I do not think that starting, bringing a plan forward in March, and trying to implement it in August is really five months. It's It's not likely that any plan would be implemented in the '26. There would need to be more thoughtful planning done. So I think at the soonest, it could be implemented or at least the beginnings of a plan could be implemented in the '27. So if this were brought to the board, comprehensive plan were brought to the board
in March and if the board gave you a full blessing, go with the full force by you, will you not be able to implement that by August 2020? Is that your assessment? Yes. But I don't wanna give a first message out to public that that with all the boundary discussion going on, whether this is gonna be another big factor inching that discussion. So I I haven't begun the planning yet because you haven't voted to direct me
to do so. But I think that it may not be possible to bring every other middle school online even in the same year. You know, we have to be thoughtful about any significant change of this magnitude. There's a reason likely that this wasn't done a number of years ago, right? So, I would really want to be thoughtful about planning this and middle schools on
board with a program. Because we want to make sure the program is thoughtful. There are certification requirements that are because we want to make sure the program is thoughtful. There are certification requirements for teachers who teach in the advanced academic program. And there's not, we can't just dissemble current centers and have enough staff to cover every middle school. So there's some, we have to backwards plan, right? Because we want to engineer success for our children and our staff. So, I would predict that whatever plan I bring to you in March would not begin the implementation till the '27 and likely it would not be a full scale
move in the '27. It likely will take several years because we have to build the capacity of our staff to provide the programming in all middle schools. Thank you. Thank you for your thoughtful responses. I think that provides a lot of clarification toward this motion. Yes, sir. Miss St. John Kenny. Thank you. I am really happy to see this motion. Like many of my colleagues, I believe that every student and all students can raise, can rise to, are capable to rise to the level of expectation that is presented to them. And sometimes, that is presented to them.
And sometimes that comes at different times, and if you are not at a specific center, then you may not have that opportunity. I think every school should be offering an advanced academic program. I don't think we should call it a center, it should be just an advanced academic program across the board for middle schools, eventually across the board for elementary schools because it does help those students to be in a school that is in their students to be in a school that is in their neighborhood and it also helps them to sometimes be those role models for those kids that are right on that
verge of being able to advance. And I've seen that happen so many times. But if you segregate those kids out, then that opportunity is lost. And so we are providing academic support for those kids that need it at level, but there's also leadership opportunities and the development of that child in other capacities that will make them a strong individual, in helping support other students as well. So this is something that I know will take time and that it does have to be done thoughtfully, and I think that eventually we'll get there, but I am
really happy to see this because I have seen this work in other schools that become local level fours in elementary schools. And all of a sudden these kids that would not have gone to the center are taking these advanced classes. And that's what we want, we want that opportunity for all our kids. So I'm happy to support this. Thank you, Ms. Jenn Cunningh. I'm gonna go ahead and take a turn real fast and then we've got some go backs. The cool part about the implementation of a plan like this means that we don't actually need community engagement. Because if we offer it at every school then it's not necessarily talking.
The other cool part is that it's not actually going to impact boundaries because you're not moving kids and it doesn't impact capacity the same way. We can actually keep kids in the base school where we expected them to be. So, there are some benefits to this, coming up with this plan. I also see a huge, this was one of the first conversations I had with Doctor. Reed after I came on the board, is that I agree wholeheartedly that we need to review our current AAP offerings and figure out what our plan is moving forward. I see this as a best time to plant a tree is thirty years ago or today, is that we're just going to get started here and then have that
be an ability give us the ability to open up a larger conversation in the future. So I wholeheartedly agree with this. I also think that this is essential if we're going to continue, along the path that I hope that we're absolutely going to continue related to TJ admissions is that if we have offerings at every school or if we're taking kids from every school then we need to best prepare them to be successful, in those locations. So, as far as I know, there could potentially also be cost savings related to reducing transportation costs and in addition, I think that because we're educating children in classes
anyways, it's not necessarily an additional cost in the same way that we would expect because of the fact that the students are just identified for a particular class within a school. So I see nothing but positives here. I do necessarily I absolutely agree that we need to do some work on the back end to make sure that we are still headed in the direction that we want to be headed in. But I think that this is just a stop along that path, so I'm in support. I'm in support. I'm in support. I'm in. But I think that this is just a stop along that path, so I'm in support. We're moving on to go backs with Miss Lady. So just a couple points of clarification. I was referencing, when kids travel travel serve as a pod, that is the AAP
court cohort in an AAP center. I'm not a huge fan of that. I do believe, in the high school model that, it might be the kids take everything at the advanced level, but it might be that they don't. But we need high academic expectations of all learners. I do think this is gonna be cost neutral or save money, because as my colleague referenced, transportation is gonna change. I think at present, I have kids who could walk to Herndon, Middle, but they are on a bus to go to Hughes. So these kinds of things will change, and in terms of boundaries, you're going to
your neighborhood school. I also agree. I think people need to fully understand this is a plan that Doctor Reed's gonna bring. It's gonna be a scaffolded, implementation because it takes time. And the other thing I'll say is I was at Marshall High School. We transitioned from, AP to IB. And the IB training theory is that, you know, if you teach IB, you teach standard. And so the more teachers we get trained in academics that also teach standard kids, the better the teaching is across the board. Again, the more PD we can get for teachers and more enhances what's in their
toolkit. But I think it's important people to understand, that that would be my vision and it was always when that that would be my vision and it was always when I was working to build a master schedule, I didn't want someone teaching just AP. I like people teaching AP, but I like them teaching some courses scaffolded at different levels. And I think it's important. I think it helps our kids and I think it helps, the the teaching that's taking place. So, again just wanna, you know And and ultimately we would lose the term center. You would just go to your middle school, because that's it would have all the
programming that you need. I think it's time that we we start making sure that our neighborhood schools have all the programming our kids need, instead of taking them away from their neighborhood schools because of a program that's that they don't have. So again, I'm very excited about this motion, but do understand that this is going to take some time, and I'll be patient in that process. Thank you, miss Lading. Mister Dunn. I I just wanna highlight. I I love this, as as a template plan for a number of years.
