Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. We're gonna go ahead and start on time since we do have quorum, for our governance committee meeting. Let me just pull this up. How am I? Madam Clerk, are we first, going to bring in miss Ledy? Okay. Yeah. I'm just okay. Available? Okay. All of a sudden, my whole computer is not unlocking. Let me try one more time. Okay. Okay. I'm having a technical difficulty. Just give me thirty seconds, please. Thank you.
Okay. So we have a really exciting, agenda today. We wanna make sure that we have time for, talking about our AI policy. So we're gonna spend, the first hour doing that. So I called this governance committee meeting to order at 04:03PM on February 17. So we, our committee also welcomes our school board chair and Springfield district representatives, miss Sandy Anderson. And just real quick, we'll go ahead and approve the minutes. I did get a chance to review them and they look, all is well. Do I have a mover?
Doctor Anderson moves for the minutes and miss, Saint John Cunning seconds. All in favor? We three. That's unanimous. Thank you. Okay. So let's dig in. We're on agenda item 1.03, artificial intelligence policy discussion. I call on doctor Reed for a presentation. Kicking us off. So thank you, miss Maron. We have included or sent forwarded to you, the most recent version of the AI policy, which was reviewed and developed by our multidisciplinary team, mister Sethi, doctor Presidio, and
doctor King. And they're here this afternoon to answer any questions, that the board might have. We endeavor to put it in the proper template with the accompanying memo and have provided, this committee with and our board a synthesis, or summary I guess of all of the AI policies nationally by state which is what, the team drew on in designing this. So we're happy to provide, I think, version seven is what's, been posted, which is
the the team's best thinking at this time for our policy, for AI. Okay. Thank you. And just to, be clear, so this version seven is the first version that's been posted to board docs. So even though it's our first time, there's been other iterations that, the superintendent's team has worked on, some of which were shared with the board prior. So I had sent around to the governance committee yesterday evening just to set some goals for what we want this conversation over the next fifty five minutes to achieve, knowing that we still have our governance committee meeting in March and April and, May,
knowing that we wanna send this to the board. It seems like our intention is to get a policy finished by the end of, you know, this governance terms, you know, through May. So here are some proposed goals I have for this conversation. So, members, I welcome your input here. So one is to review the draft policy that the superintendent just introduced that is posted publicly to walk through like we usually do with our policies, walk through the draft, discuss, especially to identify, you know, is this the outline that we're looking for? Second, I suggest we consider those related policies.
And you do have that list, and I know mister Frisch had some as well. Should we start reviewing any of those other policies? And I'm told that the, informational technology team is actually reviewing those related 6,000 series policies, of which there were six. So those edits will be forthcoming. And perhaps we can hear just a little bit more about that. Not not for today, but we could look to include those into our next conversation. So that's a question too. Do we wanna consider that today so that the superintendent can prepare for what's to
come? Or maybe we consider that in the March meeting. What are the thoughts about a more global technology and education policy? Is AI too narrow? Is this an opportunity to, again, sunset some of the technology policies? This is and and, you know, consume them in here because that has been approached of governance. Right? As we review past policies to say, okay. Have have some served their purpose? Should they be consumed into new policy? So that's something too we can keep in mind. Identify if there's more information, whether from within FCPS or externally, that we'd like to
have prior to our next meeting to inform our our work and then to to just just discuss the timelines. So by the conclusion of our, you know, almost hour here, let's be clear on what we want the next part of the conversation to go. Okay. So start with reviewing the draft policy, considering related policies, thoughts about a more global policy, more needed information, and discuss the time line. So is there any feedback on those parameters for this next fifty? Doctor Anderson, you have some feedback from that? Thank you. Oops. Hello.
Okay. Thank you. I do not have any, preference as to whether or not we keep this as an AI policy or something more global. If it is more global, then we will have to still have a significant portion that speaks to this AI policy. So I'm pretty agnostic about that either way. I do think that we should be reviewing not reflected here, we'll leave a gap
if we jump into those other policies too early, I believe. So I, perhaps in the next meeting or the next two meetings, once we are clear that we have a good policy here, then we should be pulling out and reviewing, those other, technology policies. I think what was the other thing you had asked? Timeline. If our goal is to make sure that the board has this to act upon by May. I do believe this is one of those policies that we should take a little
bit time with as, governance board members to bring the others into the conversation. I think it was helpful to have that, work session on it, but it it will be important for folks to have an opportunity to see this and to be able to provide feedback. I do know that you had said something not too long ago that tied us to particular board members. I I would say this would be a good time to get that practice going where we're bringing people along because we do know this is a huge and important policy. I did I speak to all of your points?
I was trying to write them down. Yes. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Yes. And so having, like, one to one follow ups, but then is there also interest in having, like, bringing it to a full board agenda, to a work session? You know, this is something that we did with boundaries. I can't remember if you did it with grading, but it might be Yeah. I don't know if we did it with grading. Miss Anderson, feel free to jump in if you'd like. We did. It do it with grading. Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Okay. Well, thank you for the input. Ms. St. John Cunning talks about reviewing related policies now, having a larger tech and ed policy.
So, I concur. I mean, I don't have to speak to all your points. I agree that this is something that we want to give careful consideration to and then see how and if other policies need to be changed in time, as we flesh this out to see where things may dovetail and where they have to stand alone. Okay. Great. So let's, take our approach that we usually do, which is to start with the policy. So, do you have a clean copy? And I handed you one in print and then we have the red line, which
is on board docs. So and doctor Innes, I see your placard still up. No. I I wanted to just dig into this. I I'm glad that you handed me this version six. For some reason, I was working from version I'm sorry. You handed me version seven. I had been working from version six, and I'm glad to see that some of my initial feedback had well, what I was going to share, they've been incorporated because I did believe that the purpose was a little bit too lengthy. So I'm just gonna start there. If we could just make that, correction in the word establish, that would be great.
The philosophy section, again, I appreciate that we have that starting with the what the board is recognizing, because the previous version, I thought, was a little bit more of the, was a little bit more procedural. Definitions is there. The only thing in definitions that I wanted to add only because this came up during the work session, there is a definition for generative AI. I think we need to also have a definition of nongenerative AI because we do
have tools that, use nongenerative AI, and we need to be clear with the public about that. So that's one thing that I would like some feedback on. I I don't know if this is a doctor Reid, doctor Presidio question for that definition. We can certainly provide that definition. I didn't mean to catch you mid bite. Okay. Thank you for that. What I also I'm trying to work through both of these. What I also see that is missing here, and I do believe we were fairly intentional in other documents, and I know this was a piece that came up is,
what is the engagement piece with community? If as a parent, I don't want my kid to access, generative AI tools? Because, eventually, we might get there. Again, this is not a policy for just today. This is a policy for, you know, the near term. I I'm not seeing that component that speaks to, engagement. And it doesn't have to be very long. It just has to there has to be an acknowledgment of what that role is or what is our expectation as board members when it comes to the community's role
in terms of providing access to their children. Again, we're not there now. I will say it. Mister doctor Presidio said this multiple times. We do not have generative AI tools in front of our kids, but if and when we got there. Which kind of brings me to my larger question. If we are going to move this to take a longer lens to have this be a technology policy, much of this will have to change because this is very specific to one piece of the tech of the technology. We'll have to have an overall purpose and an overall philosophy and use this as
one example. So I'd like to kind of understand, are we keeping this as is or are we making it larger? Because that will color, at least for me, the feedback that I provide. Well, thank you Judge Anderson. I think that's a question to, our one other committee member and again if our, chair wants to weigh in too but, so. And if I could just kind of finish this sentence and turn it back over to Marcia. I think given that we have so many other technology, policies that we have not
yet seen, at least for right now, it makes sense for us to just keep this AI just at least to get that through the conversation. Thank you, doctor Anderson. Miss Indranco Honey? I understand what my colleague is saying and I think it goes down to what do we define as technology? Because is using a is a computer technology? Is an iPad technology? And we do want community feedback. However, we've got to again, how this aligns with other policies and certain things that are being done already, we don't want to hurt what's already happening.
