Are we ready? This 03/04/2026 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board Administration Committee will now come to order at 04:31PM. I'm sorry for starting late. We will now approve the minutes from the 10/01/2025 meeting. I move. Mister Moon makes the motion. Is there a second? Miss Anderson. All those in favor? That's unanimous for board members present with mister McDaniel and doctor Anderson absent. Alright. We will now talk about the school board office and school board member employee performance
evaluations. Why don't we go ahead? And so just to recap, this is like one of those weird, television shows that they now have where they go on hiatus and then they don't come back for two years. And you're like, what did happen on that show that I think I liked? Well, you really enjoyed the last meeting. And what we approved at the last meeting was, a revision to the evaluation calendar for specific school board member and school board office staff, essentially, the people that are unique to the school board.
A shift in the type of evaluation that we do so that it's not the generic operational evaluation, that it's more specific to the jobs. And then we made a variety of edits to those those job specific evaluations. And then we also, agreed each of us took a couple people on the board to talk with and preview things for, and collect that feedback, and then bring it back to the committee. And so I spoke to folks and and gathered that feedback. And the next item on our agenda for this portion of our work, and then
we're done, and it's just about the implementation, is agreeing that the edits that I'm gonna walk through right now are good or not, and we're ready to send this on to the full board for, consideration. Mister chairman, may I ask a question? It's an overarching question about a school board member specific positions. Yeah. Since each board member's perhaps expectations that his or her staff may be performing may
be different from each other. Also also their level of expectation But their performance is will be different. So my question is whether whatever we may propose to the full board for their consideration is they can review it and also they can modify as they ship it? Or are you are we gonna be recommending every board member to We are accept the new ones. Of positions we are adopting. Although you'll see we had this conversation at the last meeting, and language has been
included to show that there's flexibility in how a board member views the evaluation. Like, I'm not gonna see, you know, item number 2.1 the same way that you will see it for your staffer. And maybe item number three is super important for Sandy's staffer, but less important for mine because it's a talent that I have or something. That's that's the point. You know, some of some of the things, you know, member a may not do it, might not want you know, step to do it, whereas, you know, member B may think that's the most important thing and put in a 100% of time to
that work. Well, I think you'll see the language that I added in, makes that clear. Also, we we made the rubric a suggestion in terms of and how a board member weights things, you know. I don't think anybody's gonna fault their employee for something that they're not asking them to do. Right? So, they'll be able to adjust that accordingly. But on a more specific point, in making this adjustment, board members are required, even though we have no supervisorial people above us, that if they're going to do an
evaluation of their employee, it has to be the evaluation that we're providing because currently, that's the case as well. It's just a different evaluation. It's the very generic operational evaluation. So we have to be consistent for the job type, which is why we're not touching the jobs that are common across the district that people could transfer in and out of. Alright. Why don't we start with, the auditor general's file. Starting there because nobody had feedback on this, and so it is unchanged except for,
no. It's unchanged from the last meeting except for the, adding the word sample next to performance rubric and indicators. So this remains unchanged. Nobody had feedback from colleagues. I think we're ready to move this one on to colleagues for consideration. Mhmm. Without objection? Great. Let's go ahead and open. Yeah. Yes. We're voting. That was without objection. So Okay. Yeah. Alright. Let's do the clerk of the school board next. Alright. This one, we did have a couple items of feedback from miss Marin.
So you'll see, on the screen, the first edit there was to make clear that the clerk serves at the pleasure of the body of the school board and not for one specific board member. Obviously, the governance manual indicates how that work is executed through the chair and vice chair, but this was miss Marin's suggestion. One second. I think that's it for the introductory language. Go ahead. The only thing I wanna note here is that per HR, the clerk still does
need to have one supervisor amongst the board. So I believe that's iterated in the governance manual as well. Isn't it? I'm not a 100% sure. It may be something that okay. According to miss Brown, it is. Yeah. So I just wanna make sure that we acknowledge the fact that it is that we've set up as a structure that the chair is the That's in the governance manual. The other thing I would note is that this brings clarity to that function. So, you know, I think the clerk and the deputy clerks wanna be helpful to all board members, obviously.
But in terms of, like, major initiatives and such, those are directed through the will of the board through their chair and vice chair. Otherwise, it'd be impossible to manage anybody. But we all have a say in the evaluation, and so the next, edit that miss Marin suggested, if you scroll down to standard two at the end. She suggested adding two point eleven and two point twelve. 2.11 is oversees the effective onboarding of new school board office and school board member staff.
Kirk already does that in conjunction with their team, making sure that they're set up on technology and, you know, knows how to access different files and is aware of best practices for offices and how to get a newsletter out and all those types of things. The next is, Mister chairman Yeah. I don't know why my eyesight is not getting better, but We grow that a little bit. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Yeah. Yes. And the second one is oversees the organized departure of school board office and school board member staff, particularly following board turnover.