And as I talked to Adnan, against the plan for a number of years. And as I talked ad nauseam at the last board meeting, I really like plans because without plans, you know, it's just a dump bunch of people going in different directions. So a plan is something that you can put on paper, you can publish to the public, and then hold, FCPS accountable to accountable to over over a number of years and perhaps over a number of superintendents, because sometimes progress takes, a very long time. I think this is great, and and I hope this does become a model for
other, advances, progress that we're looking to make in order to ensure universal access, equal access to programming, mister Dun miss Merritt. So again, I support expanding access to opportunities. I also support planning out the work and the resources to make that happen. You know, in the near future, reviewing the calendar ahead leading up to March 2026, we have the boundary work scheduled to complete in January 26, the Western High School
programming at the same time. Just got word that our Joint Facility Review Committee, of which myself and another member are on with the Board of Supervisors, a new committee that is tasked with finding budget savings on our facilities. That's gonna start, at the October and there's like five or six meetings between then and March that are gonna need our staff in budget facilities and, operations to help us make the best case to the Board of Supervisors about where we can find savings. That's gonna take a lot of work and we have a companion committee on technology. We are also gonna be developing the budget, which again last year included no new
investments, and developing the comprehensive, the capital improvement program, general assembly advocacy. So, you know, we had conversations about expanding world language and we could have all the best ideas, but if we don't have money and time, we are really just it's not gonna happen. So I'm concerned that this is putting forth a new initiative. When the superintendent last year presented in her budget a budget without any new initiatives, and we didn't get a $120,000,000, and now we're approving a new initiative with $0
attached to this. I heard more training for PD, looking at International Baccalaureate as a model. Wonderful program, very expensive. We're gonna need time. And by the way, all of our elementary school teachers, they're still learning how to implement the brand new reading program that is in year two. So, you know, we need to do the work to get the money. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. But we just I just don't understand how we're gonna do this well. And again, the best practice is not to create centers.
From what I understand, because I haven't been publicly briefed about it. Thank you, miss Marron. I will call for a vote on the motion, which will momentarily be on the screen. All those in favor, Mr. McDaniel, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore Heizer, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Doctor. Anderson, Mr. Fresh, and myself. Those opposed? Miss. Marin. Will the clerk please read the vote? The vote's eleven one, the motion carries. Thank you. Agenda item 7.01, performance review instructional program EL nine monitoring report.
Each year the school board assesses the superintendent in part on the basis of the school division's reasonable progress towards achieving the 23 to 30 strategic plan goals and adherence to a set of 13 executive limitations found on pages 14 through 31 of the Board's Strategic Governance Manual. The superintendent provides annual monitoring reports to the board for the each executive limitation. The Board then votes on whether the provided report is in compliance or if corrected action is needed. I call on Doctor. Reid for a monitoring report on Executive Limitation nine, Instructional Program.