And I understand it's like if I don't want my child to be doing this, but then everybody in the classroom is using a computer. So I think we've gotta go down to to the definition of what technology is. And so that's I think that's a whole other ball of wax that does not apply to you. We're gonna be specific with AI. I don't know if that makes sense. Okay. So so I hear doctor Yerson saying, you know, what's the engagement role on this? And, it's still to be determined about how comprehensive this policy is and, what I
hear miss Jean Khanning saying is, you know, what really is the technology? I guess, kind of in that same vein of what's the universe here. And so I do agree, it sounds like for now we could stick with the AI because that seems it's all it's I think it actually encompasses a lot as I was listening to you both. You know, Madam Clerk, I don't know our guest members can participate in the discussion. Is that right? Yeah. Because I wanted Doctor Anderson miss Anderson, if you wanted to add anything, please do. You're welcome to chime in. Yeah. The only reason that I've been advocating for us doing some sort of larger innovative
technology type policies because I think we could use AI as an example of the rollout plan, because we're kind of figuring that out as we go. But what I would love to have is whenever the next technology pops up, that's happening faster and faster, and I think it's gonna be harder and harder for the division to be responsive to those decisions. And so if we have kind of a framework in place that we've utilized for this advancing technology that we might be able to utilize for others as they unfold, understanding that a 100% we're gonna have to have specific regulation related to each of
these. But I'm wondering how much of this information could be put in regulation, and and us as the policymakers could be focused far more on the general, guidelines related to how we adopt things within the division. Thank you. And I'll go ahead and share my thoughts. So you totally reminded me of really the grading policy, and it might behoove us just to refresh ourselves because I think that policy did a really nice job of saying, okay, superintendent, you need to set the weighted grading, whether it's seventy thirty, eighty twenty.
We don't know, but you gotta set it. Or, okay, superintendent, you're gonna set the max retake grade. We don't know what it's gonna be, you're gonna set it. And I thought that worked out really well. It took us a while to kind of figure that out and then put the stuff in regulation. And so I think that's a really good approach and then it can make it be evergreen. So that really aligns with with my thinking and, you know, I've been reading a lot of different things. I'm happy to share resources. There's so many resources. I will say the Brookings Institute support is really, really interesting, and I I subscribe to their framing, which to me basically comes down to, are AI enriched learning experiences
purposefully designed for children's learning? I wanna test everything against the statement of how does the addition of technology improve instruction? So, you know, technology is not pedagogy. It's not how kids learn. And I really been thinking about the adoption of laptops and having gone through that experience and what has been the results. You know, we we haven't measured that. And I don't know that we can't we can't measure it before May. But, you know, I think we need to some of the global policy language not
global. Some of the policy language could be the board saying, what should AI do to advance kids and their learning development? Or we could have a policy that says technology used in education shall prove a positive impact on instruction. That could be a policy statement. I also think that right now the policy is really narrow. Like, what's the enterprise wide? Because, you know, where does this happen in all offices, in professional development, in instruction,
in special education? That's totally unclear to me. We're not talking at that level of infusion. Safety alone, you know, I think there's it's really jargon to me. Human centered, the human loop or whatever that is. And this is why my question about should we should we, include review of adjacent policies like data security? It doesn't only live with AI, but certainly that's a big concern, especially because this is a different frontier. Right? The the companies are taking data and creating digital footprints for people that can last,
and we don't even know how that's gonna be used. And I know right now we have some closed systems, and I have questions about that too. But, like, I think we could define what safety means to us, what instructional technology means to us. And I think we could also include, one more point I wanted to make. Well, we can continue. I have a bunch more things. If anybody would like a turn, I could stop or I could continue my thoughts. Wild. More than three minutes. Yeah. Okay.
So I will stop and we will ask a question. Yes. One of the things that I was hoping to ask staff as I'm looking at these two versions and again, version six was the version that I was prepared to talk about today. I don't know how I missed version seven. And I did have some questions regarding the procedures because I thought the procedures really needed to live in a regulation in lieu of being here. This is not like the how to. Can you walk me through, doctor Reed, kind of the thinking of removing the procedures
from version from version six? So I think you already sort of shared that. I think that the team, when they relooked at that, felt that some of the aspects that were in version six really belonged better in a regulation. They were intended to operationalize a big idea and, you know, I'm happy to have Gotham, Sloan, or Nardis comment on that further but that was, I believe, the thinking and I we did discuss it again briefly this afternoon. Gotham, do you have a thought on that? Yeah. No. Precisely. I mean, two aspects.
One, some of the details would be something that keeps shifting. And as the regulation allow us to shape that much more nimbly, the technology keeps evolving too. Right? So every six months, this technology is still evolving. It's in the growing phases. And having that managed in a regulation with an overarching policy, which ensures that we stay within the guardrails that the board wants us to would be the the path to take. K. Thank you. That kind of reminds me of the practice that was in place when we first
got on the board, and I was on governance committee. And it didn't happen for every policy, but some of the more substantial ones, we had the conversation with the regulation and the policy simultaneously just to ensure what was not what did not appear in policy was very clear in the regulation. I wonder if this is a space for us to consider that as well, for the for the regulation development to be happening as we're developing the policy.
Obviously, not today, but after today, there could be some draft to look at. Is that a possibility, doctor Reed, you think? I think what staff we have found it more helpful to write regulation after the policy is done so that we don't spend an inordinate amount of staff time rehashing things that perhaps are actually put in the policy. So I think we'd prefer to see the policy for clear direction and then go back to staff with, to make sure we match that in a thoughtful way.
I do think, doctor Anderson, we could create our own little parking lot that's like, oh, that's something that could go on regulation. Let's put it over there. So that could be a practice that we keep. Is that all, doctor Anderson? Yes. So if if, no one else has their placards up. So I I'd like to talk again about the bigger picture here, technology and education. Is it doing what we think it's doing, and how do we know? And should the policy have something in there so that things just don't run away with technology? Like, there's this thing you know, I'm reading, again, all these different things, the presumed
use. Are we just presuming that students are gonna use this? Can we take a step back and discuss, well, is that what's needed? And and what ages? I mean, I keep thinking about the littles, the eight, nine, 10 year olds. And a lot of the examples I'm seeing are about high school kids and graduates. So do we want in our policy to say something that's like you know, whether it's generative AI or other types of AI, you know, this is gonna be for grades, you know, nine through 12.
Or, like, do we just wanna start teasing some stuff out and even just discuss, like, are we are we talking, like, age five on up to 18? Like, what are you all thinking? So, miss Anderson? The biggest thing I'm gonna say is that there's a lot just the same way we talk about algebraic thinking that can happen with kindergartners. It's not that we're talking about putting tools in front of tiny humans. What we're talking about is helping them understand the critical thinking skills that are necessary to be able to develop prompts and to be critical thinkers in how they're approaching
information. Those are all things that we can do outside of technology that regardless of where we land on this policy should be something that we're working on with all of our students. And quite frankly, it's what's been done with rhetoric and composition for a millennia. Like, that it's just been that's the goal, is that you want kids to be able to look at something and critically read it and be able to ask the appropriate questions and all of those things. Those are all skill sets that we can start with at very young ages. Just the idea of questioning sources, the idea of how to ask questions, those all
those things are all possible. So I don't think that anyone is talking about putting the tools in front of very young children. That was never the intention. But the skill set is one that we can be building. And quite frankly, it aligns with our portrait of a graduate skill so clearly that it it I don't think that there's anyone that would would push back on on that type of thing because regardless, again, if we're ever gonna get to the point where we are using generative AI tools with students, first of all, I want to be very clear, they are already using them.
So regardless of whether or not we have it, like, implemented in our classrooms, the kids are already using them, so we have to address that in some way. And then I do think that we can look at this as an iterative process and scaffold the learning the same way we do on everything that we do. So and miss Maren, I didn't know if you know, but miss Lade's Oh, gosh. Sorry, miss Setlow. You told me. Yes. Thank you so much. Okay. We have miss Lade on, virtually. So let's go ahead and, pull her in. So miss Lady has submitted a request to attend this afternoon's meeting remotely due to
personal reasons as she has a family conflict and is located in Williamsburg, Virginia. I have performed an initial review of miss Lady's request, and having found it to be in compliance with the school board's remote participation resolution, I have approved the request. Miss Lady, please check your audio and video. I'm here. Can you hear me? Thank you. Yes. And apologies for the delay. That's that's okay. No problem. Thank you. We now ask committee members who are physically present so just committee members, who are physically present to vote on the following. All those in favor of confirming the chair's approval of miss Lady's request. That's myself and miss Saint John Cunning. Those opposed, doctor Anderson.