We've just gone through this with miss, Sizemore Heizer. I think the clerk and the deputies did a great job of, helping with that transition, but it's worth putting it in here. And then on standard number three, miss Marin suggested adding closed meetings. It was an oversight to not include that, and those were the extent of her requested edits. We didn't have any other edits from anybody else. That's fine, mister chairman. Can we just generally give the when we are voting can we just generally give
the clerks leave to adjust anything like hanging headers at end of pages and things like that. And so the gram the just sheerly grammatical and formatting error or mistakes and things like that, we can update. Is that okay? That's fine. I mean, I don't make mistakes, but I'm just I understand. You should know. Never. Yeah. That's fine. Or updates. Let's go find updates. It's not the prettiest document in the world. That's for sure. Anyways, there's no other edits. Are we fine with moving this on without objection? Alright. That's unanimous. Let's move on to the deputy clerk.
Alright. Under standard one, you'll see two added, one point six and one point seven. 1.6, this is for miss Marin, monitors the board's quorum to ensure meetings occur with calendar fidelity and respect school board member and staff time. Y'all already do that. I frequently get phone calls if I've not updated my quorum tracker, so I have no problem with it including that. And then the second one was one point set we'll discuss. The second one for this section is 1.7
ensures proper access to and setup of technology for virtual participation. Comments, miss Anderson? Chair Anderson? I'm fine with a 1.7. I'm concerned about the language in 1.6 as it is not, there is no mechanism for the Clerk team to ensure that we are fulfilling our quorum tracking requirements. I will say, if you wanted to say that they are responsible for ensuring accurate attendance records on the quorum tracker, I'm fine with that.
I'd be fine. So let me be clear. Melanie didn't give specific language. She said, I want this feedback to be reflected, so I made it. May it may not be the clearest articulation. Right. I I don't have Say that one more time. Basically, I want I am fine with the the clerk team being responsible for maintaining the attendance records of all board members using utilizing the quorum tracker and to encourage, utilization of the quorum tracker for Wait one second. We can't. I don't think it's fair to put that on the deputy clerks to have that be their responsibility as we have several board members that refuse to use the quorum
tracker. Yep. Hopefully, I'm not one of those. Can you say that one more time? Maintains the board's quorum tracker or maintains the board attendance records, utilizing the agreed upon document or agreed upon system. Yeah. She's the the clerks are maintaining the document, not Of course. How are we with that? That yes.
I mean, that's what it's in service to. Right? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. And then the second one is about, virtual participation. Again, they already do this pretty darn well for me. I'm sure for others as well. Can we just put in there in in line with the board's, virtual participation resolution, please? What is it called? Resolution? Alright. And is it called virtual participation resolution? Yeah. Yeah. Alright. That was the only oh, one more.
Under standard five, she wanted something about, managing AV needs at at meetings, official school board meetings, not like one off things that board members are doing, but, like, closed meetings, regular meetings, etcetera. Yeah. Right. Coordinates. That's it. Any other edits? Without objection, can we move this onto the board? Wonderful. Alright. Here's the big one. This is the director of district board operations. We have many. So let's start with standard two.
I'm gonna let people read that if we go down to standard two because it's a lot. Alright. So the overall feedback on this one, and I agreed with it, was that it sounded like they were gonna be like a legislative, analyst for the board member, when really what the job description speaks to is just keeping the board member engaged and knowledgeable about what's happening, legislatively at varying levels, being mindful of what's happening in the
news, etcetera. And so, this was the resulting edits would change this to the director briefs their school board member on various local, state, and federal policy matters, helping to inform the school board member's thinking and advance their priorities. I mean, that could be everything from the budget to something happening in Washington. It's up to the board member's discretion how they wanna use that time. Monitors policy developments. No other changes in that one. The second one, again, changes it to policy priorities instead of legislative priorities because we
don't have individual legislative priorities. Removes the third, again, updates the word policy instead of legislation. Updates. You'll see repeated changes to policy considerations, priorities of the board member, etcetera. And then if you scroll down to so everything in that particular section has been updated to reflect that general guidance. And then if you scroll down, that might be the only. Yeah. And then we do have a a nugget here from, mister Moon.
If you go down to the very end in part five, It's been thirteen years. Part five, not standard five, the very end. Yeah. Alright. So this is that language I was talking about at the top. Staff evaluations may appear different for each school board member driven by their unique expectations and management style. That should provide so when people talk to each other as we expect them to about their evaluations, I mean, that's what happens in every workplace. They will be knowledgeable of the fact that it's a little different for everybody.
Can I ask a question going and and I'm not trying to flip you all over the place, but back on page two with standard two, do you think that the title of that standard adequately represents the task that we're asking them to critique on? Because right now, office operations and oversight has nothing to do with policy work. So, like, the I'm just wondering if the language of that standard doesn't necessarily match what It could be office policy, priorities. Okay.
I think I think that makes more sense for what we're asking for because we're not really asking, staff our staff to create oversight for our policies that doesn't match. But I like that better. How about office policy priorities and monitoring? Do we need the word office? That's right. It's the individual board members, which is clear in the introduction, but, I mean, it could just be policy priorities and monitoring. Alright. Anything else on this one? We move it forward to the next, or without objection.
