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Loudoun County School Board, Student Behavior and Accountability Committee (SBAC), Monday, October 26, 2026

Date: Monday, October 26, 2026
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 22m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1239691536?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

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 2026-10-28. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] Good afternoon. I'm Carrie LaBelle, and I'm calling this meeting of the Student Behavior and Accountability Committee to order. Before we start with anything else, I've been notified that Ross Svensson would like to remotely participate in today's Student Behavior and Accountability meeting. Mr. Svensson, would you please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter? Yes, I'm at my home office, and this is a personal matter. Is anyone present with

[00:00:34] you at this location and if so please state their names no there is not okay get this down here oh are you using a medical exemption or will this be a personal exemption a personal exemption okay this will be mr svensson's first remote participation for this calendar year in sbac using a personal exemption therefore i will entertain a motion that mr svensson's requests

[00:01:12] to participate remotely be granted. Madam Chair, I move that Mr. Svensson's request for remote participation be granted. And I second that. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Hearing no opposition, welcome to the meeting, Mr. Svensson. Thank you, Madam Chair. Do we have any public comment today? Anyone signed up? No? All righty. Let me check that one off. And have you had an

[00:01:51] opportunity to read the minutes both of you yes thank you chair labelle mr svensson yes all right any changes that we want or should we just go ahead and approve them chair labelle i move to approve the draft minutes uh from the september 20th 2026 student behavior and accountability monthly meeting is there a second second thank you mr svensson all those in favor of approving the draft minutes say aye aye aye aye anyone opposed hearing no opposition we're going to mark

[00:02:30] that as the minutes passed thank you so let's move on now to our next item which is the action item 8650 student technology acceptable responsible use policy would you like to present for us today sure more than happy to give a summary so this policy was brought at the previous aspect meeting as an information item it's here tonight as an action item as a reminder this policy per state code has to be reviewed every two years so this is its every two-year review versus the five-year review of other policies there are no recommended changes to the redline version tonight staff did review

[00:03:08] all feedback gathered much of which was either operational or reflected in other policies such as the student personal device use policy versus this policy and and then the intent of this policy really being student technology acceptable use not how the division performs other it operations so we have no recommended changes based off of feedback at this time thank you anything either of you would like to

[00:03:34] review comment on change modify mr stenson no no madam chair uh no madam chair but i move to forward the proposed red lines for policy 8650 to the full board for its consideration thank you miss donahue mr mr svenson do you have a second or something to say yes i second that motion well thank you so much uh we have on the floor a motion to move this forward to the

[00:04:10] committees for review um it has been moved and seconded all those in favor say aye aye aye anyone opposed hearing no opposition the motion passes and the policy will be moving forward um information items policy 8260 the reporting of student conduct would you like to present that miss scanlon yes i would be happy to thank you uh miss labelle so this first of all is a policy

[00:04:47] that we are bringing forward outside of the five-year review cycle this policy was last reviewed and revised in october of 2023 so by five-year cycle it would have come forward in October 2028 so we are taking a look at it two years early.

[00:05:07] That is simply because there are some errors in the policy. The policy as currently written you will note is I would if I had to put a number on it say it's 85 percent about reporting to law enforcement by school administrators of student conduct and then reporting by law enforcement to school administrators of student conduct that occurred maybe at school and is resulting in some kind of police interaction or charge or maybe occurred

[00:05:43] in the community and is resulting in a police action or charge. In the current version there are three areas that are out of compliance with the Code of Virginia and so the primary reason for updating this was to bring our policy back into compliance.

[00:06:06] Those three areas specifically were in Section A of the policy. Currently, Section A incorrectly cites the categories of conduct underneath Section A as reports that must be made by principals to the superintendent.

[00:06:28] In fact, by code, section A is about reports that are made by law enforcement to LCPS administrators. So that error in drafting has been corrected.

[00:06:45] The second error that has been changed is related to in the section that sets forth what our administrators, what our school-based administrators, in particular the principal or principal's designee are required to report to law enforcement.

[00:07:04] Currently it incorrectly quotes the codes as referencing any kind of misconduct that is listed in A1 through A7, when in fact the Code of Virginia requires reporting only for offenses listed in A3 through A7.