So, thank you Madam Chair, members of the Board, and public. As the Chair just mentioned, I'll be presenting Executive Limitation nine which discusses the instructional program here in FCPS. So, paraphrasing this evening, the, Executive Limitation nine talks about maintaining a program of instruction for all students, within the division strategic plan goals. And at the time of this report to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, I've gathered information and evidence that I believe supports compliance with the board's executive
limitation associated with this topic and would like to share some highlights this evening. There are currently 11 areas of Executive Limitation nine. On the slide before you, we have items one through five. And on the second slide, we have items six through 11. And for those watching at home, the entire monitoring report is attached to BoardDocs. And feel free to follow along. This evening, I will highlight some of the newly added or updated areas of Executive
Limitation nine. So, one of the things we looked at, on 05/22/2025 budget follow on motion update. I wanted to provide an update on that as, it was an opportunity to report back in this executive limitation and that was the request. So as you see in the chart, the both the Elementary Special Education Department Chairs and AARTs remained level, this school year. So, the, follow on motion update, generates, information that was consistent with the board, direction.
On the next slide, under new and newly added information, we have some updates regarding our work around inclusion. And again, there's a lot in the report that's not new or updated, but that we consistently manage. But these are new year over year. Year. We continue to partner with our inclusion experts to support schools as we identify areas of growth. This work includes improvements to the IEP process, our staffing models to remove systemic barriers to inclusion, and having a series of asynchronous professional development modules on inclusive practices for
all staff. Some of which will be rolled out, I believe later next month, in October, which is our division professional development day. In January, the Superintendent's Advisory Committee for twice Exceptional programming was launched and that was a new, committee last year. The committee is working on reviewing current structures and practices that impact our Twice Exceptional learners and offering recommendations at increasing access and development of unique programming for our twice exceptional students.
One of the, outcomes of that group was also information that was handed out at back to school nights this evening or this evening, this fall, for back to school nights as well as, creating definitions and a framework that will build on the twice exceptional handbook that, was developed several years ago. Another bit of new or newly added information were the secondary grading and reporting guidelines that were updated for school year twenty five-twenty six. The FCPS learning model, which represents last year's to match up and align with our
strategic plan goals as well as teacher evaluation performance standards. The basal resources that were purchased last year were new kindergarten through sixth grade and will be continued to be used. And our English language development common assessments will be fully implemented this school year. And these help us monitor our multilingual learner we fully implemented this school year. And these help us monitor our multilingual learner student progress. Those are all new, pieces in our instructional programming. Another section of new or newly added information, staff is working to develop a plan
for expanding our CTS programming and services, our career and transition support programming and services. As we've noted, we've expanded access to Algebra I and sixth grade this year. And we continue to enroll more students in Algebra I by eighth grade with the same very high Algebra I pass rates in grades six through eight as you've seen previously. We're also, just really excited about the opportunity, to provide these, opportunities for our learners. At, as we shared in previous academic matters, our algebra power up which occurred during
the summer for the first time this year combined our AVID, strategies with a transition into Algebra I for eighth grade and middle school. And finally, to support learning over the summer, we created a summer learning resources webpage for families. We will have students currently one of the things we're working on right now is making sure that our younger students are able to take their devices home more regularly. That way they spend less time on screen in the classroom. And if they wanna use, screen time for support at home, that is preferable at
this point, as well as making sure next summer those will be accessible to students, to take home for the summer to match our resources online. So at this time Madam Chair, this concludes the summary of the monitoring report for Executive Limitation nine. I wanna add one point just at the end, because this is our instructional executive limitation. I want to make sure that the Board knows that I'll be drafting and bringing for your consideration an increase in our graduation requirements around mathematics as part of an instructional program strategy, which would start with next year's seventh grade class.
Class. But I do think we need to think about, requiring algebra trig as a graduation requirement. A number of, a majority of other states already require that. Virginia does not. But it is a key skill set for our students to have that level of mathematic understanding when they leave Fairfax County Public Schools. For trade and technical school, it's a necessity. To pass apprenticeship exams, it's a necessity. It's the foundation on which the SAT exams are written. It's a gate keeping course for many chemistry and physics courses. So I think that even if our state is not requiring it as a graduation
requirement, it's I think plausible that we join 40 other states in this country and require it here in Fairfax County Public Schools. So So I'll be drafting that with our Instructional Services team, with a phase in approach because we wanna make sure our students are aware of the, requirement in plenty of time to be able to, complete that requirement. So Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to present EL nine. Thank you Doctor. Reid. I now call on Ms. Dixit for a motion.
I move that the school board finds that the superintendent is in compliance with executive limitation number nine, instructional program. I further move that the school board approve the monitoring report based on the super reasonable interpretation of executive limitation number nine instruction program as outlined in the strategic governance manual. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, mister McDaniel. Miss Dixit, would you like to speak to your motion? I would just like to say that doctor, Reid, you know, the algebra in, you know, eighth grade is, is a step in the right direction.