Alright. That's unanimous. Up next is the school board staff aide. I believe there's one of these left. None? They're all gone? Brown, do we still have one? Okay. Okay. So there this is minuscule. At at the very end, it includes mister Moon's, requested language about flexibility between evaluations. Alright. Without objection, that is unanimous. And finally, the school board staff assistant position. If you look at this one, again, part five, the very end, it includes mister
Moon's language. Okay. Mhmm. Summarizes information into concise reports or memos for the school board member's use. Prepares background materials for meetings, hearings, and events. Adding what? I'm not sure I see that that it fits with 3.3. Is it possible that we would need to add one in? It could also be added to 3.1 because that meets the need for background material. That's 3.3. We could say prepares background and other materials as, like, a more of a catchall
because that could be everything from, like, a memo to, like, a sign for the front door. Yeah. Alright. Any others? To, Clarks evaluation, just to point out Okay. At the end to toward the end, I think we're giving a I don't know whether we're just trying to give that as an example when we're putting weighting of a 1.25. I think that's what I saw. That's because it's done by all of us. It's there are for the auditor general for and for the clerk, we weigh them
the same way we weigh the superintendent since it's all 12 of us doing the evaluation. So so we're doing The individual ones don't need waiting because only one person's doing the evaluation. You lost me. So we put 1.25. That's how we do the superintendent's evaluation as well. So to make it altogether 30? Basically, what it does, it kind of balances out the the potential skew from highs and lows. Okay. Could you could you could you go to clerks at the end? Yeah. At the end. Okay. I'll just pretend that I didn't know what you said. With that said, if he if somebody got four and everything, would they be hitting
1.25, that person would have gotten would get 30 points. I'm working here. Yes. Correct. We have Six of standards. And the four is the highest you can get. If you do 1.25 rating, that becomes five points. That's right. And then just 30 points. And then if you see a ratings of scores, highly effective case. This was just copied from another, item. So it would be I don't know what that would be, but It would be yeah. Okay. We will adjust this based on that.
Yeah. Okay. Alright. So Can I ask a quick question? Does it need to be 1.25 if it's just equally weighted? Like, I guess No. That was a point. First point was why if it is same weight the same if there's the same weight. I'm not gonna could choose so this is the same discussion we've had about the superintendent's evaluation. The board could choose to put more weight on one of the others, if they if they wanted to. But we couldn't because Not as individuals. Not as individuals. And so I guess because this is meant to be standardized across all employees, we
could just state that they were equally weighted. If that's what the board wants. Yeah. Well, but we're that's what we're suggesting. Yeah. We've just never done it that way for the superintendent, so I didn't Okay. Transpose it here. When I say never, I mean, not forever, but the last six years. So we can change it to one for everything, but that would be different than what we had. It probably yes. It would. But I mean, if you just make it equal weighting, just to, you know, make a point about that being equal weighting, then we don't have to change what's below
21 to 24. But Let's think about it. If a board member never had the appetite as a board to talk about weighting different things for the superintendent, That's probably a math equation that the board thinks it could never come to agreement on on what the most important things are and what things should be weighed more or whatever. Do you think we just take that out of the equation for the other two
people on our collective evaluation circuit and change it to one and then basically imply that we're not gonna be weighting anything because we don't think the board is going to have the appetite for making a choice between making one thing more important than the other. Yeah. You just would probably have to go up to the top and change it to be that five like, Janet, can you scroll up just a little bit? Eliminate the weighting thing altogether. Will you need it for the bottom? Like, you need will you need it to determine so you're saying just make the
whole thing subjective because It is. Right. And that's how it is for the superintendent. So in essence, what we'd be deciding, which is what we've cast that we already decided, is that everything has the same weight. If that's something that we're willing to just be like, by even inferring that there's waiting, it doesn't matter if we put a one or a 1.25 for everything. We're saying that everything is equal weight. So Well, but there's two different things here. There's there's waiting and then there's scoring. So scoring, I think, actually helps supervisors kinda understand where they are the same way
as it would for a teacher grading. Right. Is that a a rubric helps keep you on track. It just seems I'm not saying to eliminate the entire number five. I'm saying that if we don't wanna do any waiting, we would eliminate just that part, the second part there with the bullets. And the one. And then down below, the math would be changed to reflect fours. Right? Four fives. Four. Yeah. Yeah. Totally no plans. I'll go I'll go with that. I mean, equal waiting, and then let's see what how the full board reacts to that. If a full board wanna entertain a discussion of a waiting among different, you know,
standards, let it do it. So we wanna do that with the auditor general's evaluation as well then, I'm guessing. Any of them I I would be on board with any of them that have waiting now currently that's all the same. So I believe that that's all of them. So if we just root So there would be no point two fives anywhere. No point two fives, which will make life easier in theory. Yeah. The only ones that have waiting right now are the superintendent, the, I think that's a state issue. Is that It's not. It's a guide. But I think it was on the state It's on the state thing.