Will the clerk read the vote? There is one correction. I'm actually in Chester Chester, Virginia, not Williamsburg. Thank you. I thought that might have been the case. So miss Lady is in Chester, Virginia, and we will reflect that in the minutes. Thank you. Miss Lady, did you wanna go ahead and jump in with some initial comments here? No. I wasn't able to join our time, so I'm just gonna listen a bit more. Thank you. No idea. I thought I was leaving you hanging there for a while. So yes. Okay. Miss St. John Cunningham. So I I just wanna piggyback on what our chair has said. I I actually heard a piece on NPR this a couple of days ago where
they were talking about AI and is it they're running a whole series this week on AI. And one of the questions asked was, you know, is AI going to take away these jobs? And I found it very interesting that the person said, AI is not gonna take away jobs. It's gonna take away jobs from people that don't know how to use AI. And I found that very interesting because I think it's a tool. It's a tool and we have the responsibility of ensuring that we teach our children how to use our students, our children, even the adults, how to use it correctly.
It's a tool like fire. It can cut both ways. And, you know, there are kids that were playing with matches before they should have been playing with matches, and learning how to use fire in an effective way versus in a destructive way is critical and you don't have to necessarily be using the tool to be learning that and developing those skills. And that's that's kind of where I land. That that's what we have to do and, I mean, I will use myself personally as an example because I am one of these late adopters for a lot of technology and it really hinders me in able to get some things done, just because
I have a fear of it and for some odd reason. And that's gonna make a difference as our kids are moving up. The ones that know how to use it properly and know how to be responsible with it are gonna be the ones that are really gonna be at the cutting edge of any job market. Thank you. And you're reminding me of something I read, or I listened to a podcast, from a reputable source. And it was about AI literacy and how it's a term that gets used a lot but has many different meanings.
And so I I sussed it out and I I printed a copy for each of you if you want because that's how I had to kinda analyze it. But there are three possible definitions of AI literacy, and I think it would help if we defined it. There's a definition in the policy, but I don't see it cutting across these three areas. So here's what, what I heard. Three possible definitions of AI and let me hand it out if you'd like. Definitions of AI literacy. Teachers themselves oh, and I may have a copy for staff. Okay. So three possible definitions of AI literacy.
Again, this is from a podcast. I've cited it down below. I summarized it without AI. I did note that. I guess we gotta get in the habit of doing that. Okay. So teachers themselves need AI literacy and that they need to know something about generative AI in order to effectively adapt to its arrival in schools and education environment. Okay? So they need to know how to do how to use it. Number two, another possible definition. Teachers educate students about the appropriate and responsible use of AI. And this, to me, sounds like digital citizenship. I think perhaps we're talking about digital citizenship for AI rather than AI literacy in
this case. Right? With digital citizenship, we're teaching our students how to use the tool for good, not to use it for, you know, inappropriate purposes. So maybe we could start using that term differently. I don't know. And then the third possible definition for ALIRIS is teaching students step by step to grow the skills needed, just as miss Anderson was saying, to effectively use this. So this includes skills in prompt engineering, avoiding hallucinations, strengths and weaknesses of different AI models. So if I think of it like this, well, number one, well, that's all about the teachers, and that's straight up professional development.
And there's a a clear plan for that because we have professionals that know how to teach teachers. The second one, that's the one that I hear that could be for the littlest up. Right? Just always teaching as we do now. The digital just like we teach family life education. Right? It's all tailored for the certain age appropriateness. But maybe, again, that's digital citizenship. And that cyberbullying piece, like, I think about that, that's in the student rights and responsibilities. So, like, just thinking about the crossover here. Right? And that might be across, you know, AI and other things. So that was just a thought I had too.
And then actually teaching students. Right? So, again, the portrait of a graduate skills. So maybe the policy could break things out, like, in that way, whether it's defining AI literacy like that or saying, okay. We need to make sure our teachers know how to use this. And, you know, they know the parameters. And then we need to make sure that we're teaching our kids how to use this appropriately, and then we gotta actually teach the prompt. So I could see that as some good, you know, frameworks, and then the superintendent's gonna say, okay. We're gonna train staff this many times over this many years.
It's gonna cost this much. Right? We're gonna do opt out, like, if we do that or not for FLE. Like, you know what I'm saying? So what do you we're eager to hear your thoughts. Doctor Anderson? I think you were kind of heading to where I was thinking. I'm looking at the responsibility section and now having removed all of the procedural things from my mind's eye. I I think one of the things that we might wanna consider is making that responsibilities question a little bit more specific, to speak to some of the things that
you've talked about. It doesn't have to look like the procedures here, but it's calling out the things that we want to ensure that the superintendent includes in the, in the regulation, such as, you know I I see that as, like, bullets. What's going to be happening with teachers? What's going to be happening with students? What are the you know, be clear about the prohibited uses, and and safe interactions. That's the piece that I I'd like to tease out a little bit to use
maybe some of the headings. And I don't have the language right now, but I can have it a little bit later on today to use some of the headings from parts from some of the parts in the procedures just to call them out, not necessarily to have all of what already exists in version six, but to lay it out a little bit. Because I think as it stands right now, the responsibilities does not include some of those components. And it could go as far as to include the, I I guess, the communication
to to parents piece, where are we going to say if and when we have our kids and please correct me if I'm wrong, doctor Pasidia. You say we're not using generative AI at current. So just a point of clarification on that. What I said was we're not using generative AI tools like chat bots, like chat GPT. Right? So generative AI, and I tried to mention this, during the work session, are generative AI components built into some things. Right? So, like, after the work session, I know there was an email exchange with a
couple board members about Adobe Express, which does have a generative AI function in it that allows you to create images. Right? So that is something that is available, for use, in our schools right now. But I was specifically referring to chatbots. So again, I think the terminology here is confusing and and probably we do need probably to add some additional definitions to this section to clarify what is generative AI, and what is not generative AI as you discussed earlier. Okay. So maybe this is a better question to ask, although I do realize what I'm
asking. Doctor E, let's look into the crystal ball here. Let's fast forward this to a year two years. What does what do you anticipate or what are you thinking? And I do realize I'm asking you to look into the future. Where will this division be with AI work? I think it'll depend on the policy that we develop because we're gonna be following whatever policy and direction the board wishes to set on this. Right. I I realize that. But do you think it is reasonable, or is it, yeah.
Do you think it would be reasonable to have a policy that forbids the use of generative AI altogether? I think if that's the direction the policy goes, then that's the direction the staff will follow. I guess I'm asking you from an instructional perspective. Is that inevitable that we will need to have generative AI in schools? I would need to review products. I would need to review programs before I could make that Mhmm. Statement this afternoon. Because if that's where we are going to land and I didn't mean to necessarily
put you on the spot. I just wanna be thinking, what is this policy going to do? Obviously, we wanted to have the guardrails, but I don't think anybody wants it to be overly restrictive. If we are going to head in a particularly particular direction, then these are the things that must happen before we get there. That's the piece that I'm looking to articulate in a way. Does that make sense? I think it's bigger than what I think Fairfax County Public Schools is gonna choose to do. I think if you're asking what the world is moving toward and what this nation
is moving toward, I think that those topics are already fully being utilized across many sectors, in this country and around the world. What are whether we choose to be in any way, conversant around those topics with our staff or children, or whether we choose to be visionary in any way about its use or nonuse, those are things that this policy is gonna need to capture, because that will drive the work that staff will do.
Okay. Here's a final question in this line. Do we know of any school divisions that are on the cutting edge currently? In this country? In this country. I think we'd have to do some research. Because I would be curious to know because if we kind of can use their work as a map for ourselves, if it exists, it would be helpful. Thank you. That's my time. Thank you, miss Anderson. Yeah. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the idea that I don't think the policy needs to determine all of the guardrails.
I'm wondering whether or not the guardrails can kind of be put into our EL process because it's reviewed every year. And so we could potentially look at some some of the things related to how the things we already talk about related to technology and the superintendents work. We could utilize that process as a way and we could basically just authorize the the general guidelines here. And so, I think that because things that kind of goes back to my point. Things are moving so quickly that anything that we put here can get outdated extreme
including definitions, can get outdated so significantly and so quickly, that I worry about spending a huge amount of the board's time going through all the the tiny little iterations rather than using or basically directing the regulation that should serve those that functionality. Thank you. I'll go ahead and and take a turn. So, you know, I I do it's helpful to keep focusing on the general guidelines and, you know, things are moving quickly, but I do think we can slow ourselves down. Right?
Because what's most important? It's the kids. And what's most important about the kids? It's their safety. So this stuff can ramp up a 100 miles an hour, but what do we wanna set as the guardrails for student safety? How do we articulate that knowing that things will change? Like, what are the checks? You know, it doesn't have to be so prescriptive. But for me, it goes back to how is this good for kids' instruction and how do we know? So is there something in the policy that says the superintendent will, deliver results with the strategic plan goals? Right? Maybe we incorporate it into strategic plan reports.