But what you envision is actually the trig and as you rise the graduation. I totally agree full 100%. We are in that competitive world right now. Our students are going to be facing a lot more challenges and, you know, just to get a decent job and with the changing environment. So, I think it's, it's amazing and I definitely, would like to see this moving forward. Yeah, thank you, Ms. Dix. Today, the current research says math limits 84% of your career choices and Algebra Trig
is a cornerstone of that. And if our students are completing Algebra in eighth grade, geometry in ninth, that gives them three years still to, right, you could be in Algebra Trig trig by 10. So I think it's a very reasonable requirement as long as we start with a phase in. Mr. McDaniel, would you like to speak to your second? Just that I, you know, we're this board is getting to the point where we're about going to be halfway through our term and I'm speaking for myself, I know when I get to the end of my term, I want to look back and
really be able to point to instances where we keep raising the bar of academic expectations and that's really what this EL what I really focus on with this EL. It just happened that this EL came tonight after the previous conversation that we just had, it was totally random, but you've been very consistent at raising the bar on academics across the entire division, so happy to second and support. Across the entire division, so happy to second and support you. Miss mister Judd. Thank you. Can you provide more information on the current status of the implementation of the Science of Reading, the benchmark literacy curriculum?
Sure. We continue actually, it's year two of the basal curriculum and our elementary team has been working really hard. The reading plans also, which are a requirement, I think the State requires those K-eight and Fairfax County requires those to be added for the ninth through twelfth graders, because we know that not every student benefited from the early literacy curriculum work in the work and the science of reading because it's a very recent initiative in the last several years. Our elementary staff have I think this year seen the year two of the curriculum
is much smoother. I think teachers have become more comfortable with it and students are more comfortable knowing the routines because they've had a year of practice of those routines, prior to the next year. So we're excited about some of the progress. And as you recall, Mr. Dunn, last year was the first year we had multi lingual student paired materials for literacy, which we've never had in the division previously. And so that's a body of work that our multi bilingual staff in concert with our general education staff, have really done a fabulous job of learning how to, braid
that into our literacy work. So we're hoping for much stronger data this year, because it, you know, it's brand new last year. So we're really hoping to see, some growth this year. That's great. Can you advise, like, what level of complaints you've received about the benchmark curriculum? I've received a few, but certainly not the same volume as last year. So I think that we have students at times that have said that it's not the most exciting literature, and I would probably agree. It's teaching reading, right, and writing.
It's also requiring a lot more writing than we had traditionally been doing, which I really appreciate. I think we're we as staff I think have one year of its use. I think there's a lot it's a lot smoother than it originally was. So I think I've received fewer concerns, about it this year. And I also wanna note that there is no perfect curriculum, right. That, they're gonna be we hope children are reading at home, that they're utilizing our
public libraries, and our school libraries. Our librarians work really hard to make sure we have books that are high interest for children. So if they're not seeing some of the literature in the benchmark that might, you know, libraries, I think we have some of the best librarians in the country. And I've seen some of the book collections and they're amazing. So I think there is always a balance, but I haven't heard as many concerns, this year as I did last year. I agree with you.
Can you advise I know that there was some discussion in past board meetings about, introducing a new math curriculum that might I don't think it's called the science of math. But is do you have plans or are you already implementing a new math curriculum in our elementary schools? We are still in that selection process. We're piloting a few, different curricula. We know that a high quality curriculum is critical. We have to have that. And I know there's not a science of math, but I'm gonna share that direct explicit instruction of mathematics is just as important as direct explicit instruction of literacy.
So I think there's a high need for our young learners to master basic math facts, because your ability to have fluent numeracy is important, just as fluency in reading is important. So, more to come on a new math curriculum, but, we should have something on board for the fall, of 'twenty six. And for those new math curricula, are you looking at, best practices from Finland, Singapore, South Korea, countries that have, you know, high achievement in math outcomes?
I know the Committee is looking at a lot of those, at the best practice for sure and research based strategies. I know that the TIMSS report, which is the International Report on Math and Science, one of the, issues they continue to raise year after year with The United States is how much review we do. We tend to review more than most other countries so that often as our children get older, our scores become less and less competitive. So I think what we wanna do is make sure that whatever curriculum we select
that, you know, that we're able to minimize some of the reviewing because the new content in mathematics is also very important to get to. I met with, an elementary school leadership recently and they mentioned that they had lost, seven instructional staff as a result of the budget cuts last year that were mentioned early in your report. Some of those were classroom monitors. Some of them were, you know, positions lost due to the trade offs to maintain Right. The AARP, full time and the SPED chair.
And I just wanted to ask, you know, we're we're asking in that context for that bolster staffing, right, within the limits of, can do to to bolster staffing, right, within the limits of of our budget to enable, you know, elementary schools to have the resources they need? Because among the challenges are that you will have a part time ART or a
full time ART doing, you know, the the young scholars and many other missions, and it's just not and each of those missions is is is a full person. Right? So how can we, you know, make sure that we keep on track, especially with advanced math and other important kind of division wide goals if if we're asking them to to, we're not cutting back the requirements. Right? But we're we are cutting back the staff. So I think that that's something we're going to have to look at in our upcoming budget discussions is how we allocate staff.
