the policy in place to do so. I don't know that we, in practice, are executing that policy the same at all 25 campuses.

[02:20:54] I mean, I ask the question because if some of this became centralized, these wealthy schools, they're going to up their ante on something else. Their school board's going to have replay on it, right? Their sound systems are going to be off the charts. if there's no limiting of this one-upping of someone else so I just elevate that I also have wondered if there's a space for school partnerships between schools we know bring in less booster revenue with schools who do bring in great booster revenue I was sitting here doing some you know back of

[02:21:31] a napkin math comparisons but there could be a 12 and 12 or 13 and 13 that actually depending on further conversations around like if somebody sponsored this school it's partners with this that revenue is shared and we create parameters of what one can take in it's then it's not going centralized but it is benefiting another lesser school if you will so that's just one thought that I had and then the other thing I want to say is I've never been a

[02:22:05] big fan of naming gymnasiums lecture halls auditoriums fields after people so I think there's a space there to do something else because once you name that after a person you know what do you do later when no one even remembers who that person was or what the story behind it was unless we do naming rights for a time frame perhaps but I'm I vote for them because they're brought forward I don't want to be against any particular person you know so when my colleagues have brought names for it I've been supportive but as a from a philosophical

[02:22:44] perspective I prefer that we don't do that practice I'll take a quick turn so I recently visited the moon gymnasium at TJ as an example and so I would like to emphasize that's right is athletic prowess led to that big name so football helmets to echo my colleagues point some of these football helmets can be six seven eight hundred dollars for the tier five helmets that provide the maximum

[02:23:21] protection which I don't think they're allowed to be advertised to that degree under federal law unless they actually do provide greater protection because it needs to be evidence-based and research studies showing that so if you buy if a school buys them and they're buying fifteen or twenty right they're gonna pay seven hundred dollars the list price but if FCPS purchases it goes to the manufacturer and say I'm gonna buy you know a thousand a year or a thousand over five years you can probably get for three four hundred dollars half off and having been in a COO role I've I saw that firsthand so I do think the

[02:23:57] buying power of FCPS is underutilized and could be of benefit both in terms of cost savings and in terms of student safety as well as making sure that we have equity across our division I did want to mention you know at the football stadiums I saw all of the posters including on the scoreboard there were you know advertisers listed and I don't think the school board right now has any veto or at least if it does have authority somewhere in a policy or regulation it's not exercised and so there is advertising that's already happening and and so I think we just want to be consistent as we're going

[02:24:36] down this road of exploring this and not insist on a veto for some naming rights when we don't have vetoes over others and finally I just want to mention the local schools I do care about local school communities but I care more about making sure that students have equity across the division and since the most profitable package recommended by mr. Horne is selling packages of schools that means it's not one school being advertised at it's perhaps multiple schools or all schools that would be of greatest benefit to the division so I think looking at this through a division perspective is important mr. McDaniel

[02:25:10] well I did not bring napkins so no back the napkin math for me today however I kind of view this as a fundamentally a business problem and the first thing you do when you want to start a company which this is kind of similar starting an effort like that you go test the market you ask your potential customers is there a need, what would you be willing to pay for it, all that type of stuff.

[02:25:34] So I like the conversation around how to spend the money, but I think we first have to ask the question, is there even an ability to attain money to spend? So that's why I do think an RFI that looks into that question is do we have the ability to attain money to spend should be the first step, which is not to say that the concerns cannot be addressed concurrently with that but if the RFI results come back and it's a flop the lack of a better phrase maybe there's no need to go down a consternation route of how do we hypothetically spend money that we're

[02:26:13] not going to attain plus it will also give us a benchmark of potentially how much we could attain which would then drive how that could be spent so yeah that's all I have thanks missing chung cunning um so I asked all of my questions but I was part of a committee with with voice and with Vic years ago that helped bring turf fields to the last three remaining turf fields high schools that did not have turf fields and that was a result of a public-private partnership so I know that this is the way things work sometimes so although I think this is a great way to start the conversation and I think this has been a

[02:26:51] robust conversation with a lot of questions I do agree that moving forward We don't know what we don't know, and I think that we should get information, and then we can move forward. I mean, I think that we are all critical thinkers, and we think all of the, well, what ifs, and that kind of a situation.

[02:27:08] But right now, getting baseline information, I think, is critical. And so, I mean, I will support us to move forward, because then we can entertain those questions. Like, if it's a flop, it's a flop. The other thing is all of you know Which is also begging the question of those other signs that are up there that we are we as FCPS schools are not selling It is the boosters And I'm glad that the audit committee is going to be looking at boosters and seeing how boosters operate because they are very different in every area In every school every booster club even within the schools, you know the band boosters the the football boosters the

[02:27:47] Volleyball boosters they're all different And so the audit committee is going to be looking at that and how that funding is spent and that is very separate the money That's coming in for the signs that hang up now are all sold by the boosters Not something that we're looking at right here as naming rights because that's that's a little bit different So I think we need to tease that out and say that there are two different things But I do support getting the information because I think when we get the information Then we can move forward and see what we can look at and maybe we are looking at significant funding And I think what we're all trying to do is to be creative in a time when there are, you know, significant budget shortfalls.

[02:28:26] And we do want the best for all of our students. And if we can be creative while at the same time being responsible, then I think that's the best move forward. Dr. Anderson, were you looking for a second go back?

[02:28:41] Sure. We've got 15 minutes. This is just process-wise. So are you all looking for concurrence from the board so that we can give some direction to the superintendent, her staff, in terms of moving forward out of this meeting?

[02:29:03] So we have a couple of ways. Yes. I think probably the best vehicle to do that would be the next steps document. So if, you know. I don't want to vote in the next steps as to whether or not we move on with this plan. I'm fine with us having consensus.

[02:29:19] And by plan, you mean the proposed plan to do an RFI. Right. I guess that's what we need to say go forward and do an RFI or pause we shouldn't be voting on that in the next steps document we could do that we could take a consensus here for that that's we could do that or the next steps document I think there's probably going to be some members putting in questions and clarification the next step just based on the conversation so I think there is going to be some conversation through that process as well but if the board would like to take a consensus now to have an RFI as the right and I think I think it's appropriate to ask the additional questions in the next steps, but in terms of having a vote moving on, that has to happen here.

[02:29:58] May I offer a third option, whether it's just instead of an up-down vote on this? The third option is what you kind of alluded to. Could we continue with board conversation around this to set the parameters?

[02:30:14] One of the things that I worry about is let's say the RFI comes back and we can make a lot of money off of this. It will just strengthen communities' hands into, well, if we could make $500,000 or $2 million, all of that should stay at our school.

[02:30:33] I feel like we have to be ahead of that already. So I would say the board needs to continue to have conversations, to ask the questions, to set the parameters minimally at the same time as this work is happening. I think we run the risk of people really being embedded in their positions once some realizations.

[02:30:54] The worst case scenario is we can make nothing of this, then nothing happens. But if we can, the horse has left us stable. One of the-- I would suggest an industry practice that would support what Dr. Anderson just said is that we would be in control of the length of the RFI process.

[02:31:19] And given the complexity of a division our size, think we would not want to set that RFI window to be too short. In other words, we want the industry to provide the greatest, most comprehensive feedback they can. So if we set the window for responses and review to match the time that we felt it was going to take the board to address those other questions, they could run in parallel successfully rather than in sequence. Mr. McElveen.

[02:31:48] Yeah, thank you. Well, I'm happy to support the moving forward with the board. concurrence on the RFI but I will say just you know in terms of perspective I want to thank those who the the two folks at the end of the table who have brought this forward and pass iterations of this conversation over the past two decades it's always been in private right and it's been in response to individual solicitations and frankly we've we've left a lot of money on the table over the years which is unfortunate because we could never come to agreement but I think ultimately we need to find a way to split the baby so

[02:32:27] that the host school is able to keep some funding and that there's the rest is pooled and so I look forward to that conversation thanks so just to kind of because we weren't planning a third round of go backs but just dr. Anderson could you concisely sum up your consensus proposal not to put you on the spot we don't need a motion languages I will try to use the same

[02:33:00] language thank you we need to have a request for information for external for the industry as well as a request for information amongst us in terms of the who the what the where the when the how happening concurrently is there consensus for what Dr. Anderson has proposed? Mr. Moon? I do have a question.

[02:33:35] Oh, okay. I guess we weren't playing a fair round, but we've got about ten minutes before legislative. Thank you. I mean, I sort of concur with Dr. Horn's approach about allowing sufficient amount of time for staff to collect the information to be provided to the board, but as I suggested earlier, we've got to start thinking about how we, if information brought to us is good enough how we're going to start formulating our amendments to the policy for implementation.