And that's kind of granular, but it's it gives us something. Right? And so that's an idea I thought of. But in addition, I think the strategic plan is a little bit more, you know, aligned with the kids because the ELs are about our superintendent, and we could certainly put them there. The other thing is, I I do just wanna share this this example about safety, or excuse me, about the way it's being used in the classroom. So, yes, you know, I've heard from different staff members, and one of our colleagues, on the board sends an example of what is being used.
And I just would like to ask doctor Reed, like, can you just share what is the instructional benefit? Because and maybe we need to see things a little bit more, in practice. So one of it was it was a third grade, classroom. The students heard a poem read out loud, and then the students used Canva and gave it prompts and say to make it create a graphic that would picture that would, you know, visualize what this poem was about. So they heard a poem, then they said to Canva, create a graphic that, you
know, talks about the birds in the sky. Okay. Now make it more about the birds in the daytime in the sky. How do we define the instructional benefit for that? Is that an instructional benefit? And for a third grader. So one of the fastest growing career fields right now is prompt writing and the ability to narrowly write direction for a response. So in the example you shared, I think it's, likely the ability to ask more focused questions, which would link to a career path in critical thinking and collaboration skills
that are part of our portrait of a graduate and part of one of the fastest growing occupations in our country. I will defer to doctor Presidio though in terms of, the impact. I think there were a couple examples shared, if you would, please comment. No. I I appreciate that and thanks for the question. I you know, honestly, I'd have to look at that task more, but the way that you describe it, I would say that there's not a great deal of instructional value to that the way that you described it. You know, if if the task was to identify the key themes from the poem
and try to interact with AI in a way to visualize those key themes, I think that that would be a higher level, more rigorous task. But again, I think either way it's a pretty low level task and those are not the types of things that, you know, that we're looking at in terms of best practices and use cases. As I tried to say in the work session, our learning model has four domains. And without going into great detail on this in the interest of time, those are evidence based practices to help us design learner centered environments, ensure that we have universally
designed curriculum experiences that are inclusive of all students' needs, provide meaningful learning experiences, which means essentially deeper student learning outcomes and inquiry. So we're looking at the kinds of tasks that are gonna challenge students to solve problems, right? Evaluate information, synthesize information, analyze information. So we're looking at deeper learning outcomes through an inquiry based process. And then assessment, which is where we really talk about the types of, you know, feedback that we wanna provide to students outside of, you know, standardized accountability assessments.
So AI needs to be used only when it can deepen the practices and support the practices outlined in the learning model to help students reach deeper learning outcomes. And we are just at the precipice of even trying to understand what are some of those best practice use cases, that would help students do that. So that's the reason that we're trying to, you know, pilot working with some teachers that are interested in trying to figure this out. But again, we haven't put in we haven't put the tools in front of students yet really to allow them to interact in some of those ways.
So we're kind of still superficial in terms of teacher productivity, teacher efficiency and how we're using AI right now. But we're trying to envision what could it look like to use A. I. To extend the teacher centered, teacher directed learning experiences in the learning model that will lead to deeper student learning outcomes. So the example that you gave, I would say it's pretty low level task. Well, thank you. I appreciate your your candor, but the fact is that this is being done. And, you know, we've heard that teachers haven't received the training. And I really like what you said is it should be used only when it
can deepen the practices to help them reach deeper learning outcomes. So how are we testing? How are we evaluating and capturing outcomes? And if that is the crux, then the policy should also say that the technology's gotta show that it's a benefit. I hear a lot of, like, input now, but I'm not seeing, well, how do we know that it's working? When I think of an eight year old look. If kids don't read by age eight, they're in for a lot of hard work trying to be a reader. They're working on their fine motor skills. So if I think of an eight year old doing this Canva thing, could that
kid have colored it? You mentioned collaboration, doctor Reed, but who are they collaborating with? They're collaborating with a machine. Is that the school we need to teach them at age eight? Maybe at age 15. Right? Like, we know that our schools do these portrait of a graduate, you know, festivals and their kids are doing things. I don't I'm not sold, and I'm not hearing that you're you're planning to evaluate it. So I wanna put that in the policy to make sure that the schools are implementing what is effective. Miss Lady? Yeah. Just to expand on that example, because I shared it with folks.
You know, it it was about the reality of poetry writing, and it it emote it creates emotion. It creates imagery. It creates all kinds of things. Right? So collaborating as a class, they work to come up with an image that they felt collectively represented it. But then the children also were writing their own poems, and then they did the same thing with their own individual poems. So, yeah, part of it is learning how to do the prompt writing. I don't wanna belabor the point, because I have some other points to make. And and that is that, you know, colleges are using generative AI.
So, you know, when you get to the college level, it's an expectation that you know how to do this. So to the question of, you know, where are we gonna be in a year, I think, I really appreciate doctor Reed's answers because the the paramount importance in any of this is say student safety. Right? We wanna make sure we have the safeguards in place, but I don't wanna put in policy that's something that's limiting if we can, you know, confirm that that is the case. We can confirm, you know, training with Fidelity, and we can confirm appropriate uses as
we, you know, enhance learning. I mean, obviously, the the the learning is of paramount importance. And and so is, you know, like I said, the student safety. So, you know, I'm, I've I've I've read both version six and seven of the policy. I without even seeing the the covered memo, I was like, oh, I see what they're doing. They're seeing that this is like there's too much in this because a lot of what's here should be in regulation. And I kinda stand firm in that. I do think that of late, we've written some policies that probably have too much
in them, that should be left for staff because, you know, education is far more fluid than it used to be. It's an ever changing world and environment. And, you know, so I just I I I think and I do know that staff, certainly under doctor Reed's leadership, student safety is a paramount importance twenty four seven. And so I I I I trust that we're not gonna be utilizing technologies that are not gonna make that a priority. So I don't really have any specific questions. You know, I'll continue to listen. But I just wanna make sure whatever we draft is not limiting because of how
quickly things change, but what's of paramount importance. And, you know, the e l idea, I can I can see, as a way to do that evaluation? But at the end of the day, we have to feel comfortable with what the guardrails are. Understanding that at any time, if we feel like regulation doesn't do that well enough, that we as a board can say, we're gonna open this policy back up and put more in it if we have to, which is somewhat of what we did with grading, because we were not comfortable entirely with with what was in regulation. So we tightened it within policy.
Anyways, I'm out of time. So thank you. Thank you, miss Lady. Miss Anderson and then doctor Anderson? Yeah. I just don't know an educator ever that doesn't spend a huge amount of time making sure that what they're doing with their students doesn't create outcomes. So I think it's inherent to everything that we do. I guess my question is is I don't know of any other policy that we have that requires outcome. I think that all that those functionality I like the idea of looking at it in terms of strategic goals. It could be that there's an addendum to the strategic plan that needs to be
added in. I'm not sure what that looks like. And I think that that's a but I think that the board's responsibility is through the Yale process. So I think that that's some place that we can deliberately give the guardrails that we're talking about. So I I think that we need to kind of thread the needle here very carefully to make sure that the policy does what we want it to do without stepping into other areas of our governance. So Thank you. Doctor Anderson and then miss Hjancunting. Thank you. To no one's shock, I'm gonna say what I've been saying as I've sat in
governance for however long I've been here. Our policy is our communication, not on is the board's communication, not only to the superintendent regarding expectations, but also to the community. So we need to be able to balance that out. The community, they don't know anything about else. They don't care that much because they don't see how it gets to what they need to have with their children, but they certainly look up the policies. Do I need to outline here that, in the policy, do I think we should
outline, oh, you should give reports on the outcomes of the use of these pilots. The reports shouldn't live here, but we should include that as part of the governance and oversight. This is our work in terms of monitoring the outcomes of the use of these tools. So there's a space for us to, call out the things we would expect to see reported in other places, whether it be a strategic goal or or or an EL. But not calling it out here, it makes us miss, I think, an important communication
to the public. Thank you. Miss Sienjunk Cunning. So actually, I had the same question in terms of other policies and having that requirement for outcome and if if we should live here and because this is such a new thing how can we even measure outcome or make start doing those parameters? I think that starts to live in regulation and I just want to go back to, the poem, story because I've I've actually seen things like this in action in
the classroom where kids are doing this and I actually think it has a high impact. I think that kids a third grader a lot of times will not appreciate a poem and they don't understand it. But if they're having this kind of interaction, that's what makes it click. I've seen kids using technology to to use clay figures and and do little movies that I wouldn't be able to do and I see that a creativity and a thought process comes alive. And sometimes we really can't measure that in standard ways, but it opens a world
and another lens for kids to start thinking about. That's just what I think. And particularly, you know, knowing the differentiation of different kids, like, there are some kids that are gonna gravitate to a haiku and totally get that. And there are some kids that are gonna know, this is so short. I don't get it. But then if there's a visual representation, you can see that clicking. I just wanna say that because I've actually seen it in action with the littles, and I couldn't I don't know if I can capture it and measure it, but I can see what's happening. I can see those light bulbs going on with them. And how we quantify that, I don't know, but I know it's happening.
Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna have a turn. So with safety, it's if you looked at the version six, which wasn't shared publicly, which I do think is problematic because the red lines are on version six, but version six had content about mental health and what to do in extreme version seven does not. There's there's nothing in it about students' safety. So it's hard for me to rectify the superintendent's extreme interest in safety when there's literally nothing in this policy about safety and there was in version six.
Six. I wanna say it it absolutely is the board's duty to review pilots and see what they're producing. Hold on. So and we do measure. We measure all all the goal reports. We measure reading outcomes, math outcomes, budgetary outcomes. We measure all sorts of stuff, so I don't agree that we don't measure other things. We should measure what's the return on our investment for any of this, which, by the way, OpenAI has said right on their homepage that come June '27, there will be a fee, and they will inform
Institutions well in advance so we can plan for the teacher chat GPT. When it comes to money, that is completely our job, and the superintendent hasn't provided any kind of projection. And by the way, we did receive the budget today from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. And let's just say we're not gonna have tons of money laying around to play with. So what is the superintendent's plan? It's a very reasonable question. What's the plan in the next year through June 27? If CHAT GPG charges us, where's the cost? Is rhetorical for now. I also wanna say that if you were to look at our our boundary policy
and this policy, this policy does not show that the board wants to engage the community. They are so different, and I know how much our board values engagement that to be able to build into here anything from we're gonna have community conversations just like we did for boundaries and, even grading. There were surveys. There were, you know, iterations to, you know, we're gonna have an advisory committee. And I I do wanna share, about the, sugar.
I'm losing my train of thought. The input. Could you just give me a minute? Boundaries. Yeah. I, okay. I just yeah. And then I do want us to we have, like, we have a few more minutes, and I know our chiefs have to leave soon. And we can continue talking for a few more. I don't think we'll need a whole hour for the next part of our agenda. But, so just keep that in mind, I guess. I'll defer for now until I collect my thoughts again. Oh, actually, I know what it was. Okay. So in the in the Brookings report, they have this annex a at the end. And it's all literacy frameworks.
It shows, you know, who developed it, the definition, how did they define AI literacy, what's the education level, what's the structure, what are the relevant guardrails. We don't have anything. Like, this is what I would expect from the superintendent. What's what's the plan? Example lessons. So there's too much of us making this up on our own, and we may mean well as a board, but we certainly are not experts and we haven't read all of the research. So thank you. Doctor Anderson? Yes. Thank you. And I think what you said is getting up to what I was talking about, under responsibilities, and it doesn't have to be that title.
We need to call out certain things just to kind of highlight to make sure that we're speaking to it. And I do want to kind of confirm what doctor, Presidio shared regarding the activity you described. I've spent twenty five years in schools. I I've taught many, many grades. I've been principal for a lot of grades. It is very easy to confuse activities with instructionally impactful work. There are some activities that teachers have engaged in that are wonderful and fun and
all of the things, but it is not going to have the impact that you're looking for to move kids forward on a particular topic or standard. So that that you described was a beautiful little activity, but the instructional impact is not there. So that's a piece that I want to keep in in mind as we're talking about what kids are doing versus how it's going to advance their opportunities in terms of their academic achievement.
Activities versus impact. They can be very different things. We typically want them to be the same. We want for the wonderful activities to have the most impact. But there are a lot of instances where they do not, but yet they're fun and beloved. And sometimes you have to twist teachers' arms to stop doing them because they don't have the impact that you're looking for instructionally. I'll share. I'll comment, seeing no other placard. So something I've been thinking about. So benchmark advanced, our literacy curriculum, which underwent following our policy and the regulation, following
our procurement policy that the board review any purchase over half 1,000,000. I personally went and reviewed the curriculum myself. We had vendors. We had a big public input process to select that curriculum. Our multilingual learners have achieved so much. Our educators have done so much to help our our young multilingual learners, learn. Was it benchmark advanced? Was was it the quality of that curriculum? Was it the pullout section that focused on MLL learning? Was it a particular teacher? Was it their training? Was it the small class size? Was it the kids' demographics? I don't know.
But I I'm confident that since it's a a science or reading curriculum that I at least know that it's instructionally sound. Okay? It's been we had Emily, professor Emily from UVA here telling us that the science of reading is data proven. I don't have that for technology in education. I've seen my kid do Lexia and ST Math. Seems pretty good. I think it helps him. Yesterday, I was with my daughter and her friend, tenth graders. They actually talked to me about AI. I was I listened. I didn't ask questions.
So what did they say? One of my my daughter's friends said that she uses ChattGPT to to solve her math homework, to check herself. But she knows that ChattGPT gets it wrong, so she goes to another site. And I said, well, why don't you use, well, you know, the big the main math person. I'm totally blanking. That, that and she's like, well, that one's kinda confusing. And I said, well, why don't you stay after school or ask a friend or use the varsity tutors or the online tutoring? She said, well, you know, I'm busy. I have this as this activity and that activity.
So it's interesting. Like, if student learning is moving toward this individualized figure it out, okay. Well, that's something we gotta pay attention to. But that's a 16 year old. Right? And I'm not following what she's doing on these things. So, you know, I I think we could use more information that's not as anecdotal, but, like and even some of the surveys I'm reading, it's about, well, teachers say it makes them more productive. Well, does it? I mean, they might feel more productive, which is great, and maybe it is. But, like, there's just not data that's showing it, you know, this six weeks of
savings and time. It's based on surveys. And we at this board table have talked about how we do not love surveys because they're extremely subjective. So, again, I go back to the question, what about this tool is going to positively impact instruction? I think that you know, when I think about what's next in this conversation, how can we now from this conversation today, colleagues, take it to whatever the next level is? We're gonna ask the superintendent to return, or do we wanna identify some places? We talked about safety. Is there are there a few categories we'd want to hear a little bit more
on? I'd like to hear what you all think about what's the next step after today. So doctor Anderson. Yes. I I would love to give that, but I think we we've had, I think, a pretty good conversation here. And personally, I'd like a little I'd like a beat for me to absorb all of what we just talked about. I'd like to take a look at a few more things before I give that guidance because the conversation is clear that we're not yet there with the policy. And I want to organize my thoughts and review some of the other, things that
were raised in this conversation. And I'd like to have a little bit of time to provide that feedback back to you before you can share it with staff, but I'm not ready to do this in this moment right now. Okay. Thank you. Are there other thoughts from colleagues on next steps? I agree about Yeah. I I sorry. I've had my hand up. I'm sorry. I, Thank you, mister Smith. Coming. Yeah. I, I think the next step would be similar what we did with boundary policy, and take the shell of the policy and take each of us meet with our
colleagues to find out if they've got some feedback, on this because I think, you know, we we need to include everybody. I mean, ultimately, we're gonna bring a policy to the board. I think they should have some some input. So that would be whether it's this version or the next version, but at some point, we need to, share it with everybody in a way that we can bring feedback back to the the committee. Thank you, Ms. Lady. Ms. Jean John Hunting. Sorry about that Ms. Lady. I agree, that that's what we have to do but I also think that we
have to qualify our expectation about wanting to have information about something that is not being really, it's being used but not in education. So we're wanting to know how it's being used. It's kind of like with COVID. We were building it as we went and we had to build it as we went because it was moving so fast. And this is kind of a little bit of the same thing. I think there might be some information out there but I also think there isn't
information out there and we have to make our best decision with the information that we have. I just think that we have to qualify what our expectation is because it is moving so fast and we're kind of in a in a place where we know it's being used, we know it's a tool, we know that we want our students and our teachers and our staff and ourselves to know how to use this tool responsibly and effectively and efficiently, but there's not a lot of information out there yet
as to how this is going to play a role and so I think we have to have a policy that is provides the right guardrails and is also flexible and recognizes that it's it's the future that we have to prepare children for. Thank you. Alright. Well, it's 505. Yes, and our chiefs have to go. Thank you for joining. Why don't we just take, well, why don't we just take a minute or two? Yeah. Let's let's take a five minute recess, and we will reconvene at 05:10.