And the I think we clearly need to make sure that, our classrooms are focused on first. Right? But I think that's a definite conversation we're going to have to have with the budget moving forward. When we're not fully funded, it creates a situation that results in tough choices. And I I think in in the current budget environment, we we can't expect more money, given the cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs that is gonna just put a huge hole in the state budget. So I I just ask, you know, not to come up with any solutions off
the cuff, but definitely for us to think about how to be more efficient or make sure that we are, adjusting the requirements, at the school base level if if we're not providing them all all the staff rather than stretching staff then and asking them to meet unrealistic objectives. Can you talk more about what we're doing to help students who are falling behind? I mean, we've we've talked in the past about the spring sprouts program, which is a great program, but as we've also talked about, that mainly helps the school in terms of, reducing the chronic absenteeism, but it doesn't necessarily catch up the student in
terms of learning. And I do worry about students who fall behind that we don't necessarily have a system to bring them back up on the grade level. So is is is there a plan, since I like plans, that could be developed in a system that could be implemented or considered or thought about to to help students who do fall behind or who may arrive at FCPS's door already behind and and and and there might not be the resources, especially at the middle school and high school level, to get them back up to speed.
Yes, sir. So one of the plans that we did have, was our high impact tutoring, and that's really garnered, some very positive results. I just saw a note this evening. Miss Lemon, do you wanna just share quickly if you can bring that email up? I think you were copied on it. While miss Lemon brings that email up, I think we did have a comprehensive division wide plan for high impact tutoring, And I'd like her to share, the data and kind of give me a sign when you're ready. I'm ready. Alright. Let's hear it.
So for 2024, 2025, students who did not receive tutoring in reading averaged a a six point increase on their SOLs. And students who did receive tutoring from our All in Virginia High Impact Tutoring program, they averaged 14 points increase. And then with mathematics, again, students who did not receive tutoring, they did an average of eight, point growth. And students who were participating in the tutoring did a plus 15. So really supported the acceleration that we were looking to get.
So our high impact tutoring plan worked. However, that money is no longer in the budget. So we're going to have to look at how that plan came to be and how we might otherwise fund and support that work because we know it it works. The importance of getting fully funded by Thank you, Mr. Dunn. That was your time. I can put you on a go back. Doctor. Anderson. I'm very glad to follow that high impact tutoring because as I reviewed my notes from last year, that was one of the questions that I had asked. What is the impact of the high impact tutoring?
And so thank you for sharing that, and it would be great if that was just embedded in here as well. We just got the note tonight. You just got it tonight. Okay. Believe it just came in, like, two hours ago. This one is not. It wasn't in time. Just kind of going through what is here, if you could speak a little bit more clearly to the, strategy of of homework that you've outlined on page two, I believe, of the report where you're talking about homework and the grading of homework. I wanna be sure that community and staff are clear on what those expectations are
because I know we've had much more, extensive discussions about it, which might be helpful for all to hear. Yes, ma'am. We did reinstitute or reinforce the idea of homework and, I'm just trying to pull up my page here real quick. And I think that it's a critical thing to do with the I'm just trying to pull up my page here real quick. And I think that it's a critical, skill set for our young people to learn. And the younger the age that that behavior is practiced, the better. I don't know about the rest of you, but I take things home still, to work on on occasion.
And it's something that's an important, really executive functioning skill we're looking for among our youngest learners and our middle and high school students. We put some guardrails around the expectation, which is we should never have homework that is anything other than practicing something that's already been taught. In other words, it's an opportunity to practice a skill that's already been presented, modeled, practiced and worked on in a class. It also can be used for reading at elementary. I think that children become better readers when they read more.
There's a lot of research around that. That. We know that fine and performing arts students often are asked to practice instruments at home, or practice lines or moves. We know that many student athletes practice some kind of a sport or activity outside the school day. It's a natural part really of learning and growth. Not all learning happens directly in the classroom. So we want to recognize that effort as well. And recognizing that effort within our formative grading structure made the most sense.