Which is example. Yeah. I also did have one other quick question about actually this one and the district directors and staff aids. Give me one second. Let me just make sure that we don't have I will clean this up before
it comes to the board, but I'm just trying to reflect the edits. Alright. That look good to everybody? And then the auditor general without objection on that change. Mister chairman, I would like to give a full credit to, my staff assistant Alright. For pointing that out, for it's sitting here. Gonna do the same thing here. Oops. Alright. Are we good? I just have one thing. On the auditor general? No. About We're not there yet. Hang on a second. All, any objections on the auditor general waiting changes thing?
Alright. Go ahead. Okay. So on staff assistant, staff aide, and district director. Do we wanna put something in there that that again reiterates, no access to closed materials or something? Because we we we talk about meetings very generally, or allowed meetings or something like that. I just wanna make sure somebody on no access to closed materials. Making because if I have Access, that's like a I mean, they're not supposed to
have access anyway. Right? No. And and and Or something into only accessing materials that are appropriate. Like, I don't I just don't know. Do you have anything in there? I think that has more to do with a school board member. It does. But You're not granting that access. One second. I believe we have something that we can tack on too. Let me just look at the district director of board operations. Go down to the end, and there's one called professionalism. So for 8.2, that could be considered covering it, but we could also add to it including trying
to figure out how you word. That's their confidentiality of sensitive information and materials. Alright. I'm gonna go through each of these and make that change just so that we Right. Any other last one? Alright. I made that for all three. Are there any other can we accept those without objection? Alright. That's approved. Any other changes? Alright. Can I have a motion to send these all on collectively to the full board? I so will. Is there a second? Mister McDaniel. All those in favor?
That is unanimous for board members. Press up. Alright. Wonderful. So to recap, we've, we are suggesting a new timeline to the board. We are suggesting a new, process and format for the evaluations to the board, and we are suggesting, job description aligned evaluation, forms for the board. So those have all been moved on. Let's go ahead and move this back to board docs. SOP. And we're gonna be relying a good chunk on Janet here.
That's okay. I'm not sure how close we will be to, wanting to move them all along, but we will see. One one moment. Alright. So so that people are aware of, what we're talking about here, the clerk's team and you can correct me if I misstate anything, Janet. The clerk's team is working on all of these SOPs, and there were specific ones that they thought the admin committee should weigh in on before, they're finalized. So, and these are, generally speaking, things that relate to, like, money and and board
member specifics. Let's go ahead and look at the back to school night funds SOP first. And so these SOPs are essentially like the policies that govern the school board office. My only question about this one is that there has been some discussion about whether or not it would make sense for us to not solely allow those those funds to be utilized at the beginning of the year as we have we have uncovered some fees that are being charged to the school board office, more consistently now and so utilizing it for community use and things like that it might make more sense
whether or not just to make this more general throughout the year, throughout the year, related to funds that are utilized rather than having them just be tied to back to school funds. So I think the way that we can tackle this, Janice, since we don't have the Word docs, is kinda like governance would, where we talk about, like, the desired changes and then bring them back to the next meeting. We'll try scheduling a an earlier meeting. Finalize them all maybe in Okay. I'll look for a date in April. Okay. So we'll talk about these things Are we tied to Wednesday?
Or is a different day of the week possible? Out. Okay. What I mean more for this purpose is, like, as we talk about it, we'll suggest things that should be updated in advance, so so that they can Okay. So, mister mister chairman, I could we separate the evaluations from this in terms of sending it to a Yeah. That is board. Right? That stuff's already on its way. Okay. Okay. Alright. Because I need to have that finalized so that I can give. Agreed. No. That's on its way. To my staff. No.
No. No. Yeah. And then the other aspect is on all of these, I would like to make sure that we have a last updated date. I'm not suggesting that it it echoes exactly what's done with our, policies or regulations or anything like that, but I would at least have like to have at the end of each one when the last time it's been updated just so we understand. That's wonderful. I'd be fine with, none of this back to school stuff is in the governance manual. Right? No. Yeah. This is the practice. Right? And so this is solidifying the practice. I would be perfectly comfortable changing the title of this.
What was the language you used? Calling it something else? We haven't decided as a board what we're gonna call yet. Well, we're not deciding here either. No. I agree. And so I don't think I have a recommendation for a specific. It would basically be school board member funds. Like, or school board off you know, I'm trying to figure out district like, each individual school board member yearly funds is how we could say it, just to have it be very general. But the idea here is is that rather than have it tied to a very specific activity at the beginning of the year, it would be allowed to be utilized.
What about annual engagement funds? That's perfect. And then so it would be changed from back to school night throughout to annual engagement activities? Or even or even, you know, school with the member support funds? It could be supporting Well, this is where I so my mind was going towards. There are a number of things that we have budgeted from lobbying. Well, not lobbying. It's advocacy, to, professional development, and and this is separate from that. So if if it depends on how general we wanna go. Right? Like So let me let me be a very petty example.