Thank you. Okay. We're gonna get ready to reconvene. Okay. So we are gonna move to the next portion of our agenda. Always an exciting topic, formatting and, templates, but it matters because we have a lot of these documents and, we gotta be able to reference them with some consistency. So post it on board docs and you have in your hands, if you didn't already, this is a draft that I put together based on agreements the committee had made prior. So I just would like to walk us through that, please.
And the things that are in yellow are places where we need it seemed like we needed to finalize a decision. Okay? And thank you to our deputy clerk, miss Brown, for we met several times on this, and there is an there's, like, an actual regulation about this and a policy about how to format the policies. So, yeah, it's just, you know, oodles of fun. But this seemed to be the things that often would trip us up, up, and I have one for us today because the three policies that are returning to us for discussion, each of them references the FCPS name in a different way, fully defined
with acronym, defined with no acronym, acronym. And I get it. I know it seems easy, but, like, we are a professional organization, and we need to, you know, look at I even saw the superintendent. You know, we have this she has a style guide. There's formatting, and it matters to our our brand and our professionalism. So with this policy template and format, okay, so it references those other existing documents, that the clerks, you know, are the experts on. I put in here the titles that we agreed to. Okay? So this was agreed upon, numbers one through five in the Roman numerals. Okay? And then below that are other titles that had been used that kept tripping us
up as, well, what does authority mean? Well, what about general duties? So I tried to crosswalk them into the five above that that we had had agreement on. Okay? So I don't know that I wanna go through each of them right now. I'd rather just go through the whole document. Okay. On the next page, the consistent use of language. The philosophy section was a a con a frequent point of discussion, making sure that the philosophy section start with the board. Right? Because this is our policy. So the Fairfax County School Board shall adhere.
It recognizes. Okay? Not that we affirm a belief. It's an active language. So and it should not just direct to a regulation. It should make the statement, the value statement of the board. And then in the future, and we're talking about this almost every time, you know, clarifying what details could go more in a in a regulation as a term to policy. You know, we keep getting closer and closer, I think, about that. With the summary of changes, this is the way we let the public know what we've changed. And so sometimes it might be the whole policy has changed or it's a new policy.
But, just like in our motions with Robert's Rules where we're supposed to say, you know, we're gonna we're gonna remove this language and add in this language, do we need to do that for the policies? Because sometimes it's a lot of language and sometimes it isn't enough to say we're gonna remove section four. Well, that might not be very helpful to the public. So, and then there's nomenclature. And, again, these are things that we have decided, so I just put them in writing. Division superintendent, not including a designee in any way because, ultimately, it is just the
superintendent. So we don't need to include designees or other leadership title roles. Should or shall, we know that these have two different meanings. So just being sure that when we use them, we really mean what we say. Are we saying that it's something that would be a nice to have or a shall is that it must. Because this has tripped us up big time with our student rights and responsibilities. The next page is educational or instructional program. You know, again, we wanna be consistent. Parents and guardians, that is the term we decided, parents and guardians. So we shouldn't be using other iterations to be most inclusive.
It's parents and guardians. We wanted to use business day to be clear that it's not calendar day. And then references to gender, that should probably not be an issue because we're not gonna say the superintendent and his or her or their designee. So for ease, we're gonna try and avoid pronouns in our writing. And just clarifying here that school board employees mean all the employees in FCPS. It's the school board office employees that are the ones that we each directly have, you know, managerial responsibilities for.
And then about the acronyms at first reference. And there is that bit about, are we gonna define FCPS? And so, I don't know if we need to use up all of our time to answer all of these, but, but those again, except for the thing about FCPS as a defined acronym, those were all agreements that we pretty much made, except for, I guess, the two in yellow, I'm trying to steer us to a decision. Okay. And then it goes through the best practices for policy review. And this is where the committee, the last year and a half, has spent a lot of time trying to get a clear process so we are getting through the
policies that are due. Okay? So the superintendent transmits the cover memo, and it's got these things in it: the overview of the suggested changes and why. Is it to reflect state code, to use better language, formatting or a legal requirement? Justification of a no change recommendation. It's not just enough to say, No change required. Well, why? An analysis of whether other policies are related to or contradictory to the policy being reviewed. So, like, today, we were talking about the data privacy policy. It would have been helpful in the cover memo, I think, to say, Okay, you'll
do an AI policy? Just know these are related policies that you might want to consider. A statement that all the applicable codes have been reviewed, because there are a lot of things and it's good to have that as a check. Acknowledging if there's another sample policy available, and then listing all the related regulations and notices. It would just be helpful to have this. So this is all in that cover memo that comes to the board to help us review the best that we can and prepare for the conversation. And then, for the school board, this was an example, so this, I guess, should be in yellow, but this was what I pulled together over the last year saying,
Here's a guide that could help us each review. You know, are we getting to try and tease out the policy, the regulation, the philosophy? So, at the end, I did include the closed meeting process because this has been a point of confusion in the past. And so, the clerk and I, miss Brown, deputy clerk, I recorded what apparently it is. So we know. And then the last bit is just I've I've wondered how do we document past versions? What if someone, a board member or the public, want to see the past version?
To my understanding, we don't have a way to do that. Where's the archive? How are previous versions archived? And then just whether we want to say they're revised or reviewed. And then the last page was taken from, I think, one of the clerk's documents, but just defining what a policy is, a regulation is, and a notice. So again, this is meant to be more of a style guide combined with the directives in the policy about style and regulations. So, I hope that was a good use of those minutes on this planet. Okay. Doctor. Anderson. And I guess, like, let's hear feedback.
If there's some things we can clarify, let's go ahead. Yes. Thank you. This is very helpful. I did have a question on the first page, where it says, Suggest phasing out titles on the left as policies. On the left of what? The column that follows. So, like, eligible employees. I see. Or authority. Like, let's call that responsibilities. Okay. I I I think this works. Generally, I think this is a good idea. It makes things very simple. Simple. A question that I have is where would this template live? Is this going to be then a new policy that kind of articulates what we
do? So that's a question. And then I had some more specific feedback. I am not gonna go over the stuff that I agree with because I think they're great. The point on page three about avoiding personal pronouns, I think that's good because, you know, I always feed her into that place of, you know, we're an educational educational, enterprise and, you know, singular and plural nouns must must there must be subject verb agreement but we know that we're trying to be more inclusive.
I still struggle with that. If they don't exist, then there's no struggle and I would appreciate that. Section three. I envision this, and I don't know if this is where you were going, is all of this going to kind of be a checklist so that it's easy to affirm by staff? It could be. It's a compilation of what we've asked for that could it should be part of that cover memo. You know, that cover memo was a newer practice that we started last year to try and get the transmittal a little bit better. So it could be a checklist.
I think it should be a checklist because otherwise, it comes across as a little overwhelming. So pages three and four, there's a lot of content there. But I think it could be organized so it's easily checked by whomever's doing that job. So that would be my add to this. But I will say it's not just checking it off, it's actually providing information, some of it, like a thoughtful analysis. Whatever the thing is. Otherwise, I think things would get lost in the sauce. And, you know, you could have, enough lines if it's a short answer or if it's a yes or no.
It could just be boxes. It just has to be simplified for use because if I were the one doing it, I would want it to be a little bit more linear and sequential. Where I have questions, this is part C on page five. And correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Foster, we go into closed meetings typically to get legal guidance that cannot be discussed in the public forum. Is that accurate when it comes at least to policies? There are several bases to convene a closed session of a public body.
One of them is for consultation with legal counsel and the provision of, legal advice to the, in this case, board client. Yes. K. Thank you. I I just wonder about this language being a little bit too tight because I can recall on several occasions where, again, serving on the governance committee, where we've had a closed session about a part of a policy and then we came right out here and had the discussion. This, as I'm reading it, means that if you have a closed session on a
policy, everything thereafter has to be in a closed session. That I don't think it's always that way. I don't want to say which policies, but I could think of at least two policies in which some components were discussed and closed, and then we came back out and just finished it in the public meeting. So, I'm not sure about the accuracy of section c. Okay. I'd welcome if you wanted to help get some language about components. Thank you. Yeah. Miss Anderson. So talking about formatting of documents is one of my favourite things ever. A 100%. That's part of it.