[02:34:06] And so that is, I think, pretty much what Dr. Anderson is asking, whether chair and vice chair of the board will see it fit to schedule for the work session along that line is going to be up to the chair and vice chair to looking at our work schedule, work plan to schedule those meetings because I mean as I said earlier that what is the bottom line we are looking for are we trying to raise the money that it's gonna help FCPS well I want to just pop down to a it has to be all money has to go here versus there

[02:34:44] versus that I think that start thinking about those in advance is going to be really helpful for us to craft the amendment to the policy come to the comes to that point and was how the money is gonna be used again because that's where we bogged down and we failed to reach a consensus and we left a lot of money on the table some people may consider that to be not a lot but for some other people there's a lot of money that I saw in the past we left on the table and mystics it so for the RFI actually I would like to actually see

[02:35:21] the actual RFI document when you it comes up because I wanted to see the detailed scope of work and and what is entailed because when it goes out industry or you know other people can make come up come back with this answers we don't even want to them to answer so I would I would want some guardrails again even before we going out of the market is to to really go with our value system because money is great but we are not a business we are we are a school or

[02:35:56] district and I would love to get some income or revenue but at not at the cost of our value so I would like to get that so I think what I what I'd like to propose is that we move forward dr. Anderson's suggestion and then but the same time have staff go back obviously review the recording today I've scribbled on a bunch of notes capture all of the because there's been a lot of questions we can capture those questions and then perhaps in a couple of weeks either mr. Dunn and I we can have a follow-up meeting and put together a

[02:36:32] very comprehensive timeline and next steps of what it would look like for dr. Anderson's proposal to to come back to the board at some point I'll obviously work with the chair on scheduling things is there consensus on that without objection all right thank you we have we can roll right into legislative however if we would like a five-minute break yes five-minute break well we'll come back

[02:36:57] at three o'clock for legislative get started with the legislative part of the work session firstly I do want to say thank you to mr. Malloy and dr. Ivy for all their work and putting this together and before we get into the staff presentation I'd like to walk through the proposal that we have for our

[02:37:32] approach of the legislative work this year just to align us to take better advantage of the opportunities that we have as a board. Ms. Brown if we could bring up the first slide please. Thank you. This is not my document. I apologize.

[02:38:04] Just one more second. Sorry I'm not able to find the right notes but we'll go

[02:39:09] ahead and move on. If we could just go ahead and start with the first set of slides. I'm glad to have had the opportunity to speak to most of you about this proposal for those of you I have not been able to touch base with hopefully you'll get the information that you need here we are going to be mr. McElveen and I serving as chair and vice-chair of the newly constituted legislative committee instead of liaison we are going to be seeking your concurrence in order to move forward in this fashion because it is decidedly different than

[02:39:46] what has been done before I did share with the board a document that gave a little bit more detail it's the google document it's the link that was emailed to you a few um i guess last sunday or last saturday and i think parts of it are posted as well miss setlow did this i want to give a thanks to uh miss anderson to for her support and assisting me in its formatting much appreciated um so essentially we want to start by changing the conversation a little bit we want to find ways to improve

[02:40:21] our legislative work to align in more closely with the General Assembly timelines. We want to strengthen our relationships with the local representatives as well as maybe expand a little bit beyond the folks who are part of the NOVA delegation to talk to folks who are outside of Fairfax County but with whom we have common ground to help support those points.

[02:40:49] So that's the essential impetus for this new move. If we can go to the next slide. We'd like to change the conversation a little bit in terms of, instead of approving our legislative document, our program once a year, and then we rarely come back to having any conversations about it, but to mostly treat it like a living, breathing document, very similarly to the governance manual. As we need to, we make those changes. This

[02:41:25] will allow us to be so much more nimble in terms of being responsive to what's happening in the legislative landscape, both at the national and at the state level. I'd like for us to allow ourselves the opportunity to play more offense instead of being responsive to the things that are happening. The example that I shared with most of you in our conversations was the bill by delegate Helmer in terms of the SOL timetable and when it should be administered. We learn about this after the fact. What would it have been if we had the opportunity to learn that he is going to

[02:42:02] provide this bill and we gave him all of the information up front while he is crafting it to be inclusive of the impacts of the area that is not only the largest school division in Virginia, but also the area that he is representative of. And thirdly, I'd like for us to think a little bit bigger, to think a little bit beyond what we have normally done. During my roundtables and during any of my work with my constituents in the Mason District, I bring up the legislative work, and they've

[02:42:39] always said, well, what can we do? Once I outline, this is what's happening, this is the impact to FCPS, and of course, what parents care the most about, the impact to their personal children. It's always been, what can we do? So how do we harness that kind of energy?

[02:42:55] How do we bring their voices into the room? I think we have an opportunity to do things a little bit differently. If we go to the next slide. One of the ways that I would propose in doing this is to shift our calendar a little bit.

[02:43:12] We typically have a legislative reception that is in the fall. And I think since COVID, where we had it virtual, It hasn't been very well attended because of scheduling, et cetera. Even last year, even with best efforts, we've had the opportunity to reschedule that reception.

[02:43:31] And ultimately, it was canceled because of activity that was taking place at the General Assembly, which took away our audience. So the proposal that we bring for you today is to consider doing a legislative briefing in the fall.

[02:43:48] That is virtual for our lawmakers. The board can be constituted in the way that we are now. But it is virtual for our lawmakers, not only to hear about what Fairfax County wants to do, but primarily to hear what their plans are for the upcoming session.

[02:44:03] That gives us an opportunity to be responsive, to play offense before all of their bills are crafted and submitted and unable to be changed. And I also would want to propose for us to prioritize those who have a heavy education docket.

[02:44:20] For example, Stella Prakarski, former school board member, they call it the Prakarski docket because she has that many education bills. Lori Jane Cohen, lots of education bills. Sam Rasool, not Fairfax County, but he also has a lot of education bills.

[02:44:35] So we will invite our delegation for sure, but I really want to give priority to those that we know are likely to have a lot of education bills which could impact Fairfax County. And in that briefing, not only do we say, hey, These are the things that are important to us, but it's an opportunity to hear from them.

[02:44:54] Move forward a little bit to the spring, which will also be a different approach for us, where we would have the actual reception. And again, we will prioritize many of those individuals who have heavy education bills. But at that time, we would have had the entire year to not only be responsive to what is happening in the legislature, in the General Assembly, And we could have that be reflective in our program all along.

[02:45:21] And then in the spring, when we have this reception, we could have new positions that are responsive of what just occurred. And then we start the cycle all over again. Not only do we allow them to give us an update on what is it that they've done during that session, but we will also have the chance to be responsive through that all year long.

[02:45:42] And we will have the opportunity to then hear, what are you thinking next to allow us the opportunity to prepare? and essentially rinse and repeat. So the big ask is the change of the timetable. The big ask is to change the focus on what we discuss with them to also give the opportunity to hear in terms of their plans.

[02:46:04] Can we go to the next slide? And another big change, because now we are a committee, rather than just liaison, we will be fashioned after the budget committee, where we'll have regular conversations with the legislative committee.

[02:46:20] And Dr. Ivey, I'm not sure if you're part of that committee along with Mr. Molloy. I don't know, but she could potentially be. With having those meetings be more frequently scheduled at the times that we need it.

[02:46:35] We've already laid out a schedule with Mr. Molloy that when there is session, we will be meeting weekly. And when we are off session, it would either be monthly or biweekly. So that way, we have greater opportunities to bring the information back to the board in a timely manner with opportunity to be responsive.

[02:46:55] The legislative program won't be something that we just handled once a year. It will be an opportunity for us to, if something comes up, then we respond to it. Then we can be more specific in our positions, because we want that to be more helpful to lawmakers.

[02:47:13] Because right now we're pretty broad, because we also want to give enough latitude for when Mr. Malloy is down in the General Assembly for things that are specific enough to kind of fall under that umbrella so he can still speak to a general statement.

[02:47:28] And sometimes it's harder to thread that line. It's harder to make sure that it's clear to them what is it that we're looking for. As we are more detailed, as we are more responsive, more communicative to the board with General Assembly members, then we can have those specific positions be outlined in our program.

[02:47:50] So I think that is the last slide. And so I'd love to take some questions, hear some feedback. Again, I'm going fairly quickly, because I've spoken with most of you in great detail about this. But I'm happy to take some questions, hear your feedback.

[02:48:06] This continues to be a work in progress. If we are given concurrence, we will proceed. And then we will get into the staff presentation. Ms. Anderson.