Yeah. Petty example. You meet with group of community members. You wanna be able to provide even bottles of water. We don't have a fund for that. We do not. I think that would fit under engagement. The thing I yeah. I would hate to think of it I I I have trouble thinking of what board members might do to use the funds in a weird way, but where there's a will. Right? I mean, would you would you would all be account number? Like, for the amount of funds.
Yeah. Well, for example, so, like, the water thing makes perfect sense to me if I'm having an event and I wanna have water and cookies there or what have you, that would come out of that fund right there. If I'm having an event and I wanted to have a flyer that could be handed out, that would come out of that fund right there. So I'm, like, I'm thinking of, like, what is a broad category that sounds more specific than just calling it a fund? So so that is why I said, you know, board member support fund. So board member would be would be all four years. What about board member activities?
Annual I I was thinking annual community engagement activity fund because the idea here is that it's very specific to engagement with the community. It's not necessarily I I wanna be very careful that it doesn't sound like it's you things that we can utilize for ourselves. That's not the point here. The point is is it's to facilitate our our engagement with the community. It's if we need translation services, this is the fund it would come out of. It's right now, we haven't we don't have anything identified within the school board office that would allow for individual members to do those things.
And as long as we stay within the amount that we decide on as a board, I think that it works it works, but it would be targeted towards external engagement. You know, since madam chair just mentioned a a translation services, as I was thinking about some of these, I I feel very baffled about the fact that we, as an elective group of the members, have all these obstacles for us to be able
to perform our our jobs as, you know, as elected officials who make who will make ultimate decisions on allocation of something bigger than it. I don't think it's barriers. But what I'm what I'm what I'm saying is what I'm saying is the fact that we have to discuss in length about setting us a thousand dollars for certain things, and we have to pay for use of our own school facilities.
And and and and all that. And and I also have to pay for translation services. But the superintendent's office does as well. So Every office does the difficulty. Right? Is that we only get so many dollars as a, what do they call it? And these are fee based organizations. Well, this is a a program budget. We have a program budget for the school board in the same way that every element of the division has one. And so, we have some flexibility, but if we don't count the pennies like, them
not charging us for something doesn't mean it's not coming from somewhere. Right. So for the purposes of this, I don't disagree that we get it we should have a conversation about these other things, but, you know, I'm inclined that the public wouldn't know what the school board's actually spending money on if we didn't track it from the school board office side. And if we track it from the school board office side, it only makes sense that it would come from our budget. So generally speaking, are we in support of aligning this particular SOP to annual as
opposed to being finite at the beginning of the year and calling it something along the lines of an annual community engagement activities fund? Or would it be a board member's annual community engagement activities fund? So that it doesn't imply that it's just there are a number of places in this SOP that we'd have to strip out the language about back to school night and the timing of these things and when things have to be spent by, but all the other stuff about how to get reimbursed and whatnot makes sense. And I apologize. It was after we determined that we had excess area that we had excess funding,
that school board members didn't use at the beginning of the year, that we had room that we could utilize them for things where we had people that wanted to run activity or, you know, community events that we wanted to make sure. But, yeah, I did talk to the superintendent about whether or not these are the same types of things that that she's use utilizing, Along along the same line, in the past in the past, even for a professional development funding that each both members gets allotment for, that that excess fund or unspent professional development funding could have been
accessed, was accessed by some other board members who might need additional additional amount besides the allotment. They were like, you know, I am $200 sure to attend this, and you're not using $2,000. We're able to use that fund in the past. That flexibility used to be practiced. I would love us to get back to the point where we are, understanding that we're a team working together. I I think that that's a lovely thing.
Unfortunately, every time we've talked about this up to this point, we haven't had that type of agreement. So I'm very eager to get us back to the point where we acknowledge the fact that some of us are doing things that others aren't. And I mean, one thing that I think is possible here is that if we start getting closer to a fund that you can utilize how you how you deem fit, as long as you are meeting the requirements of having professional development every year and you're having, you know, that you can use the funds that you have allocated for your office for these things. And if you wanna hold more community events and you aren't going to as many
conferences, then you have the flexibility to be able to use that funding how you want to. Before we dive down this rabbit hole, This is not the focus of this SOP. I don't believe it's the focus of the other SOPs that we have in front of us. That doesn't mean it's not a topic worth discussing. I think we have a, budget conversation with the clerk in June or April. I don't remember. In which case, we can talk about that there. We did previously adjust the PD hadn't been adjusted in, like, more than a decade, despite the cost of the conferences and transportation going up.