I will say that I think that we we are very close to the same category of work that we did when we did the Community Advisory Committee Handbook. I think that this, in my opinion, right now from what I understand, we have two policies related to board directives and then we have a regulation that's actually one of ours that actually shouldn't be a regulation because I think we should one of ours that actually shouldn't be a regulation because I think we should stay and stand strong with we write policies, the superintendent writes directives. So or, you know what I meant. We write policies, she writes regulations.
I think that this could be expanded because what I really see it as is an approach that the governance committee will take, which needs to be approved by the whole board. So, I see that we're just out of order just a tiny bit. I think that pulling together all this information oh four and eleven oh two to see if those two policies need to be collapsed into one and then authorize this document because we should use the policy the same way we did community advisory handbook,
so that the advisory committees know how we are expecting them to operate and the board agreed upon that and then authorized a second document that still needed board approval to be updated but it's a much faster approval than sending it through the entire policy. So, I think this is a great start. I don't see it just as a style guide but I do see it as having a component of style and I think that getting board direction helps make sure that we don't have any pendulum effect that could happen when we get a new
governance chair. You know, so that way and using the three policies that I know of off the top of my head that went to CBDC, if they don't agree to this, then they could be working on a different set or different policies. So, we need this to be a whole board decision and what I'd love to see is us update these and then take some of the information we have in regulation and merge it here. So, I just see that that would be a beneficial use, to make sure that you have the high cover of the rest of the Board helping give the directive. Yeah, those are great points.
I also think about, so if we review 11 o four, eleven o two, combine as needed, maybe pull some of this, some of the regulation. But do you think this could be in the governance manual? I mean, whatever is too detailed that would really be a regulation, but we're not gonna do regulation. Like, do you think it could live in the governance manual? I think having it I don't have any problem with, like, CBDC or PEC or something like that having governing documents that are that go with each committee because that makes a whole lot of sense. If we want that to live in the governance manual, that's fine.
I think this is very nitty gritty for the governance manual. So we may need to think up a different category of, like, information. Because you're not wrong that we're creating a style that we want all of our I mean, one of the very first things I came when I said, like, I want every single one of our policies to be branded correctly. Like, I've said that for a really long time because people across the country are using our policies as model policies. And so I want to make sure that we have a a footer in every
policy that we have that says who we are. I agree. But and I think that those are very easy things to change. We're not going to change them overnight. We're not going to update all of them, but we can have it happen as we are updating policies to get to the right level. And I've done this for a very long time with curriculum fun, and so I understand the just the game. I will say that to your point, and really fast, to your point about previous versions' archives, I love the idea of having an internal version that we're keeping an
archive for. But otherwise those are already publicly available because they're all on board docs. So, we do have old iterations of the policy. They're just well, it would have been when the board took action. Action. Yes. When the board sorry. They're on board docs under the meeting for when the board takes action. That's what I mean. So there is a historical marker. It's just a little bit different than what I think you're talking about. And so but it it does live. Like, it it is out there. There's there's very little that we do that isn't a 100% transparent to the public. Well, I'd have to look because when we have things that are ten, fifteen, twenty
years old, I don't know I don't know when we digitized all that stuff. But I will say, I mean, I appreciate everything you're saying and and you know, the commitment to it. It also just involves the partnership with the superintendent. I mean, they are producing the documents and if we get stuff that isn't in that format, you know, it's hard. It really, you you know, eats up good energy. The other thing I'll mention is, Actually, I forgot what I was going to mention. Again, I guess it's that time of day.
Doctor. Anderson. Just a quick question. Is what is being discussed right now, Regulation eleven oh four, is the advocacy to have that become a policy? Is Is that what I believe I heard? We already have a policy eleven oh four. It authorizes the regulation. So, what it would be is we would just authorize the second document. I guess not quite my question but that is helpful. My question is, are we saying that we do not need a regulation that speaks to this since these are board policies? That's that we just need to put everything in policies either 11 or four.
So, it would be sunsetting the regulation itself. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, basically, taking that next set of stuff. But you're totally right that it needs to be across the board and indeed this could be a good segue to the CPDC discussion because if we send the three policies there and then they so, yeah. Okay. Or doctor Anderson, you could also have doctor Reed have her regulation on regulations. Because theoretically, her format is actually different than policy format. Right. And I There are things you guys want in policies that she may not need or want in regulations.
So it would make sense. You could switch it. That's actually the recommendation from, deputy Clerk Brown who works on this regularly is that we have the policies and the style guide or some kind of manual for our office and your policies. And then we let the regulation be doctor Reed's regulation since she handles regulations, and then she does with it what she may. Got it. So it's not sunsetting it, but it's, significantly revising it so we could take all the policy related pieces and embed that in either both or one of these two
policies that miss Anderson talked about, 11 o four and eleven o two. So I I think what I'm hearing, at least for me and my next step, is to review those two policies and to bring some of these documents, some of this content, and some of this content into that as one for the board to review. Yeah. And maybe at some point And perhaps style guide is not the right term as you said, right? It's operating manual or whatever it is, but yeah. Ms. St. John Kenny. So I actually have a question for the superintendent in terms of this policy and
asking the superintendent to follow this policy and it would be staffed. Does this look like something that is doable or onerous or what is your feedback on this? Thank you, Miss St. John Kenny. I appreciate the ask. And we're on 11:04 again? I saw the regulation. Oh, is this the new draft template policy? Yeah. We just wanna know what exactly you want and then we'll do it. I just think staff have, struggled a little with which template you want. So as soon as we know this is the template and this is the part
that the staff are responsible for and this is the part that the board wishes to do. I know the philosophy was a big discussion. And so we tried to write it, but we weren't capturing what the board wanted. So, like, we just if the direction is clear, we're on it. Okay. I just sometimes I worry sitting in this seat that sometimes we ask what might be a lot and I just wanted to make sure that was and I do agree with, Doctor. Anderson where we could make this template a little bit easier.
I could see where it could be a check where it's like, does this policy currently have a purpose and we check yes or no? And that would be easier for staff to do as they're reviewing things. Okay. Well, I'm gonna move on because I've already spent many minutes of my life on this. That's enough for today. Okay. Sunsetting policy fifty two ten. Just as a follow-up to that, so I will help to continue to shepherd this through deadline TBD, but we're headed in the right direction. So thank you again to deputy Clark Brown. Yeah. We have a half hour left. Well, we only have, two the next two should be very quick.
The petty cash discussion, policy 5210, so it's actually no longer applicable. And there's been a notice repealing it for a while, but we need to officially repeal it unless anybody feels differently. So, if somebody would like to make a motion, doctor Anderson, would make a motion and, the clerks might be pulling that up. Otherwise I can give you the motion. I'm happy to make a motion. The sunset is sunset policy fifty two ten point four.
Petty cash. Yes. Do I have a second? Miss St. John Cunning? Doctor Anderson, any further thoughts? Yes. I wanna be sure that we are being clear with people who be who could be watching this meeting as to why this is being sunset. Are the money people back there? Can somebody please clarify the reason why we are sunsetting the petty cash is because we don't do petty cash. So I I read from the memo that I believe is posted, controller recommends that this policy be retired because the process for maintaining cash funds up to $2,000 at
each school has been abolished. It is no longer best practice. Can you speak to whether or not schools keep any dollars? If it's not up to $2,000, is it up to a $100, or it's just no cash at all? I'll have to get back to you on that. Because if there's some cash, there's some petty cash. So I'm just thinking there's no cash at all. It's the this particular policy is to establish a funding method to help program managers make minor local purchases through petty cash and that's no longer allowed.
Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Ms. Jean Cutting. Any further comments? No? Okay, then I will call for the vote to sunset policy fifty two ten, petty cash. All those in favor, we have our three governance committee members, and Miss Lady as well. So, that is unanimous for committee members present. Thank you. Alright. The next three facilities policies. So, again, these were determined by the full board at the dais to send to our CPGC committee. If someone wants to define that for me, I don't always remember that acronym.
But, the committee is actually meeting tomorrow. And so they are aware that they're waiting for our official, you know, pass on so they can go to it. And I will be sure to share with mister McDaniel to please make sure they're in the right format when they come back, and then determine I I guess one thing I'd like to know is do we expect to get these back? Like, do you all want to get them back? I don't wanna necessarily get them back. They're gonna come to the board if they're amended as new business, and we will have the opportunity. But, anyway, questions. Doctor Anderson? Yes. I don't know what the process is, but a couple of feedback things.