[02:48:23] I am fully in support of this approach. And I particularly like the idea of being able to build a legislative program that is a little bit more easily accessible for our members so that they can have some place where they may be able to go in and ask a quick question or something like that.

[02:48:43] And I think this is where we can leverage some of the folks that we have that are building internal resources for us within the division. because if you look at the accelerate 2026 website that they built for that conference it was very similar to what I think that we could do here so I'm wondering whether or not if we can create work with other departments to create a framework for this that we can feed it and I think that it will become an amazing resource for our the members of the delegation thank you I don't know who is next mr. Dunn thank you I strongly support the proposal to

[02:49:22] establish a legislative committee I think it's important for transparency for being organized for getting more done but I think it has to be paired with a change in approach I have gotten the impression over the past three years that FCPS largely has a very passive approach to enacting legislative changes which is not to enact legislative changes but instead to report back to the school system on what's happening and a reporting function is something I could

[02:49:58] get through a Google News Alert but I think what we as a four point one billion dollar organization need to be doing is is reconceiving of our legislative operations as an outside lobbying firm if we just dissolved our internal and and hired a third party what would we expect we would expect them to go and advocate to form coalitions to reach out to peer school divisions or other potential allies and draft legislation and move that legislation forward right that happens every day in the private sector with General Motors

[02:50:34] and Ford and pharmaceutical companies and technology companies that's what legislative relations operations do and I just don't get a sense that we do that and I wonder why because when the school board itself has to elevate hey we really need to be able to talk more than two people at a time and that needs to be a priority and and that's coming from school board when that's been true for decades that makes me question why wasn't that prioritized earlier why Why couldn't we pursue that earlier?

[02:51:09] And when we are surprised by like Green Globes legislation being enacted, which outlaws our current green building standards, that was also a surprise to everyone. And I don't know why it's a surprise, because that affected public buildings.

[02:51:25] That should have been on the radar. If we had had an outside lobbying firm, we would have held them accountable for that lapse. That's a very significant and costly change that we've had to undergo as a result of the lack of attention to that very important issue.

[02:51:41] So those are just a couple issues where we need to identify, what are our top three or five priorities for every session, not just here's a laundry list of 100 things we might be open to. And what are those three or five priorities? And what are we doing to get that to happen, not just as Fairfax County, but as coalitions.

[02:51:58] If you think about the coalition Sharon Boulevard built with Richmond and the Urban Crescent in Virginia, We can do the same thing with other school divisions. So I think we just need to figure out what are those three to five things, maybe through the legislative committee, and then go after them in a very proactive way, where it might take years to get them done, but we can measure incremental progress towards building those alliances and identifying champions.

[02:52:21] Thank you. No, thank you for that statement. I think that currently-- that definitely aligns with where we want to go, because we have not harnessed, I don't think, the full power of FCPS. And this is a good start in that general direction.

[02:52:36] So thank you for stating that. Ms. Lange and Cunning. Thank you, and I appreciate the conversation that we have. I actually also want to thank Mr. McDaniel and Mr. Frisch that brought this idea to make it a legislative committee.

[02:52:54] And I echo what Mr. Dunn said, because I think instead of us just being responsive, we also have to be proactive. And as you and I discussed, I think The other thing about this being a committee of the whole is that we can leverage our experience that each one of us brings and maybe have like little mini subcommittees in terms of, you know, areas of expertise to where whatever work we've done that we can move forward.

[02:53:19] And there's so much going on that, you know, and I think this may be in the past why this has been like this, because there's just so much work going on that this was just another thing on our plate that, you know, we just, it was a lot. But if we can leverage what everybody brings to the table, like I know I have specific expertise on certain things that I'd like to see move forward.

[02:53:40] There might be a couple of other colleagues that have that same expertise, and we can have those little mini subcommittees. So not just identify the priorities, but then leverage the expertise that we have here, the connections that we have. And we are lucky to have at, right now, in the statehouse, members that have sat on this board, but also making those connections with other school districts that have the same interest.

[02:54:02] And I know some of us have done that locally with some other school board members or other Board of Supervisors members that are not Fairfax County, but moving forward. So I like the idea of us maybe being more proactive and us also developing legislative bills that we think would not only benefit us, but would benefit the whole entire Commonwealth of Virginia and our students.

[02:54:27] So thank you for this work. Thank you. Ms. Dixit. So I also support the committee as a whole, and thank you for doing all the work to get this started.

[02:54:44] In just, you know, hearing from other people and some of the elected delegates, I heard that FCPS doesn't do a lot of demands, doesn't ask for much. And we are a little, like I said, passive in terms of, like, we have, you know, collective power of you know millions of people million people like I should say in the county and then it is huge school system to support us so I think we can ask for specific budget items too like if you want to do something as a special

[02:55:20] initiative and I believe other school districts get funded like that making a case and we I cannot just ask for something for Sully district I guess it has to be full for the entire school district but I like the idea of that how we can now brainstorm on what those initiatives could be for getting those one-time funding so well I think let's get the work continue this work thank you and what you've said is exactly right because I've heard that as well they they think we are kind of missing from the equation and other organizations

[02:55:59] are a little bit more demanding so I agree with you said I think we have a real opportunity here and part of it is making sure that we have these regular conversations rather than a once-a-year discussion and then it's put to the side and never more to be spoken about so we'll have an opportunity with the chair and vice chair to help schedule more regular time for the legislative committee of the whole to come together and to determine its priorities that we want to write legislation about and what is it what does a lobbying effort look like down in Richmond and and one more thing that I failed to share earlier that

[02:56:36] I think it's in the documents is to strengthen our federal arm we don't have as significant of a connection with the federal with the federal agencies as we do with the general assembly and we know the landscape we know where we are right now but still we need to build those coalitions and how do we strengthen those so that when it is time to make the asks that we know we have ready ears to help us mr. moon thanks for thanks for all the work time and effort you put

[02:57:12] into you they come to share with us legislative work used to be committee work rather than just a liaison doing one time a year you know we used to meet regularly as a committee even though there was not the committee as a whole but it's okay. It's a bold deciding how much of a workload we want to have for ourselves, but I'm willing to have this more on a regular basis more frequently. With that, one question that I have is with time responses,

[02:57:49] providing time responses to immersion legislation, when legislations move so quickly whether we are equipped to convene in with our work sessions or meetings and make a decisions to provide our input to Michael Malloy or directly to our General Assembly or even the governor I'm gonna bring this one up because our legislative work or the budget work it's not just to wait a legislative body because you know executive body also has a tremendous power in terms of vetoing or submitting an amendment, et cetera.

[02:58:27] So we work with both, not just legislative body but also executive at the same time. So how can we, are we able to provide a timely response to emergent legislations?

[02:58:44] That's a question. is a second second one is as a suggestion you know during the off season time you know inviting local legislators they could they could also include you know members and the supervisor the board of supervisors come in and have a conversation with us they could we could extend our invitation to uh those serving in the congress to come and share with us what they have on their minds so that we could also share with them what we have on our minds so that we could perhaps educate each other a little better. So I thank you for the

[02:59:23] work. Absolutely and I think you know emergent situations if I remember the timeline from last year in terms of following this a little bit more closely some were days and those would be hard to get if the if the committee's meeting one day and they are going to make the decision that night that's a little bit harder but some there's a couple of days before you know the subcommittee is meeting and that's when I think we'll have greater opportunity to come and convene and speak and get the information to Michael again just we meet every two weeks as a body to approve things and very similarly to what has

[03:00:01] been done in the past with the budget committee the budget chair and vice chair would call around and gain consensus I think there are ways where we can allow ourselves the opportunity to be part of the conversation instead of just outside of it and not impacting it in the way that we would like to.

[03:00:19] I just want you to find a way to be able to do this effectively and also in a legal fashion. Yes, absolutely. And that's going to take flexibility on the part of this board to allow us the chance to come to a board meeting for a vote for something that may not have been fully noticed for two weeks.

[03:00:39] Suspension of the rules may become thing that happens with our with our work here miss lady so I would want consensus on suspension of the rules for the work but it sounds like it makes sense because things are going to be timely and on short clocks do we Michael mr. molly do we have a date we typically go down and lobby in Richmond in the usually is around a date I think that the Board of Supervisors has some sort

[03:01:13] of reception, do we have any inclination as to when that is? Chair Lady, we don't know exactly the date at this point. I don't think. We can check with the county to see if they've specified it. You've done two different things in the past.

[03:01:29] You've either piggybacked on the VSBA conference, which happens right around crossover, which is a time where bills move from the House to the Senate, send it to the House. That happens about in a seven-week session. That'll happen about four, four and a half weeks into the session.