Anyways, are we good with those requested changes to further discuss at the next meeting? I am fine. Any objections? Alright. We can revisit the tape if the tape, like, somebody's videotaping this. We can revisit the recording if we need to for for more notes. Alright. Let's look at closed meeting attendance, including committee meetings. Janet, you wanna talk to us about this one? This one actually came out of, Kyle's request. So glad you're here today, sir. This happened to be a question about who is allowed to attend closed meetings, including
committee meetings, and who is not, and if there is any sort of guidelines to it. And so we wrote this in thinking to keep it more like audit committee, and just, in general that, you know, permission is given and, NDAs are signed if they're committee members, and just making sure that the attendance is known in advance, so that there's no question about whether or not that person, was able to come to the
meeting and that everyone agreed that it was a good idea for them to come since we do talk about some kind of, doubt that topics enclosed. I thank you for raising this. I forgot this was a suggestion. So where this originated, was actually out of CPDC. So when I took over CPDC, I discovered going back through meeting minutes that community members from FPAC had attended closed sessions of CPDC, for various reasons. So the question then became if that what the practice was, if they had to
sign NDAs similar to what audit committee has to sign to be able to to participate in that. So glad to see, you know, some consistency around that. Dennis? The only question I had, was whether or not in the last section under guidelines, board members may also ask fellow board members to leave the room and recuse themselves if it's determined that a board member has a conflict of interest. I if from my general understanding, that is not Legal. A function that the board can actually ask someone to do.
So I am concerned I don't think it's in line with the overall board board policy, so I'm concerned about including it here. Just to clarify, the board can't compel somebody out, and it really is a judgment call of the individual. And they would be informed in the moment whether their presence because of a conflict poses a, legal or financial risk to the school division, and then that would be up to them to make that decision because there's nobody that can enforce it. We just need to update that accordingly.
Just quickly, I believe there's a policy regarding this that we had to use once. Fourteen twenty. Is that a policy or regulation? That's a policy. Public funds and property? Could you just pick it up one more time? 14 20. I think maybe that's not the one, but there is there is one that we had to use. Let's double check. And if it is one of our policies, and let's make sure that we quote or we Have it cleared by legal. Well, not only have it cleared by legal, but also give it. One of the main questions that I had with this is how many of these things need to be codified in the governance manual before we can put it in
an SOP? The s o the SOPs are just a way we're gonna be doing things. It's not necessarily a place to set our guidelines fully. And so if there are things that we need to have in the governance manual that are part of this, then I think that we need to make sure that we do that. That's a raises an interesting question because what is the role of the school board office in this suggested SOP? I feel like this would be a governance manual thing. This whole yeah. This whole SOP. I agree. Because this is not this is directing board member activities, not inter office operations.
Except for the fact of the portion where it talks about the timeline required for community members to be included in an outside meet you know, in a closed meeting. Like, there are some school board office aspects of this and so what I would like it to see is But that's like a meeting prep thing. It is. And so I would I would like to see us because then we can point to it as the guideline. But again, I'm still wondering if that's port a portion of that is what needs to be in the governance manual, particularly related to standing committees because they're only Any
standing committee can can have a closed meeting for some reason. They can, but it it's yes. I got you. Okay. But in theory, if this was part of the governance manual minus what the staff does to effectuate it, staff would be thinking, well, how are we going to effectuate that? We better have an SOP for how we actually execute on the governance manuals, rules that the board has set for its committee, just like they do I know that there's an SOP that you all created for how do we run a meeting a regular meeting. Right? All the different things that have to happen to make that successful, including bringing people
in for virtual and not or whatever. So in my head for this one, we should divorce those two things, maybe send part of this for, governance manual addition. And then once that's done, they can create an SOP for it. Yeah. What I would say is that we absolutely can update I mean, PEC updated the governance manual for the portions that were appropriate related to the community advisory, group. So I think that that would be perfectly in line for something for us to take on to do rather than having it.
I didn't know if you were recommending having it sent to governance. No. We got plenty to do. Any other thoughts on that one before we are we all agreed to do that? Okay. No objection. Up next. I went to the back. Ugh. I hate board docs. Leave. This one is straight from, Atlas and kind of what we do in practice and then, what was in Atlas, under the all the HR requirements for leave. Just a moment. I'm pulling it up. Leave.
Mary Anderson. The only question I have a couple questions. First, I do not believe the school board student representative is authorized leave. So I think that that whole sentence at the last portion of that on the backside on the second page can be removed. Because it's not it's not necessary because they're not approved to have leave. And then the second one is actually something that we're gonna be talking about as a board. Under the guidelines, we can't use a hyperlink with here. It needs to be that the document that's the new ADA compliance issue, so we
need to make sure that we're outlining what what it is that we're linking and then link that thing. So that's just an update that and I noticed that in a couple of different spots. So we're just gonna we just need to make sure if it was use you know, guidelines and useful tips for using my time, we just hyperlink that portion of it and take the here out because that's an update coming quickly. Yeah. All of these were done in November, so before the ADA stuff came out. These are they're just minor corrections. Anybody else? Alright. Why don't we move it along as it adjusted for the next meeting?
Non exempt employee overtime. This one came out of the consensus in the five seventeen retreat regarding, not using overtime as much. But this is if you were to have overtime, this is the process. Go ahead. In the guideline section, do we need to define because we don't we very much don't wanna make this or give the impression that this usurps what the HR guidelines are for sure. So I don't think we need the first paragraph in there because we don't define what the overtime rate would be.