One, if we could just clean up this language maybe before it even gets there because at some point, we're still going to say it needs to read the Fairfax County School Board recognizes under the philosophy. And, secondly, the implementation, I I I think, for some reason, I believe that parts of the implementation, that speaks to, the superintendent needing to establish regulations, we could just embed that in a purpose because the purpose is to establish the use of value
engineering as standard practice for all school construction. Again, trying to move away from, nomenclature that we do not use. And, that would be my advocacy for us to move the pertinent language because it's fairly repetitive for the most part. It's just adding a few more words to purpose and then we'll be able to get rid of implementation, which is not a title we often use. Okay. I'd like to send it at least to p CPDC with Sure. Those kind of adjustments. So we will send to CPDC with adjustments to fit our formatting preferences.
And miss Brown, were you able to capture what I shared? Oh. She was helping me. Yeah. Oh, okay. Point of order. Let's I think that we can provide because the board voted to actually send the policies as they were presented originally to CPDC, I think that's fine. I think we should include the recommendation from Doctor. Anderson with those policies, but I do not think that we can make the changes ahead of time. Ahead of time. Well, that's true because the changes would have to be adopted by the board. Thank you. But we do need to vote to send them over, which is the purpose of putting them on the agenda now. So we do.
This is why it's on the agenda right now. Is that the case for all three? There were some that that went to the board, and so they only one that went. And so these need to be Yeah. That the governance is sending. So we don't have to send to the whole board to then send to CPDC. So let's go ahead. The motion will essentially it'll be on the screen in a moment, but the motion will be to send the three policies listed there over to CPDC. And we will read the full motion in a moment. But in the meantime, does anyone wanna move that motion? Miss Saint John Cunning? And And second?
Oh, okay. Well, I'll I'll read it. Yes. Doctor Anderson, would you like to second, please? Sure. Okay. Miss St. Johnani, do you wanna speak to your motion? No. We call it. Yeah. Okay. Doctor Anderson? Yes. For policy 8335 Mhmm. I just also wanna point out that the philosophy section is not a philosophy section. That is more of a procedure. And, again, that's a note for, CBDC for their consideration. So because it's either I they fix it or we end up pulling it up
at the at the dias and redoing all of this. So I'd like for the philosophy section to be addressed in 8335 to be more in alignment with the philosophy that we've had. And, again, just another question, the responsibility section that speaks to the school board shall comply with all federal, state, and local laws and regulations. Do we typically call that out? Because I thought we have to. It's just an assumed and embedded understanding.
So that's more of a question that I'd like to have an answer to. And then and then for policy eighty five sixty, I believe the section same thing
as, essentially, the first sentence and what is already in the, in the philosophy. So I just wanted to flag that. Deputy clerk. Yes? Just to clarify, that was all regarding policy 8335? No. 8560. Okay. 8560 is the one that has gone to the board already. I'll try to do some of the fixing in the others, but that one is has stands. So hold on. 8560 is listed here, though, to sending the governance. So what can it be edited there?
So it had gone before the full it had gone before governance to go before the full board. So it's here because it was another c p we were cutting it off ahead of time rather than sending it to the full board and then sending it back to CBDC. So, I mean, we'll find out. If I can edit it, I'll edit it. If I can't, I'll give the suggestions. Sure. But but to be clear, CBDC can edit these policies as they see fit and bring them to the full board for us to all approve. Okay. So this is the motion as I understand it that, the governance committee send to the comprehensive planning and development committee policies eighty two seventy five, eighty three thirty five,
eighty five sixty for review and final sending to the full board for action. Does that sound like what we want? Okay. I'm gonna call for the vote. All those in favor? We've got three in the room and miss Lady. So that is unanimous for committee members. Okay? Wonderful. Alright. Now they're a follow-up on three policies that we had asked for more information about. Forty nine fifty about sexual harassment, forty four twenty five about lactation support programming, and 4520 about employee organization certification procedures. We had asked I just wanna quickly review why we had asked for more information.
So for forty nine fifty, sexual harassment, we wanted it to be clear about is it about preventing such harassment or addressing it if it happens. And so the changes have been made to make it clear that it's a statement about that we will not tolerate it, and it's, you know, it's not doesn't have a place in our school system. Forty four twenty five, lactation support programming, there were some concern that the language was, a little too, subjective and what we wanted to do is make the language more aligned with what data and research say, which is that breastfeeding is supported by research
as being healthy for children. And then also we need to remove the reference to the pronouns, his or her designee. So that has been updated in terms of the language, not yet the designee. And then employee organization certification procedures, there was confusion over this given collective bargaining, and we just wanted to make sure of which organization certification we were talking about. So the policy has been updated to reflect collective bargaining, now being in effect. So if anyone has any comments on those three? I find that for me, they're all okay except for in 4425.
Please do just remove that pronoun reference and make it the division superintendent to take appropriate action when complaints are received. So I did, at the end. What did I say?
Yeah. Is it is it the wrong one? This one is. Yes. 4950. Oh, look. I had the wrong one. Doctor Anderson, did you have a comment? Yes. I'm I'm sorry. Did she turn her mic on? Sorry. I apologize, miss lady. I'm just looking to read the philosophy, a clean copy. Thank you. And I was talking about 4950. Oh, I'm on 4425. So I'm not in sequence. No. Well, my thing was the last sentence on the first page in forty nine fifty, removing the his or her designee. Okay. So the philosophy now with Fairfax County recommend?
Just one quick thing. Should it be that the Fairfax County accordingly, the school division shall provide breaks of reasonable length? That would kinda be a legal question. Right? Because it's if it's in the code, they must provide them then. The Foster, is shall inappropriate here? I think that you could, leave it as is or you could, use shall. Because it just seems to make sense given that we have shall in the next sentence as well. So I I'd like for that to be considered, miss Marion.
I guess, I I don't I think we're getting into the wordsmithing that pulls us off our we also had other things before, so I I don't I don't really see the need to change it. I'm fine with the way it is. It's substantially different than the last version, which we had more challenges with. So yep. Alright. I do wanna keep this moving. So are you making a motion? Or Doctor Harrison, are you making a motion?
Okay. Okay. Then can we have a motion to approve these? So then okay. Alright. So there's a motion, I move to send policy forty nine fifty, sexual harassment, policy forty four twenty five, lactation support programming, and policy forty five twenty, employee organization certification procedures to the full board for action. Is there a motion, miss St. John Cunningham? And a second? I'll second. Thank you, miss Lady. Any further thoughts, miss, St.
John Cunning? No. I I actually think that in in the policy where it says provides or shall provide, I think provides is actually stronger because it's not it's just saying it's we're just doing it. Alright. Well, if someone wants to change it, you're welcome to make a motion. Otherwise, we are in the motion making process now. Are you done? I I mean, are you making a you're making the main motion. I'm making the main motion, but I don't have it in front of me. You read it. Right? Yes. It's just I moved to send policy three policies to the full board.
Full board. Okay. And then, miss Lady, any further comments on your second? Nope. Thanks. Okay. So all those in favor of moving to send policy 4950, 4425, and 4520 to the full board for action, please, raise your hands. Yes. We're doing all three. Okay. All those in favor, please raise your hand. Miss St. John Cunning, myself, and, I can't see miss Lady if her hand is up. It is up. Okay. All those opposed? Okay. Doctor Anderson is opposed. Will the clerk read the vote, please? The vote is three one. Okay. So those are gonna go to the board.
Okay. Well, we got three through. So future planning. Our next meeting is March 17, which I know is tough for you, miss Lady, but I promise that I'll wear green if others wanna wear green on Saint Patrick's Day. So clearly, we're gonna talk about AI policy. Do we want to dedicate more time? I mean, I think at least at least half the time is appropriate. We still have the backlog that we're working through. There's also been some work done by several colleagues on the calendar policy, policy is based on input from the community that, yep, this is the end of the four
day weekend, and it's really not great. So we're trying to be responsive to the public, we board members. So their thoughts about making some time to review a draft that some folks have put together, that's an option. And then I'd have to check back with miss, Brown, our deputy clerk, about what else is next on the the list. Miss Brown? I would advocate going through the some of the 5,000 series. The financials. And then if any of the 6,000 series are ready, then that those there are some things in the 5,000 series that are more like the sunsetting we did today
where it's a procedural law thing that's changed. So less less, less for us to decide. Okay. So the it's Agenda could be first hour for the our AI policy discussion, then looking at the 5,000 series, which are our financial policies, and then any of the 6,000 technology series that are ready. How does that sound? And then, calendar policy, what are thoughts about that? We have time, think about it. Okay. So we're kind of agreed on AI policy, five thousands and six thousands.
And we'll see about the calendar. Okay. Well, with that, the meeting is adjourned at 05:50. Thank you.