[03:01:46] Or you've piggybacked on the county's legislative reception when they come down. That's usually associated with the Virginia Association of Counties event as well. So question, would you recommend that perhaps we divide and conquer and we have people show up at both dates so there's not 12 of us trying to get in with all of our representatives at the same time?

[03:02:12] I certainly think it makes sense. I think in terms of operating in the General Assembly, communication is key. And the more opportunities you have to communicate with people, the better. So yeah, dividing and conquering, have members come down. Have members come down at off times.

[03:02:31] General Assembly meets virtually every day in terms of things that we're following. So there are always meetings happening where there's legislation that we're following or that we're providing input on. So again, the more communication, obviously, the better.

[03:02:49] So I clearly-- I agree with the shift in timeline. I think that's very important. I think it has become that our delegation is writing a lot of their bills in the summer months. So I appreciate Dr. Anderson and Mr. McElwain bringing that forward in terms of the calendar.

[03:03:09] So I just want to offer my support for that. And I guess not to totally put you on the spot, but folks have said a lot of things in here. But as our lobbyists to the state, do you have any reflections or thoughts based on what's been elevated so far?

[03:03:28] I think there's a couple of things. One is we do partner with other school divisions. I'm constantly talking with-- I have counterparts in multiple jurisdictions, most of the larger ones and then some of the smaller ones.

[03:03:46] We work directly with the Virginia School Boards Association. We work directly with VAS, with the Superintendents Association. So we have a lot of strong coalitions. Fairfax is a member of those coalitions.

[03:04:02] Fairfax is not necessarily the primary driver. If you've been to Richmond, you know that Fairfax, the view of Fairfax changes as you drive further south in Virginia.

[03:04:20] So there is a bit of a cautionary tale in terms of elevating Fairfax's profile in terms of that can change the minds of some folks in terms of what's being discussed.

[03:04:36] So I think that's something that's important to be aware of. The other thing is to be aware that you don't necessarily want to just introduce legislation for legislation's sake.

[03:04:52] Once you introduce a bill, you no longer control it. It can become something completely different. In fact, we've seen that. Protections for LGBTQ+ students-- that started out as protections. It got changed completely into something that was different.

[03:05:09] So you do need to be careful. And you also need to focus in on areas where you don't already have authority. In a lot of cases, things that you want to do, you as a board already have the authority to do. You want to be very careful in terms of going to Richmond and asking for them to weigh in on areas where you may already have that authority.

[03:05:32] Because again, the bill may pass or legislation may pass that does exactly the opposite of what you intended it to do. So I think there needs to be a very careful and thoughtful process in terms of what you actually want to put in front of the General Assembly.

[03:05:47] I think when we think about legislation, we think not so much in the way of bills as we think in terms of budget. But I think that the conversation really is more about we want additional resources to do various things. Remember that the budget is a different process than legislation.

[03:06:06] Legislation runs fairly consistently through committees. The budget process, a lot of it's done behind the scenes. A lot of it's done with a limited number of members having behind the scenes conversations about what goes in there.

[03:06:22] And I think Ms. Dixit mentioned that there are jurisdictions that get appropriations. There aren't very many. I know I can think of a couple of examples. One was Loudon got a few hundred thousand dollars a couple of years ago to start up a recovery high school.

[03:06:41] But there aren't as many jurisdiction-specific budget items. They tend to be more general funding for special education students, or funding for-- and how that money comes back to us obviously matters.

[03:06:59] Mr. Mueller, if I could ask you to be a little bit more sustained, because we still have to get into the staff's presentation. Of course. But I think that would kind of be my thoughts. Thank you. I appreciate that, because it's helpful to hear because I do think most of what we're lobbying around is about dollars I mean there's a lot of mandated things that are unfunded and I think we try to elevate that but to your point I think we need to be careful about things that you know are in an education space that we can just make policy on so I appreciate the answer thank you seeing no other speakers I'd like to draw your

[03:07:37] attention to the work plan that is posted and I think at current it is 13 pages it pretty much details what I've just summarized in the four slides that I shared earlier it is a work in progress we expect to continue to populate this and you all have a link to this as well throughout the year so that next year there will there won't be the there won't be the need to recreate I've been part of the federal legislative work for now three years, and every year we've had to reinvent the wheel with Mr. Molloy.

[03:08:14] We're going to do this thing this way. I'm hoping by the time this year is done, this will be so detailed. It's literally plug and play for the next committee. It is going to be predictable and consistent. So hopefully you all have had a chance to take a look very quickly at these 13 pages, And while you do that, the last thing that I want to raise in terms of being responsive to emergent situations, we all know, particularly with the Fairfax delegation, we have counterparts or individuals that we know, they will answer our calls like this.

[03:08:48] We text them and they answer. We need to harness that. And so there'll be an opportunity for, on this document, for us to connect who those lawmakers are with those on the board. So if there's something that is happening with, I don't know, pick your delegate and we know that is Ms. Marron's person, then the conversation will be, Ms. Marron, please text the delegate because we know they will answer your text message.

[03:09:16] We know that they will answer your call right away because of the relationship that you've built. so having said that looking for concurrence with the proposed plan if you are in agreement please raise your hand looks to be unanimous with all the board members that are present so thank you and we will continue to plug away now we will turn it over to mr. Malloy for the staff presentation because we're struggling two worlds now we have this new plan but we need to kind of wrap up

[03:09:51] and do some things to get us moving and so we will start with mr. Molloy all right thank you dr. Anderson so we'll try to get through this relatively quickly I know you have some things you're going to want to discuss so we'll try a lot of things are just written down on the slide that you can you can refer to there's also several reference materials that were included as part of the as part of the agenda item and then also some references to some materials that are available online to the public for for additional review so we've covered

[03:10:29] bullet number one the purpose of this conversation really is to kind of review what's happened in the last several months both at state and federal level to give you a brief preview what's what we foresee coming up in terms of both both policy and budget.

[03:10:46] Discuss your legislative priorities. You remember you maintained a set of priorities that are a subset of your positions, both on the state side and the federal side. And then we'll discuss a little bit about the staff recommendations for program revisions, many of which are revisions that are reflective of changes that have happened during the last year, so things that we were successful in advocating for.

[03:11:12] And then also, the last bullet I think covers the same ground. So for the 2026 General Assembly session, you've seen the reports on it. But just to kind of level set expectations, long session is nine weeks.

[03:11:31] The General Assembly does its best to cram an entire year's worth of work into those nine weeks. They had 3,600 bills that were introduced. To the General Assembly's credit, unlike the federal government and unlike some other states, Every one of those bills got some degree of a hearing.

[03:11:48] They showed up on a committee meeting or a subcommittee meeting somewhere and got some degree of discussion. There are a lot of places where people just introduce bills and they're just introduced for the sake of introducing them. Of those 3,600, a little bit more than 10% had some possible impact on FCPS.

[03:12:06] As you can see, the next bullet kind of identifies that a little bit over half of those bills were specifically K-12 related. So they either went through the House Education K-12 subcommittee, or they went through the Senate Education and Health Public Education subcommittee.

[03:12:23] That also, though, means that a lot of other bills that had an impact on FCPS didn't go through those committees. They went through courts of justice. They went through transportation. They went through Health and Human Services. They went through a lot of other places. So the breadth of what can affect FCPS in the General Assembly is fairly broad.

[03:12:44] And then of that universe, about 165 of those bills passed. That was detailed in a past bill report that I think that you all received. So in terms of things that happened during the General Assembly that were supportive of your positions or supportive of your priorities, we did get additional funding for per-pupil special education funding, that was a positive.

[03:13:13] That's also something that's related to JLARC. I know you had, I think there was at least one question during the budget conversation earlier about whether anything from JLARC is being adopted. Per-pupil funding, or increased per-pupil funding for special education students was part of the JLARC recommendation.

[03:13:32] So that, again, slow incremental progress, but at least it was progress. General Assembly also granted localities referendum authority for school construction sales taxes. They did it a little differently in Northern Virginia than they did everywhere else.

[03:13:48] Everywhere else, it was just school construction. In Northern Virginia, you can have a referendum on transportation, school construction, or both. So the configuration of that is a little bit different. There is a local referendum authority.

[03:14:04] And then the next several bullets are primarily actually changes in some of the legislation that Dr. Anderson referred to that Delegate Helmer and Senator Van Valkenburg brought two years ago.

[03:14:21] These are a lot of revisions to that initial legislation. So there were changes made based on things that you advocated to Delegate Helmer and others on. There were some revisions that were made to that initial proposal for how SOL tests are administered and the timing and everything else.