So we don't need to define what the standard rate would be. So I just don't think that we need the first paragraph under guidelines. Because yeah. Because if they're eligible for up to forty hours, then I figured. I just yeah. So I don't think we I very much don't want us to replicate HR, and that's one of the things that I was gonna mention with all of the SOPs. If we are pulling information from another, and we've done this in a couple of spots, but if we're pulling this information from a reference document, I think it's really important for us to link to where people can find the reference document.
Not necessarily because I expect all links to stay perfect, but even if it's what to search for on the FCPS website, I think it would be helpful to get people in the right spot. Anything else? Alright. Governance committee. I, I just wanted to speak up about the fact that the governance committee is working on creating a style guide, related. And once we update that policy, then the board will be able to authorize that. If that's true, then we probably need to reference the style guide in this document as well. So that way, on some of the other things.
And the other aspect that I wanted to put or mention under timeline is that I would like us to make sure that we are generic in the references to the outside organizations that we're affiliated with, just to make sure that we don't have any affiliations that may change over time. So right now, we reference, the in May that we are looking at the VSBA information. So I just think it's important for us, to keep that more generic depending on whether or not our source documents may change. Wondering if this should be I think this is good because it's tailored to what
the SBO is responsible for. And if that's the case, do you think that it's, policy process for the school board office support of the governance committee? Like, changing the title of it would would indicate? Could be, but it's not necessarily this is why it's tricky. Right? What if it's a policy that's being tackled? That rarely happens. Well, then it wouldn't be governance committee. Yeah. No. Never mind. Well, but the other thing we could say, well, really the whole timeline is based on what the governance committee is doing. So I'm okay in this case, with allowing it to be because it's really talking
about what what we should be doing to work on something ahead of time so that the governance committee is set through with through with the governance committee chair as well. So some of the suggestions in here do align with what is in the style guide and the eventual edits for the directives. Right. We just want to make sure that we reference that style guide as the because
if something changes, the style guide is where they should be going. And then the other aspect of it is is that, the only concern I have is this is very much about the current governance chair setting the work up for the next governance chair. And if if someone I mean, oftentimes, we're responsive to things that are occurring within the division, and also, it doesn't leave it doesn't provide leave for the government the current governance chair to set their own agenda. So I'll I'm a little bit worried that it's gonna be a lot of work
for the outgoing governance chair to set up and have it be that the incoming governance chair decides not to take on those items. So just to keep in mind. Theory, if the governance manual says we have to have something done on a certain cycle, we need a process for that. Right? One would hope that we pick governance chairs who help make that happen. Right? As much as their committee will let them. Alright. Professional development. This one's good. So right now, the legislature defines professional development as things that professionally develop.
So we have a ton of latitude. And since we've not officially defined board, what we interpret that to mean could literally be anything. So when we provide funding by board member, I don't think this even curtails or strictly interprets what professional development is. It lets board members make the ultimate determination on certain guidelines. But, you know, for people watching at home, the state requires board members to participate
in professional development. It doesn't say how much. It doesn't say anything other than that has to be done annually, and it doesn't define what it is. So we typically use VSBA events or other conferences. Some board members have gone to legal things. Some have gone to, specific education conferences to try and use that as their professional development. And with no guidance officially from the board or from the clerk's office other than really helping to facilitate us getting that development.
So that's what this is designed to do is put a little bit more meat on the bones. Because we have some things in here that are also including in compliance training, I would just wanna make sure that we put that in the title as well. And then the other I had a few questions. Did we create a professional development compliance report form? Because I've never seen that. So No. It's just the, standard five, which is about it, it just says it has to the clerk has to say you're in compliance. So we don't have anything about it.
I think it's a work in progress, because each year she just kinda signs off on, yeah, you're in compliance. It's kinda like the, hard to do. So this is but this is oh, so this would just be a compliance form that we would say, yes. We have been professionally developed this year. If you wanna have it say that, yes. Okay. That's a lot. Think that that makes sense, and it serves in line. So it's all about us tracking our compliance for different requirement state requirements. Not forcing them to A 100% for you. I would wanna have it be more in line with what the actual language and
the standard is. That's fine. So that way, you know, did you do this? Yes. We did this. I just don't I always look at the titles as important because if somebody's searching for something, that's the way they're gonna find it again. And so I just wanna make sure that annual requirements for training or professional development are included in the in the title because we do talk about FOIA and the other one, conflict of interest. K. Anybody else have feedback? Alright. School anniversary proclamation recognition.
So we just did this one. This was built to kinda give some guidelines for how the day would go. I definitely would go back and, readjust some of the guidelines and timelines on this. Anybody else? Comments? Right. Student discipline appeals. This one and the next one come directly from what we do and from policy twenty six eleven. So they're kinda tied to that policy, for timelines and things like that. This is just a little bit more, what our offices do in coordination with other
offices in the division, to make sure that we all are in agreeance on when things should be delivered and things like that and how. But with you know, there may be some changes to this with changes to the policy. Anyone? Right. Student discipline expulsion, same deal. And, again, we'll pick these all up for moving on to the full board at the next meeting. And then student leadership development program. This helps put some meat on the bones around the work that Kevin and the clerks do to facilitate the program. I think what was important in this one was tightening up the timeline because I
think there's been some confusion about that in particular. And so that's kind of what our goal was for that. Okay. So holistically, what I will do, after we collect the feedback for this conversation that we've just had is we'll share these out again to committee members, in the scheduling of the meeting in April, letting them know that we'll be having that discussion and hoping to send these on to the full board, at that meeting.