So I know that there's, you know, a little back and forth right now because parents are busy and so forth. And I'm gonna say really that, it's really something that we expect students should be able to manage even if parents are busy. Right? That this is a skill we hope, and expect that our that our young, middle and high school students are able to complete homework as a part of a of a learning experience here with us. Sure. Absolutely. Can you speak to the point regarding equity? Because there's conversations that if a student has maybe mister Dunn as the parent, they're
going to go home and review everything. It's gonna come back 100% correct. And if a student happens to have me as a parent and I'm busy doing other things and they don't have that additional support, how are we addressing that piece, which I know is a a high concern for many communities? So many of our parents who are the busiest parents, parents, have said they want their students to have homework because they want them to have an opportunity to practice skills, whether they're working, you know, two or three jobs or taking care of other
family members. But there's a I think we make a lot of assumptions about what families do or don't want in terms of homework or rigor for their students. And I think that in the parent groups, and I meet with many, many different parents across the division each year, there's really a hope that they are able to see what their students are working on and can partner with their children to be successful in school. For those students who have less, adult support when they get home, again, the expectation
is that homework is not new learning, but it's practice of learning that's already occurred in the classroom. And they're they won't necessarily be penalized for not being a 100% correct, but rather the effort of completing the work would be the focus. That's correct. In particular, reading logs. Right? There's I don't know how you incorrectly read for twenty minutes unless you just don't do it. But, you know, we have, like I said, fabulous library collections to enable access to high quality literature for our children.
For our music program, you know, I've kind of stated that, but it's not intended to be a got you or a penalty. It's intended to be something that builds completed this, I also asked questions regarding rigor, how that would be measured, and to ensure consistency across the division. One of the things one of the strategies that you shared that would be utilized are the common assessments. Right. Please provide an update of that. How is that going? What is that showing? Because I don't see that being reflective here.
Yes, ma'am. And that is critical because we heard some concerns that if we're in a certain part of the county, a particular math class was not as rigorous as in another part of the county. And we wanna dispel those, rumors and concerns because we believe that we have high rigorous instruction across all schools in the county and should be accessible to all children. As far as an update on the common assessment initiative, I'm gonna call on Ms. Lemon. I know you've been very involved in that. Do you have a minute or two just to kind of where are we with
that And what are we expecting as a result of that? Sure. We are having windows for, common assessments for different subject levels. And then we have reporting out to the regions and the schools who's participated in those common assessments during that window. And then schools have the ability to really work together to kind of benchmark one another and to work with their regions. And it also supports our team in resources and seeing what schools might need additional
supports and resources to ensure that, you know, children are growing and moving. We also have it on our dashboard. And I would love to see that. Is that something that you can share with us? Again, that doesn't have to be entire dashboard, but a screenshot because I would love love to get a sense of what is happening with those common assessments because I I believe from what miss Lemming just shared, are they optional? Because you said some schools have completed them and some schools have not. Can you speak to that? They're the common assessments are not optional. There's just a window. So there's a window for which the school can choose to take the test.
Okay. Thank you for that. So what are we finding? Where are we having great success and consistency across the division and where do we have more work to do? So I would wanna, before I speak publicly about that, go back to the dashboard and be very clear about that. But I'm happy to provide in an upcoming Friday letter a static point in time, picture from the dashboard. Yes. That would be very much appreciated. Yes, ma'am. One of the things that I also notice here is a professional development regarding, rolling grade book, which I think is important because I don't think we have had, fidelity
with utilizing rolling grade book and with its intent. It's just been something that we say, but it hasn't had the, the provisions behind it. But what I did not see is what is going to be provided for the middle schools that are still using rolling grade book because we have high school courses, high school credit courses happening at the middle school level, which will follow those students and on their, transcripts. Can you speak to that a little bit, please? Sure. Yeah. The we did not wanna add one more thing to middle school teachers this year. So we're not doing any requirement to use a particular grade book at middle school at this time. If middle school at this time.
If they are teaching high school courses, I believe that's where they work with their high school colleagues. But I'll turn to doctor Presidio because, the rolling grade book is an anomaly to me, here. So I'll have doctor Presidio talk about it. Yeah. So, I think as doctor Reed already mentioned, the focus for rolling grade book implementation division wide, is for high schools in school year twenty six, twenty six-twenty seven. And that came out of the work that the Board did last December, passing the new grading and reporting policy, wanting to get consistency with practices.
But as Doctor. Reed mentioned, we're starting with high schools in twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven. So those are the teachers that we're focusing on with coaching, support, professional development. Individuals at the middle school level can choose based on conversations with their administrative team whether or not to use a rolling grade book. Some were previously, some were not. So if teachers need help with anything, whether it's technical setup of a rolling grade book in the student information system or best practices, we're more than happy to provide, on-site support, but we're not doing any coordinated professional development for middle schools because we
want them focused on some of the other priorities like, algebra by eighth grade. Sure. Absolutely. And I don't disagree with giving them the opportunity to focus on some of their priorities, but there is a gap. There is a gap because we do have a number of teachers at that level who are using the rolling grade book, which may not be to students' advantages without the proper training. I'll take go back, please. Thank you, doctor Anderson. Mister Moon. Thank you, madam chair. Just Doctor. Ri, thanks for the presentation. I have a few questions regarding Beige Resources. I'm looking at your report, Page four at the bottom.