[03:14:43] And then the last two, there were some changes related to IB diplomas and advanced studies diplomas happening simultaneously for students. And then a prohibition on applying any sort of graduation changes or graduation requirement changes on students retroactively.

[03:15:01] Again, all the references here are to your existing legislative program, which is linked at the bottom of this page. This page I won't spend a lot of time on. I just wanted to give you some examples of those 164 bills beyond those that were on your priority list, just to give you an example of the scope of what the General Assembly does.

[03:15:26] There's bills dealing with personnel issues, dealing with artificial intelligence, dealing with the active times of school crossing zones, dealing with parental notification on course registration guidelines, or guidelines and deadlines.

[03:15:41] But just wanted to kind of give an example of just how many different types of topics the General Assembly can deal with in a single session. This page includes, again, it's a sample.

[03:15:57] But these are bills, if you remember, during a General Assembly session, Anything that passes during that session goes into effect July 1 of the same year. So this past year, most of the bills that were passed in March and April went into effect July 1 of this year.

[03:16:17] These are some examples of bills that passed during this last General Assembly session, but that had a delayed enactment attached to them, kind of similarly to what happened with the assessment bill with 1957. There were a lot of delayed enactments there. But these are some issues that, as time goes on, we will have to address as a system.

[03:16:38] But they didn't immediately go into effect. The other thing that a delayed enactment bill does is it does provide the opportunity to come back during the next General Assembly session to talk about if there were unintended consequences. Again, referring back to House Bill 1957 and the assessment bills to make some refinements and how those bills are eventually going to be implemented.

[03:17:02] So we have implementation dates anywhere from July of '27 all the way to the 29-30 school year. And I think that the 29-30 school year is one I do want to highlight specifically, because I know that's the provision that would require 10% of a classroom grade to be attached to an SOL assessment for middle school and high school students.

[03:17:26] That has been, as you can see, that been pushed back for a long time and the reason that it was pushed back for a long time is because the state is in the process of soliciting bids for an entirely new assessment system so they have an RFP out right now the state is going to go through that process they're going to come in it may be it may look like SOLs it may be different but this provision would not go into effect until until that new system was in place.

[03:17:56] So you've got a lot of moving parts before something like that can go into effect. On the federal side, for funding, it was largely a story of level funding.

[03:18:12] The Congress has relied fairly heavily on continuing resolutions. So year-over-year funding has stayed relatively static. The bigger changes are realignment of US Department of Education responsibilities to other departments, so moving things out of USED into Health and Human Services, into the Department of Labor, into the Department of Justice.

[03:18:35] So their K-12 functionality, but the administration of them have moved to other areas of the federal government or other federal agencies. Changes in federal civil rights enforcement-- definitely a different paradigm for how Title VI and Title IX are being implemented at the federal level, which has an impact on things like grants, because grants may have specific requirements that they didn't have before, and also in terms of potential impacts on your policies.

[03:19:10] And then I know something that we've talked about the last couple of years is some fairly substantial changes and constraints on access to federal student loans, which has an impact on our graduates as they leave here, and they move on to other higher education opportunities.

[03:19:31] So that's retrospective. This is now, and literally now. These are things that are being discussed by the General Assembly in the off session. They have several committees that meet throughout the year that talk about issues.

[03:19:47] It may be something that comes up during a General Assembly session that they don't have enough time to address, so they send it off to an off session committee. The reason why I say it's literally right now is bullet number two on open meeting requirements. The meeting subcommittee of the Virginia FOIA Council moved forward a proposal, and it's going to go to the full council, I think, in October to change the rule of three to the rule of four in terms of open meeting laws.

[03:20:16] So they've had an extended discussion. They've had a discussion a month ago. Dr. Anderson was able to testify for that. You were persuasive, at least in terms of them moving a proposal forward. But this, again, gives you an idea of we don't only deal with what the General Assembly does during session.

[03:20:37] They're working off session. And anything that comes out of this, any of these meetings, can become legislation for the next General Assembly session. I know there was a question in the budget work session earlier today about JLARC.

[03:20:56] There is a joint subcommittee that is looking at elementary and secondary education funding and looking at the implementation of it. What they have done so far, they haven't met as a committee this year, but they have solicited bids for somebody to come in to help them redesign the standards of quality funding formula to make it more pupil-centered as opposed to personnel-centered, so more per-pupil allocations of funding for students with various characteristics or various needs.

[03:21:30] Again, they have not met yet, so we don't know exactly where that's going. But they're doing kind of the behind the scenes staff work on that. In addition to the political side, the General Assembly, you've also got the State Board of Education and you've got the Virginia Department of Education that meets almost monthly.

[03:21:49] They meet about eight or nine times a year. The State Board does, and then the Department of Education works throughout the year. They're focused on, as you would expect, accountability, assessment, and guidance. So cut scores continues to be a hot topic of conversation at the state level.

[03:22:07] Implementation of the school performance framework and potential changes as that moves forward. And then the last bullet, there's a lot of areas where the General Assembly asked the department to provide school divisions guidance on various areas, some of which was more binding require you to actually act on the guidance, and others were just guidance for best practices.

[03:22:29] And this just gives you an example of some of those topics. In addition, these are several ad hoc work groups that are looking at issues. The reference to the bill number is this was legislation that passed during the last session that they decided to create a work group so they could come back with recommendations.

[03:22:51] So alternative licensure, CTE pathways, and then attendance and residency issues are all being discussed by these work groups. So that's today. Now we're looking at an admittedly incredibly murky crystal ball, but we will give our best opportunity or our best efforts to let you know what we think is coming.

[03:23:16] In terms of the general assembly session, this is what they refer to as the short session. It's a 45-day session because it's the second year of the biennium. The budget is already in place. They've already adopted a budget, so any discussions about the budget tend to be more on the incremental side and on the margins, because the primary discussion about what should be in the budget happens in the first year of a biennium.

[03:23:43] It convenes January 13th, crossover again, about a month into session, which, when you think about it, means that the General Assembly will have heard every single bill that was in front of it. It's just that the House will have heard all of its House bills, the Senate will have heard all of its Senate bills.

[03:24:02] So there's about four weeks' worth of work to get through a couple thousand bills that the General Assembly acts on. And then on the federal side, just to flip over to that, you can't turn on the news without knowing that there are congressional elections coming up in November.

[03:24:19] Tons of uncertainty about what those might portend. And then once all that's finished, then the 120th US Congress actually convenes on January 3, 2027. So on the state side, these are some issues that we think are likely to be discussed.

[03:24:40] Most of them are issues that have been discussed in the past and are likely to come back in either a different form or just for another try. So you've got statewide local collective bargaining, not just the permissive version that localities can opt into, but requirements for all localities to participate.

[03:25:04] Math instruction, there may be some parallels to the legislation that was adopted several years ago. On the math side of the House, parallel to the Virginia Literacy Act in terms of having some new requirements for how math is taught in schools.

[03:25:23] I believe that Senator Prakarski has worked on last year and may also be working on this year a major change in state law. But really what it would be, it would be importing provisions from federal law under IDEA into state law.

[03:25:43] So their concept's probably not foreign, but definitely different status if it's sitting under state code as opposed to federal code. Indoor air quality continues to be a discussion. They will inevitably talk more about AI and screen time.

[03:26:03] Enrollment requirement for sports participation. There was a bill last year that would have made it so that-- it would have flipped residency requirements to allow a student-- if they attended the school, that would be considered-- they'd be considered eligible for sports.

[03:26:20] So getting into the area that VHSL deals with. Penalties for false enrollment information. This was one that I mentioned as one of the workgroups. Limits on FOIA request reimbursements. There's been an annual discussion about that, about limiting our ability to charge folks for FOIA requests.

[03:26:40] And then two more, elementary school recess. We had a discussion about this several years ago, but we understand there would be another push for additional recess time. And then another push for the staffing of school nurses, whether that be one per building or whether that be one per 1,000 students are different things.

[03:27:00] And then on the budget side, I think Lee covered this earlier. They're just being very cautious. There's a lot of spending pressures at the state level, changes in Medicaid, changes in SNAP, that are leading to a lot of pressure within the state budget.

[03:27:18] Inflation is having a huge impact. So their outlook for state revenue is that there may not be a lot of revenue to talk about. Federal side, obviously, this is subject to what happens in November.

[03:27:34] But the issues that I think are likely to be out there, regardless of what happens, continued discussions about shifting US Department of Education responsibilities away from the US Department of Education. There's been a lot of movement at the federal level to provide flexibility to localities and to states on how they implement everything from ESSA to Head Start, which in some ways can be a positive at the local level, but in some ways, if you're relaxing requirements, that can have a detrimental impact on various programs.