And if people have further edits they'd like to discuss, they should best practice do what we did previously and submit those to to me and to the clerk team so that we can have those ready for the board's discussion. Obviously, we'll discuss anything that people want to, but it'll make it easier for all of us if we have it in advance. So we'll work on getting, Word or Google Doc versions of things so that people can play with language and such. So, mister chairman, I remember hearing about, from next year, which both the men were
picking two. I'd I'd heard similar ideas being thrown around Is that is that is that part of this or the No. That's not. This is how the clerk's office functions, not how the board members do things. Okay. So, that's gonna be a discussion coming from where I don't know that anybody's initiated it. I think what happened was we had our big kickoff and people commented. It'd be great if we had two people because so many people applied. I don't think anything's important. So that is not currently being discussed by any committee or committees or?
No. I think that if I had to guess, the the student leadership program, it could probably handle or be be utilized in a larger handbook as to how we do those. Who do utilize that with a little bit more information to codify what we've been doing up to this point. I think this is a great general framework. And I'm also wondering whether or not, again, we're in the same position where this is actually something that needs to be put in the governance manual and whatever handbook
we create as to how to run that program is actually what lives in the clerk's office. And so it's just something to keep in mind that it may be that the goal of the, you know, explaining the goal of the leadership program and that is something that the board does. I think it may be a little bit easier to deal with that way, rather than have it just be because it's not as much, I do like the fact that the general timeline is in here. I just wonder if some of this information needs to actually be put in the governance manual. We'll share out editable versions and a meeting will likely be a partial closed meeting,
to discuss grievance since process. Final I'm gonna final comment from me is, you know, going back to the a a number of students who can participate through this leadership program. This this year for this particular year in number of applications. 400 people. 400. 400. It just shows their tremendous interest on the part of the students wanting to participate in the program, and they're looking at, you know, applications, a lot of highly qualified
digital exchange students that whether, whether there is a good reason for a limit to a one purpose member when students are wanting to do participate in this. So, if, you know, children madam children doesn't know at this point in time whether any committee is discussing this, then I would like to have an opportunity to have that discussed and make a decision. So I I agree, and I think that the best place would probably be PEC
to start. Also because they're already doing work to determine whether or not I I would say the same entrance interest lives to be a school board representative. And so I would I think it's in they're the two are in line with each other, and I would be very interested in in encouraging our partners on PEC to go ahead and continue to look at that in relation. And it kind of works with the public engagement portion of what they're Okay. So what I'm sure, so, would you be communicating with the PEC, to see whether
they are gonna be or If I'm directed by this committee to do something I I would love to make suggestion. I'm not gonna direct you, but This committee deals with staff? It does. Hang on. Hang on. This committee deals with staff and things of that nature. This committee is not gonna direct any action of the board because we're Of course not. But Or the or the or the chair or or the vice chair. But I guess what I'm asking for is consensus for its interest to Consensus from one third of the board from 25% of the board?
The governance manual lists a variety of ways that board members can have something happen. Somebody wants to bring a forum topic, I think it would be expeditiously sent over to PEC immediately. I am very open to the idea of having two or three people added. So, Madam, should But I do have Our our our contact PEC chair to see whether they have any intention of discussing it and and and putting up recommendations to the board. And if not if not, I will encourage board tech chair to consider that. If not, then I can bring a forum topic.
I would also like to make sure that we're talking to the clerk team to to to see whether or not we can What the bandwidth is. The bandwidth is. So that would be the part of the discussion. Right? If, if, school of the office needs additional support to be able to carry that out versus school yeah. School of the office, you know, says that Whether the school That's impossible. Be respond I mean, we have an entire leadership academy at Lewis. I wonder what function they might play in in facilitating a leadership program. Many of us also have two staff members now, so it could be that we
our own staff can help support this in a little bit better way than we have. So there's a lot of different things, but I just wanna make sure that we're staying focused on the staffing aspect of the program as opposed to the function. Again, I'm gonna give a full credit to, my school with our system right here to take copious notes and make a request to a pet chair. Also, we are now recording these meetings and streaming them on the Internet so that people can take notes at their own leisure. You could watch this in double speed. Don't have to sit through the whole thing we just sat through. You could watch it in triple speed if you wanted to. We sound like the chipmunks.
Alright. I said what we're doing next time and the time after. Anything else? Quickly, I do have other SOPs that I was writing for the medium list, which were coming after we looked at the high priority. So I don't know how many you want for me to have ready of those for the following meeting. If you have things ready, just give them all to us. Okay. I will work on it. Cool. Alright. I will give forty five minutes back. Move to adjourn.