I think we all do remember that adoption of social studies based on resources was postponed, while delay being delay due to the budget adjustments we had to make. And so schools I guess teachers are purchasing one year digital subscriptions. Is that Actually, the division purchased one year Division. Okay. So description which is what we had the year before. Whether that actually resulted in savings? We believe it was far less expensive than ordering the basals.
I don't know exactly what the numbers were, but I know the point of this was not to purchase Correct. Spend more money. So, doctor Presidio, do you have a cost for the digital subscriptions for one year? No. Not off the top of my head, but I'd be happy to get that Friday memo and also since couple of colleagues already mentioned about budget, another difficult budget year, what impacts will not having a page of resources adopted for other layer?
How would that impact us in teaching and learning? In social studies? Or or any any page of resources. Well, I think that right now, the, the lack of basal resources in mathematics will continue to be problematic for our ability, to provide the best math experience possible. That's consistent. We talk often about being a school system and not a system of schools and having a basal curriculum. I think mister McElveen and I, I was trying to remember on the first day
of school or maybe it was the second, we were going through classrooms and actually at different schools and very much so saw very similar, content in our literacy, curriculum. Not, you know, in a pragmatic way, but we were able to see concepts taught across grade levels, which is what a school system has. And when you have that level of base curriculum, you have that ability to see that across an entire county. So I think, you know, we've waited one year for math.
We postponed social studies. I don't think we can do both in the same year. So social studies may flip behind math. But, that's in budget that's as tight as ours right now. I think we're gonna have to make choices that are difficult. I mean, we're not we're not, you know, deliberating budget right now, but We're not. If it comes to that if it comes to that, I'm I'm hoping that we'll have a plan to be able to provide the support the students and teachers deserve. And with that said, I another question that I have is the very last sentence
on the same page, at the bottom is schools have the options to purchase additional print textbooks. So are you are you implying that all the schools have necessary resources to purchase additional print textbooks? So there's a long standing tradition here which, I think I learned about in my second year here where we don't buy textbooks for every student at the secondary level. But if schools want to like, there is an adopt well, I'm gonna let doctor
Presidio explain it because you're, the one that explained it to me as I was asking a lot of questions. So, doctor Presidio, the long standing instructional services Yeah. The the short answer to to this is this particular sentence is meant to indicate that if a school was short a number of needed textbooks, hard copy textbooks, that they would use their instructional supply allocation that they get to purchase textbooks were lost or damaged over the last seven years of the adoption cycle.
That's why we provide the schools with those site based funds to be able to make those purchases. We just wanted everybody to know given the fact that we delayed the new adoption of materials that we extended the contract so that we could purchase new print materials as well as digital materials off that contract. What I'm trying to get at is whether you see a among different scooters, why different practices of a purchasing print copies?
No, that's not been the case. We've always whenever we've done adoption, we've given clear guidance about the expectation and different times it's been different. Sometimes it was there needed to be just a class set of hard copy materials and students could check those out if they needed to check them out and take them home. Other adoptions, we did class sets and then individual copies for students. And the major difference of why we've done it differently at different years is how much funding we had available to purchase the materials. So Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moon. Ms. Sizemore Heizer.
Thank you. And, first I just wanted to pass on a compliment. I know the look on our face that I heard from two 2e families as they started the school year and they got an email from the AART to the two e family specifically saying, please let us know how I can help you. I'm here to support your student. And they were very pleasantly surprised and happy because I think that's the first time they felt acknowledged in that way. At least that's what some of them shared with me. So I wanted to pass that on to your team that the efforts are being seen and felt I know sometimes the good stuff doesn't get passed down so I
wanted to pass it to you. I am very excited about this report I think we're doing a lot of really good things. A couple things when we talk about the curriculum to pick up from my colleague on social studies I think it's important as we're moving into as budget chairs or moving into the budget season you know that I had a brief conversation with miss Burton about this earlier about talking about what the impact last year was on the things that we couldn't do and what that means and how the, you know, the literacy basal curriculum, for example, that the board funded a few years ago and the
impact that has made, right, and the impact of having to delay the socialized curriculum and perhaps delayed even longer depending on where our budget situation falls. I just think that knowledge is power. So I think that is important. I am thrilled about the algebra work that we're doing and the early math work we're doing, and I'm thrilled about the literacy work that we started before that. I still have the question around literacy work that's come up before for the students who didn't benefit from science of reading, the ones in middle and high school. I had three meetings today with special education families and this came up for some of our students with today with special education families and this came up for some
of our students with dyslexia who are now in high school but still behind in reading levels. So I would encourage you you don't need an answer today, but encourage you and your staff to think about, especially those who are behind into later grades as what are we doing to target interventions for them. I understand that some of the budget, you know, we don't have the high impact tutoring but there are students who missed out on that. So that's the first thing I would encourage you to look at. I still think that there's room for understanding about Dyslexia and how it how it manifests and and it's great that we're talking about textbooks and books. We gotta make sure in our language that we speak that we don't unintentionally make
someone feel bad if they're an audiobook or they're a a different type of learner. And I think there's a little bit of that happening from what I'm hearing from families. So I think it's important to talk about access to, you know, all of these materials not necessarily reading. So that is the first thing I would mention. I think obviously reading is very important but however people can learn is the important thing to mention. I am very happy to see this work on inclusion as we've talked about before the, the data is clear and the research is clear around these models.