[03:28:12] And there's a discussion and a potential push to ramp back, limit, and/or eliminate federal education technology funding through the federal E-rate program. On the budget side, their fiscal year starts, I think, on October 1.

[03:28:31] They have not passed any federal appropriations bills that would put those into place. They've passed continuing resolutions that will push current funding beyond the midterm elections. it is likely that they will continue to do that, continue to push those appropriations forward.

[03:28:54] There have been a proposal from the administration the last several years to eliminate several programs, Title III being one, Title II being another, or consolidating several programs into a single block with a lesser amount of money under the block.

[03:29:12] So again, there are risks in terms of the amount of money that we get from the federal government. And then finally, the reconciliation bill that passed a year and a half ago does have some federal education tax credit policies that states will have to address.

[03:29:34] OK, so beyond crystal ball. And you have these documents. You should have a redline version of state priorities. You should have a redline version of federal priorities. And you should have a redline version of the legislative program in general.

[03:29:52] So basic rule of any redlined version, obviously, is if it's underlined, it's proposed new language. If it's struck through, it's proposed elimination of language. So in terms of the state priorities, would recommend, again, if you want to keep it just to kind of a single page type of document, there's a position about educational governance, which was referring to the State Board of Education and the governance of Virginia colleges.

[03:30:24] That landscape is very different. Structurally, things didn't change. But obviously, with a change in governor and a change in approach, there's a lot of new personnel. In fact, the Virginia State Board of Education is already majority current governor appointees.

[03:30:42] So five of the nine members of that board have been appointed by the current governor. So that's a significant change in terms of that governance. As a replacement, if you remember during session-- I think it was February-- you all sent a letter to the governor just advocating for several things.

[03:31:03] And there was a section in that letter that dealt with some changes that we wanted to see in terms of college and workforce readiness, direct credit for work experience, maintaining industry credentials that are available to students now, and then additional flexibility for how work-based learning opportunities are implemented and the access students have.

[03:31:22] So to replace that deleted position, we would recommend adding that as a new priority. And then on the revised side, paralleling some of the things that we talked about in terms of things that we've achieved, eliminate the re-benchmarking language because it's not a re-benchmarking year.

[03:31:42] You don't need to refer to re-benchmarking. And then eliminate language related to AP/IB access. There was some confusion under the original assessment bill from the state as to whether or not AP and IB tests were going to interfere with SOL tests.

[03:31:59] And that's been cleared up. And the state's also dropped the requirement to administer the Virginia Growth Assessment. On the federal side, for the most part, your priorities appear to be the appropriate ones in terms of advocacy for IDEA special education funding, Title I, and various of the other title programs.

[03:32:21] But we are recommending adding a little bit of language in there about preserving the role that the United States Department of Education plays in K-12 policy implementation. So kind of the counter to the idea that they're moving all of those functionality outside of something that's specifically dedicated education into other functional areas.

[03:32:43] For the state legislative program itself-- that's the longest of the three documents, because that's taking the wording of all of your positions and making recommendations. Everything on this page is a recommended removal, primarily because, again, of things that we've accomplished over the last year, things that were changed.

[03:33:03] And so the positions themselves are not relevant. The position about school quality profiles is kind of self-becoming obsolete. They're focusing less and less on school quality profiles and more on the information that comes out under the school performance framework.

[03:33:22] I had mentioned application of retroactive graduation requirements, Virginia growth assessment. The state has begun moving towards adding native language assessment. They haven't done it on the SOL side, but they haven't done it on some of the diagnostic tests that we deal with.

[03:33:39] So we can remove some of those references. And then the last two we've also talked about. T30 in particular, the second to last bullet, those are all changes that were made to the original assessment bill.

[03:33:54] So graduating seniors have more flexibility about the last two weeks of year. There's more flexibility for courses that only run for a semester or run over the summer, in terms of when those assessments can happen. And then, as I mentioned, the overlap between SOLs and APIB tests.

[03:34:11] And then the issue of students that are trying to simultaneously get an IB diploma and an advanced study diploma. So those are all recommended removals. We have three recommended additions. The first one is-- and I think it came out of your own adult education committee-- dealing with adult registered apprenticeship and career programs continued funding for those the the addition under the English

[03:34:49] language learner position deals with if you remember we used to have an 11 11 semester rule in Virginia in terms of when content assessments would count towards a school's a school's accountability that dropped to less than 12 months this is this position is the maximum allowable flexibility under federal law in terms of how to address English learners' content assessment scores under the school performance framework. So that it's advocating again for the maximum flexibility allowable under federal law. And then the final

[03:35:29] specific addition deals with our, actually it's the county's CSA funds, the Children's Services Act funds, which primarily intersects with private placements of students in special education settings. The state has been placing restrictions on those funds. They've been capping the amount that they can grow year over year. CSA was intended to be sum sufficient to just cover the cost of everything. There have been some moves to make it so that it's less than sum sufficient. Some of that impact happens on the county side, but

[03:36:03] some of that impact rebounds to us because it affects our students. So again, We want to just be clear in terms of asking to retain flexibility of those funds. The remainder of the positions are changes in existing wording.

[03:36:20] So it's expansions, the college and workforce readiness. We've already talked about both of those. The environmental sustainability school calendar, those are relatively minor wording changes, although I will tell you that the school calendar change, that the wording change there is intended to address, or at least positioned you to be part of a conversation should the state decide to revisit what we just went through, which was having to close the Friday before Labor Day if we chose to open before Labor Day.

[03:36:50] The Labor Day discussions are not what they used to be in Richmond. They used to be a huge, huge topic. There seemed to be some additional flexibility that may be envisioned. So the wording change there really is intended to position you all in terms of that conversation, should that be something that arises.

[03:37:15] And then I can tell you that most of the remainder of what we have here are changes under school accountability, standard of accreditation, and standard of learning, again, related to all the changes that were made to some of the concerns that we had with legislation.

[03:37:33] I'm happy to go through each one of them. I'm also happy to put them on here and let you all take a look really quickly. So a lot of it is just reframing the position.

[03:37:49] So if part of a position had been achieved, it was reframing the position so that it addressed the remainder that had not been achieved. So an example, of course, would be your preference would be to have at least three weeks before the end the year for assessments. They kept it at two weeks, but they provided a degree of flexibility in some specific areas that you all had recommended, but your advocacy for the three weeks remains in place kind of thing. And then getting us out of the state side, the federal side, again similar to the priorities, we're

[03:38:29] recommending a specific position about the continued existence of the Department of Education as a the primary focus for the administration of education policy at the federal level and with that alrighty thank you mr. Malloy I want to I just want to point out a couple of things this is the board's legislative program while there were many recommendations from staff this is still our document our that we own in our positions and I I also want to make sure that I highlight it, because I know Mr. Malloy went through this really quickly,

[03:39:08] he offered two sets of revisions. There's the revisions to the priorities, which are essentially part of the main program that have been elevated as these are our top issues, to answer your question, Mr. Dunn. Should these continue to remain our top issues?

[03:39:24] So we have the general program, which has positions on issues state and federal. Then we have-- these are our most important things, state and federal, which are outlined in the priorities. All right, so we will now then start with comments, questions, and any points of advocacy that you have for new positions, new priorities, new bills, et cetera.

[03:39:49] Mr. Dunn. Mr. Malloy, there are eight documents attached on board docs. Which are the key documents that you think we should be looking at? So I think you're going to want to look at the state priorities discussion draft.

[03:40:06] You're going to want to look at the federal priorities of the section draft, because those distill down the main body of the legislative program into a subset of things that are the most important issues and the most important priorities for you all as a board.

[03:40:24] After that, I would then turn my attention to the full strike-through draft. That just includes all of the wording changes all throughout that those last couple of pages worth of bullets we're describing there is a there is a reference guide for you in addition to what's in the slides we didn't I don't think it's it's anywhere here but I do think that is posted as part of the agenda item that that reference guide walks you through you read that side by side with the strikethrough version of

[03:40:57] the full program so you can see exactly where every change happened okay so the federal list of priorities besides the first one for the second one rather for individuals with Disabilities Education Act and title one most rest are just continued funding I guess I would if if we have a position it shouldn't just be keep as is because that implies that we're getting enough money especially for Perkins I think we should be advocating for increased funding for Perkins given the massive increase in interest among current students and CTE

[03:41:36] programs and the fact that we have not seen an accompanying increase in federal funding I think at the state level we should be advocating for comparable fundings to Perkins either starting up something new that's like Perkins or simply augmenting what exists for CTE programs at the state level because certainly the state should be seeking to train the workforce of tomorrow, which sometimes that's AI, sometimes that's the people who build the data centers, or commercial building construction,

[03:42:13] or all of the skilled trades that are sorely lacking and are a major impediment to actually undergoing the re-industrialization of our country that policymakers at the federal and state levels are trying to achieve all across this country.