[00:07:23] So that is a substantive error that had to be corrected. And the third area where we were out of alignment with the code is the, and this is in the area of reporting by our school administrators to the parents who are parents of a minor child who is the target of student conduct.

[00:07:48] Currently, our policy incorrectly states that principals are required to report to the parents of minor targets any offense listed in 1A through, excuse me, A1 through A7, whereas what the code actually states is that this reporting is required for any offense listed in A1 through A5.

[00:08:12] I would note that the reason that it's so important that we are accurately citing the code is because FERPA also reigns here. And we have FERPA, this federal law, that constrains what school officials are allowed to share about students with parties who are not the student or the student's parent or guardian.

[00:08:40] And this section of the Code of Virginia permits and actually in many cases requires school administrators to report what would typically be considered confidential information to law enforcement and/or towards the parents of other students, in this case targets, and when we in our policies expand beyond what the Code of Virginia permits, it's the Code of Virginia requiring this that gives us the authority to share that information outside of FERPA.

[00:09:17] So when we expand upon what we are permitted to share, then we are not only acting outside of FERPA, but we're acting outside of the Code. So it's very, very important that our policy aligns with the Code in those regard.

[00:09:35] In addition to the policy, we did add subsection C2 to the policy for transparency. I'm gonna read that to you and I know you will take a very close look at it.

[00:09:51] C2 in particular says that Virginia legal guidance has recognized that school authorities have the inherent power to maintain order and discipline in the schools and accordingly LCPS reserves the right to report an offense to law enforcement in order to maintain safety order and discipline in the schools and programs.

[00:10:13] That is simply again for transparency. If there is a safety concern and school administrators believe that that safety concern is so dire that they need to make a report to police, then they have the authority to make that report even if it isn't explicitly cited in sections A1 through A7 of the policy.

[00:10:40] I'll just give some examples as to why we think it is important to cite that authority, again, for transparency. If you look at the Code of Virginia and what it mandates school administrators to report to law enforcement, it is primarily the absolute most serious offenses and the kinds of conduct that implicates student safety.

[00:11:05] Absolutely. but there is some other conduct that isn't included on that list of mandatory reports in the state of Virginia, but that we believe we have the absolute legal authority to report for student safety. Examples would be statutory weapons other than firearms.

[00:11:24] That would incorporate a whole slew of weapons that are illegal to carry concealed under the law, including knives that have blades of three or more inches, metal knocks, machetes, there are a lot of dangerous weapons that we would feel the need to report, and we want to be very transparent to say that we would report those when necessary.

[00:11:47] In addition, arson is not included on the list of mandatory reports to law enforcement under the code, but certainly if we had arson occur in our building, we would feel compelled to inform law enforcement and to do otherwise would be irresponsible.

[00:12:02] Another example is gang activity. So that is something that we are providing notice to the community that where we have a safety concern, our school administrators do reserve the right for safety, order, and discipline to make additional reports to law enforcement.

[00:12:18] There were two sections that were removed from the policy. One had to do with reporting requirements related to compulsory attendance. It seemed a bit out of place in this policy, almost as an add-on. And we do have a separate policy and regulation.

[00:12:35] its policy and regulation 8140 school attendance requirements and procedures that speaks to reporting requirements surrounding attendance so we removed it from this policy as it's addressed and better addressed in 8140 and likewise we removed the section related to reporting requirements for bullying offenses again simply because there is a separate policy policy 8250 explicitly

[00:13:08] covers bullying and incorporates bullying related reporting within that policy so it seems not only redundant to have it here but my great concern is when we have two different policies covering the same terrain that sooner or later those two policies are not going to be in alignment and it's going to cause confusion. So that's why those two sections were removed. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon. Do either of my

[00:13:40] committee members have any questions or comments at this time? Go ahead, Ms. Donoghue. Thank you, Chair LaBelle. Just looking at Section A, reporting by law enforcement to LCPS administrators of incidents that occurred on LCPS property or at an LCPS-sponsored activity, and I'm wondering if there's a word missing from the following sentence. Local law enforcement agencies make reports should it be to the superintendent students principal and or designees of all