[03:42:29] I guess listing the priorities, it seems somewhat in alphabetical order for the state priorities. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. If we have top three priorities, top five priorities, they should be listed in order from most to least important.

[03:42:47] And the rest should be tossed. And things like the Sunshine Act and our ability to meet, it's phrased in such a generic way. It says, the disparity in the impact of open meeting rules and public bodies of different sizes.

[03:43:04] If we have priorities, they should be concisely stated. What is the objective? What are we trying to achieve? And what do we want with a little background? Ideally, I would like this handout to be something I could print off, hand to my legislator and at the federal or state level, and walk them through.

[03:43:23] But it should be self-explanatory, so I can send in advance. They can review it, come up with a list of questions, and I can brief them on the real world impacts. But this is not something I could ever email to anyone where they would actually understand what the heck we're advocating for, or which is more important than others, right?

[03:43:44] I've hired many, many lobbyists, worked with many, many lobbyists. Richmond is no different than any other state capital I've worked in or any other national capital I've worked in. And we need to be able to clearly articulate what are our priorities?

[03:43:59] What is our position? Why do we support that position? And is it budget neutral? What would the cost impact be? That's the document that any lobbying firm in the private sector would provide. And that's what I would advocate as well. And I also want to go back to, I still don't think working through coalitions makes any darn sense for Fairfax County.

[03:44:21] We are larger than Prince William and Loudoun combined. We're also larger than the smallest 75 school divisions in this Commonwealth, and there's only 132. So we are literally larger than most of the rest of the school divisions in the state.

[03:44:37] So we should be going out there. And whether people like us or not, I could really give two hoots. I mean, there are Democrats or Republicans who work together every day and they don't like each other or their policy positions. coalition building is about going and explaining interests and finding where interests align and so whether they like us or not does not preclude us being able to attain legislative outcomes that make a difference in the pocketbooks of our taxpayers because we have to pay more in property taxes and also doesn't make a difference it also makes a difference in the lives of our students

[03:45:13] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. We'll put you on the go back. I was asleep on the job. Miss Lady. Thank you. So this is a lot to digest. In the actual PowerPoint, I wanted to go back to slide 15, I think.

[03:45:41] yes um state policy and budget review so one of the things that epiphany robin lady um is that when i go and speak with the delegation i need to be well versed in what they're proposing and not just what i want because there are things up here that we do not want and if these are on the docket as perhaps identified priorities which i believe is is what this slide is about then i think we to talk about it. For example, I don't know who's bringing the school nursing staffing one, but I

[03:46:19] would want to say why. I don't know what it reads like, but I certainly would love a school nurse in all of our buildings. But who should be the funding source? So behind that, I would want it to be the local state government. I mean, the local government, because anything with the word school on it these days that's been funded elsewhere seems to be creeping into our side of the budget and so like yeah I would support that but not if it's not going to become attached with who funds it you know with limits on FOIA requests you

[03:46:57] know I think that maybe there should be guardrails around depends on the volume that you get depends on the size of the requests like I don't know what's in these things so I guess my point is we have an agenda that's long and I agree with my colleague that we should be a way to tease out the priorities not in alphabetical order but an order of our priority and then I think we need to also have a we need more information on these items so that we might weigh in based on what we believe could happen as to how the draft is written at present so

[03:47:33] obviously two big things for me pre-k for all and funding source and the multi-language learner assessments aligning with federal law because this two semesters is just actually inhumane and not fair so those are just two things among among many but also SOQ's I mean I think you know that's low hanging fruit because it it's not low-hanging fruit but it would impact every jurisdiction right so I think that's part of what we have to be focused on is lobbying for things that would as as my colleague and former

[03:48:10] chair miss Anderson said where are all boats rise if we can lobby in that way with all boats rise then we're not just sort of partnering with our the larger jurisdictions in this sort of metropolitan area but we're partnering with even rural schools that could benefit from that stabbing thank you dr. Anderson yes dr. Reed I would like to comment I appreciated mr. Dunn's comments because we've been having CTE conversations recently miss burden just sent me a note that said we currently spend $53.3 million on CTE and we get

[03:48:46] about 3.2 million of that from the federal and state funds and is that just a direct result of LCI unfunded mandate all of the above I think that I will ask the team I already have asked the team to do a deeper dive into that but I think as we as a nation look to gear up around the skilled trades that type of investment is not the type of investment that's going to garner any outcomes that

[03:49:23] I think we desire furthermore it's often in these CTE courses where students have the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to apply the core knowledge in the more traditional academic settings very often mathematics for example you understand it best when you are welding or you're machining or you're creating quantum tables so I I just think that there's a mismatch right now and some of the CTE programming is more expensive as we're learning than a traditional academic program because of the equipment often required and the required

[03:50:01] smaller class sizes due to safety concerns depending on the type of industrial tools or equipment students are using so I I definitely think that's a topic worthy of further conversation and also perhaps looking at how other states fund CTE and other business and corporations connect no thank you for that if I may take a point of privilege I have to highlight the comments that Miss lady made regarding the specificity of our positions that's where we need to be heading because I promise you we have something in the program that says we don't want any unfunded mandates but it doesn't speaks with particularly to

[03:50:40] nurses it doesn't speak specifically to if this comes locally what does this mean for county what does this mean for schools those are kind of the details that I'm hoping we could pivot into as we change our approach to this work mr.

[03:50:57] moon I pretty much concur with what chairman chairman lady has already said but I want to add something very new which I have not done that over three decades, even though in private conversation with Dr. Reed, I raised that issue a few times, is there is an organization, not-for-profit organization, just listen. In 2024 numbers, total revenue $1.17 billion, total expenses

[03:51:31] 963, generating about 50, you know, 50-54 million dollars of a profit, plus investment income of 170 million dollars that puts them 220 million dollars of income over all the expenditures cash and cash and other a liquid investments put together 2.06 billion dollars it's a not-for-profit I consider that organization to be to be monopoly in education college board college board

[03:52:09] College board, college board who controls these tests, SAT and AP tests, they have a full control. You ask our students, they cannot get out of those. We cannot get out of those. We fund many of our students taking those tests.

[03:52:29] I don't know, I'm not asking Dr. Reed to give me the budget number of that. I think that we're making too much money. I think we need to seek a legislation limiting, limiting amount of profit they generate, return money back to us. They're not-for-profit, not-for-profit organization amassing huge amount of profits. I'm hoping that I don't have any concrete language in my mind yet, but I am hoping that our esteemed chair and vice chair

[03:53:03] with Michael Malloy craft something for us to consider. That's my request. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Mr. McDaniel. Well, speaking of emerging issues and the need to be nimble I think this morning at our work session we identified a key emerging issue so what I would ask is that we get with safety staff and facility staff to see how VDOT and perhaps a legislature could tackle this with the bill but how VDOT can speed up permitting processes for the establishment of school zones the link-o-matic process potentially speed

[03:53:39] camera process so we can address an issue that's been emerging it was identified this morning that that has been a hindrance that the timeline for that process so if there's an intrepid delegate or senator out there that would like to put in a bill we need to have the data ready to go and I think Brian and Eric and their team could probably provide some input on that thank you I am not sure if we are on go backs at the small mistakes it so thank you this was

[03:54:12] definitely detailed and I'm trying to just figure out where I want to focus first of all I want to continue advocating for the JLARC right our state doesn't find our actual cost of public education and this is a ongoing situation and the funding partners the county they're paying like giving us 70% of our budget and we are asking for more but the same time state does not do that so we do need that balance so we don't need to tax our local taxpayers more and more

[03:54:48] every year and there is data centers which I was in a town hall with Miss Anderson and Senator said and she mentioned another place also that we can get a billion dollar and from data centers by taxing them and this is two billion dollars okay so I think that is where our state is going to do what they're planning to do and they're planning to do it to support our education as well so this was something you know I heard from miss forget you

[03:55:24] know Senator Prakowski and then delegated and Halmer Halmer they're trying to do help us but at the same time we also have to keep speaking for ourselves it is not you know that you know the squeak is to bird get the warm situation we have to be the squeaky worm what I what did I say I am not sure what any of that means but I understand you to say okay I'm tired now I think we have a very long session so but I do appreciate this expanding expert apprenticeship especially in Northern Virginia area we have a lot of jobs and

[03:56:01] and students who are looking to do those those curriculum CTE courses and other apprenticeship and then getting to job market rather than maybe it's some of not interested in full-time for four years of college as we have seen a lot of students now choosing to go to you know know our like a community college and then getting into a job market definitely very happy about the fair accountability for English learners and schools showing strong student growth I like the idea of local control over school calendars and holidays and state

[03:56:40] funding for test coordinators but we definitely need to keep our messaging out about the funding and the SOL is one thing and this is again a lot of our educators do not support SOL as especially in the high school level because I think we need to find better ways to assess their knowledge and I would I would like our board to kind of maybe discuss this more and see if we can add this to our priorities and just ask them to find other ways to assess

[03:57:16] our student rather than SOLs and I'll stop here things thank you miss Dixon are there any other new speakers I see placards there remain okay miss St. John Cunning so thank you for the information it's a lot it's a lot for us to wrap our heads around and I really appreciate the fact that we're going to be doing this as a committee as a whole to get more in-depth information just several of the examples that were brought up about is having more information but I do want to just reiterate re it will reiterate the support that some of my colleagues have made again support for universal pre-k

[03:57:56] is critical also making sure that our multilingual learners get the adequate time that they need for their test test scores to count particularly because they are tied to the accreditation for our schools so we're going to penalize schools for not having kids test well but we're not giving them time that is not just unfair to our students it's unfair to our teachers and it's unfair to our schools I would like to see more of those tests actually administered in those native languages because we do have a lot of students that come into our school system that know the content but don't know the language and again

[03:58:35] that hinders our kids so those are the things that I think are really important and as many of my colleagues have said we have to be nimble and be able to change and the dynamic of our economy and our society and how things are changing the way that we support CTE programs is critical again as somebody earlier mentioned I'm older and there was a time when I could have a summer job and that would pay for college that doesn't exist anymore that that could pay for that year's tuition that that prices out so many kids now because our

[03:59:11] institutions of higher learning have become businesses you know you have the incredible gems the incredible I wish you guys would have seen my dorm room when I first walked into my dorm room I cried it looked like a prison cell these kids go into dorm rooms now that are like Taj Mahal's because that's what that's what the universities are selling as opposed to just having those good professors and a good school and so you know it limits some of our students what they can get to so times have changed economists have changed and we've got to be nimble and our state has to look at the needs of our communities and CTE is a great way for a lot of our students to go so those are things that are

[03:59:49] important to me as as I'm sure too important to everybody else but thank you there's a lot of work I'm really looking forward to getting more of those details so that when we do go to speak with our counterparts at the Statehouse we have the nuances and I you know I have some ideas about the school nursing situation as well but I know that we couldn't even afford to get we couldn't find school nurses to staff just the regional needs here in FCPS. So expecting a school nurse to be in every school is an unrealistic expectation. I mean, so we've got to look at the reality of

[04:00:26] the situation. Is it ideal? Would it be nice? Yeah, but we don't even have the people to be able to do that. Thank you. I see you four go back. Would you like a turn? Okay, I'll take a quick turn primarily just to clean up some of the things that I've heard so far which is making our priorities list a little bit more specific not only with context but allowing it to be easily shared and it's containing the basic information that is

[04:01:01] needed and not to alphabetize it but to prioritize it as a priority list should connote so that's one I do want to point out that there is a link to that was sent earlier and I do believe it is somewhere as well and perhaps the clerks to send that out again for you to write your next steps of this from this from this session primarily to highlight what are your advocacy points what are the points that you want to not just put it put in as a position but to to put in as a priority.

[04:01:36] I know in the past there's been concern with keeping that as a one pager. I just think it has to be the right length for the right information. I don't know if one page is a priority for me, again, overusing that term a little bit. So I'll keep listening.

[04:01:53] And then we'll go to go backs at this point. We will do two minutes, given that it is a little bit, what, 20 to 4. Mr. Dunn. I'd like to encourage FCPS leadership to look to not just the state legislature, but also to other opportunities where we can achieve some of our funding outcomes.

[04:02:17] For example, the Dominion Next Era merger represents a unique opportunity-- and I've spoken with Dr. Reid about this-- to submit a wish list of things that we would like to achieve. And I can speak to having represented clients in dozens and dozens of utility proceedings nationwide.

[04:02:34] Mergers are a time when communities can come together and submit wish lists. One of the big things I think we should be actively advocating for as FCPS, not as part of a coalition, is a major expansion of electric chargers for electric school buses. Because that's the gating factor, the limiting factor, in deploying more electric school buses.

[04:02:53] We should also try to seek increased state funding from the state legislature for that electric school bus transition, which will both reduce our carbon emissions and lower noise, lower other environmental effects on surrounding communities. I think we also need to look to challenge the existing LCI, because we did get an increase for special education funding.

[04:03:15] But we have such a different demographic, and socioeconomically, demographically, in Fairfax County than 30, 40 years ago, when that was put into effect. We need to be lobbying hard. And I know other places in Virginia-- Newport News, Norfolk, Richmond, are also similarly affected.

[04:03:34] So we should work with those coalitions to get more funding for the increases we've seen in special education, and multilingual, and other supports that our students need today, but are not provided through that state formula. There have been improvements, but not enough.

[04:03:51] And of course, I do second my colleagues that we need to, as my colleague likes to say, show me the money, get that $500 million from Richmond that we're owed and if we did get that we'd be able to you know reduce our property taxes fairly significantly because our taxpayers locally have to make up for the fact that the state and federal government are shortchanging us thank you miss lady I just wanted to add to my colleague earlier's comments about a not-for-profit organization that we are also free labor I mean there are

[04:04:31] some paid proctors on a Saturday test date but everything else we're free labor and we have had to pay people who are there beyond the school day because the tests don't end and if they're got extended time you could be there for seven o'clock at night I also want to say that we as a board could make a decision that we're no longer gonna teach AP classes we're just gonna have Fairfax County's version of Calc it'll be a Calc 1 or a Calc 2 perhaps there are a lot of places that are doing this, mostly private schools, which is interesting and fascinating because they're private schools.

[04:05:10] But a lot of them are doing that. The Potomac School, they don't have APs anymore at the Potomac School. Very prestigious school, but they don't have them. So I've thrown that idea out before, but it would certainly put a dent in the revenue for the nonprofit.

[04:05:28] But I do think that we need to think about this. And it's a very frustrating thing because all testing runs through student services. And the wear and tear-- I mean, your counseling department is down for a month.

[04:05:45] I mean, they're done. They're out. And if we return unused tests, we're charged a fee, I believe. I believe we're charged a fee for returning unused tests. So we have to have a better system of counting.

[04:06:01] Anyhow, that's a great point. And I think sometimes when we speak from our positions with a lot of ideas, that they sound easy to implement, but they're not. So we need to be clear with the public that it is very, very difficult to get money out of any funding source.

[04:06:24] But we are going to continue to try, because we believe so strongly in the public education that our community deserves. Thank you, Miss Lady. there any other speakers mr. Malloy did you want to recap anything before I went to next steps no I mean I think you know said it earlier with chairman lady was talking that communication is key you know keeping in touch with legislators also you know as you as board members have access to information that staff does not sometimes so making sure that communication is is kind of going all

[04:07:01] over the place the new committee structure may help with with that and the continued communication internally just to understand who's who's putting putting forward what we have for years asked legislators to share some are more reticent than others because they may be proposing things you're not in favor of so it's again just back to communication make sure that we have those those lines of communication open thank you so we will be in touch with each and every one of you because there is some information that we do need from you to continue to build out the plan and in working the next step of the plan

[04:07:39] now that we've had this initial meeting is to schedule the legislative briefing finding times that are amenable to those who again have heavy education docket bills so those will be the individuals that we would want to work around and hopefully the virtual option for those lawmakers will make it a little bit easier to just log on I see an opportunity for us from what I heard here to have some of our federal lawmakers be part of this conversation because we have some things that are very specific to them as well as those

[04:08:16] who represent us in the General Assembly so mr. McIlvain and I will be working with the chairs with the board's leadership to help determine that date I think we have a general thought from past conversations but we will need to get that on the books and the two options were for that that I had discussed with Miss Setlow and probably a couple of others this could be a meeting where the entire board is here present and those legislators are virtual or if we're not able to make the calendar work it could be an opportunity where the legislative committee the smaller group participates and of course

[04:08:55] this is recorded and shared with you all but the former is preferred so we have an opportunity for dialogue with the entire board this is going to be turning the shift this ship around and to something that is more nimble and more responsive and hopefully more assertive in terms of taking advantage of our size not to bully and bulldoze you know the conversation but to rally and to bring others along especially what we have some common interests so those are my final words and if there aren't any other comments we will find this meeting

[04:09:32] concluded and it is 4:40 have a good afternoon

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