[00:14:13] incidents yes it should be to the superintendent we will have that corrected thank you it's in the red line but not in the not red line I think the other one the black one that has no marks in it that's not the clear copy is it supposed to be yes no it is it's the clear copy so we will try to

[00:14:51] figure out how the red line where the error is in the red line but yes Ms. Donahue you are correct that it should read make reports to the superintendent which is not in the clean copy currently anything else mr spenson thank you madam chair um for section c um under c1a i know that um the reference to subsection a2 is not there and i just wanted to confirm that you know

[00:15:28] that's something that's kind of contemplated under um c2 that this would like i think that is a salt and battery, and I can see there may be an instance where that would be something would compel us to report it, but also there could be instances where that would be a school discipline issue, and I just wanted to clarify the interaction between those two pieces.

[00:15:52] Sure, I would be happy to discuss that further. So again, what this policy is doing is it's cleaving very closely to the Code of Virginia. So that is set forth in the Code of Virginia that A2 is left out of that mandatory reporting from school administrators to law enforcement.

[00:16:22] However, it does, let's see, it does go on to say in C that the school administrator may report to the local law enforcement agency any other incident described in Section A that is not required to be reported pursuant to subsections C1A or C1B. So in other words, the Code of Virginia explicitly takes out essentially a simple assault and sets that aside on this list as something that a school

[00:16:56] administrator is not required to report to law enforcement, but that it would be permissible to do so, but just not required. Thank you for the clarification. That's helpful. And I was also curious um to the extent there's any if if there's any cross-reference to this policy in the um sro mou that we're currently negotiating if there's any interaction between this policy and and that mou i would be curious there is this policy is uh cross-referenced i work with division council

[00:17:36] to ensure that that um was highlighted in the revisions to the mou for this reason The revisions to the MOU started more than a year ago, and then this policy coincidentally is coming up now.

[00:17:51] So we wanted to make it very clear in the MOU that pertaining to reporting, especially from our school administrators to law enforcement, that it had to be in accordance with this policy, regardless of what the final iteration of this policy is.

[00:18:11] Although I will, again, emphasize this policy is compliant with the Code of Virginia, so I don't expect that we would get too far outside of it because of the requirements of FERPA in the code. But, yes, it is explicitly cross-referenced, particularly regarding what our school administrators are permitted to report to law enforcement.

[00:18:36] Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Oh, seeing none. Let's – oh, good. - Just in time, Ms. Donahue.

[00:18:52] - Thank you, Chair LaBelle. Ms. Scanlon, looking again at that part C-1-C that regards discretionary reports to local law enforcement of incidents.

[00:19:10] Is there, I have not reviewed the regulations that accompany this policy, is there guidance set forth in the regulations around how a principal or designee is to determine whether to make a report a discretionary report of incidents to local law enforcement.

[00:19:31] - So this policy actually doesn't have a companion regulation. I will say that this is a very large area of training and that we did last winter offer a very robust training that was required for all of our school based administrators as we were noticing some discrepancies in our policy to reinforce with them what the code said, what they were permitted to do, what they were not permitted to do, and they were provided guidance

[00:20:06] surrounding any kind of discretionary report. - Thank you, Ms. Scanlon. Are there any other questions that we have regarding this policy?

[00:20:26] Is it the will of the board, the committee, I'm sorry, is it the will of the committee that we send this forward to be reviewed by MSAC other groups that we have in our list yes then we shall do that thank you so it's been the practice of SBAC at least to make a motion on that I don't know if you want to continue that process practice we can do that far be it for me not being a traditionalist is there a motion thank you Miss Donahue I move

[00:21:03] to send this proposed policy revisions for 8260 out for community feedback thank you is there second second thank you mr svensson all in favor of sending this forward to our committee members i'm sorry our uh i really need to think of a good word for them as a group for public comment um all in favor say aye aye aye uh all those opposed hearing no opposition we shall

[00:21:41] send these forward for public comment thank you is there any new business that the committee needs to bring up today. No one? All right. Hearing no new business, is there a motion to adjourn?

[00:22:00] Chair LaBelle, I move to adjourn. Thank you. Second. Okay, I make third. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Meeting adjourned.

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