I will say in some of my meetings today there is still some concern about the fidelity of implementation of IEP processes and IEP goals in general. So I would encourage you. I'm glad that we're making improvements on the IEP process, but I encourage you to look at improvements on fidelity of implementation. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Seismar Hauser. Ms. St. John Cunning. Thank you. I wish the I I encourage the public to go and look at the report because it does have a lot more information, and I'm just gonna refer to a
couple of pages here. First of all, great that high school instructional staff are getting that professional development on the rolling grade book. But just for clarification purposes, can you explain that to our public? Because I think some people don't know what that means. Yes, ma'am. I'm gonna have Doctor. Presidio explain it. So a rolling grade book differs from a traditional grade book. And I think most of us when we went to school probably were on a traditional grade book that at the end of a quarter or at the end of a semester, the grading window would close and you would have whatever grade you had
for that term, and then the next term would start over fresh and you would earn a new grade, and then at the end of the year all those grades would be averaged together. A rolling grade book stays open from the first day of school till the last day of school, and it gives the opportunity for students, to make up work, that maybe they didn't master, you know, the month previously or the quarter or semester previously. So it gives them more opportunities to demonstrate mastery. And, you know, one of the things that we found that our teachers and our administrators really advocate for is that we believe that all of our students are capable
of achieving at the highest standards, but we know that learning sometimes takes a different amount of time for, you know, different individuals. So the rolling grade book gives students that flexibility that if they didn't master something in the first quarter, but they did it in the second quarter, that their grade doesn't have to be averaged against their performance from a prior quarter. Now they've been able to demonstrate it. They can get credit for that and they can continue to move on. So that's the main difference with the rolling grade book and then there's technical things with the setup and everything, but that's the main difference. Thank you. And then, on page five, doctor Reed, can you speak a little bit about the
summer learning resource web page that you provided for families? Because I think that was a great resource and I really love that it was provided in different languages. Yes, ma'am. That was a new initiative, this past summer and we hope to build on that for the coming summer. But it's really an opportunity for children not to lose a lot of the gains they've made during the school year. There's a term summer slide that's often attributed to, students learning, their grade level material and then leaving school for six to eight weeks and then coming back and not
maybe remembering everything. So we wanna make sure and next summer as well, we're gonna be building out those resources and making sure that our children are able to take a device home over the summer if their family chooses to and be able to access those resources to maintain, at least in the core academic areas, an opportunity to practice over the summer. What we discover, I think, and what research tells us is one of the most important resources we have is time. And so how we choose to use time, either during the school days, before and
after school, summers, weekends, breaks, can make all the difference for children that are either behind or children, that have a desire to explore new content. We're really examining all the ways in which we can use time differently. Thanks. I love that. And then, okay, page seven and eight. World languages. I think there's some really I just would like for you to speak to the Support of the students that earned the seals of biliteracy because I just think that's pretty amazing. So we're really excited about that.
The opportunity to earn a seal of biliteracy really recognizes our multilingual students in particular for their strengths. As a challenge as much as it is a strength. And I had a good time, Even our student, board member, Faith, which she's was at SAC this week. I asked the SAC group, like, how many of the, students in the room spoke more than one language? Where and it was easily two thirds of the students in the room. And I think we need to recognize that many of our young people do speak multiple languages, and that is a strength. So, I I think that the opportunity and the promotion of the seal of biliteracy
is something we're gonna continue. Yeah. So just for the record, 4,041 of our students, received the Virginia seal of biliteracy, and that's an award that's made by the state Department of Education. And that's I think that's pretty impressive. It's yeah. Over 4,000. I think it's incredible. So thank you for noting that. I'll make sure the team is aware of that. And, again, these are all things that, were in the report and were not in the presentation. The question I was gonna ask you is, you know, the success rate that we've seen with that, you know, high impact tutor, tutoring, and how we could expand and
support that and the fact that there's no funding. I'll I'll just go ahead I mean, if you could just read some of the statistics, it's on page 15, in terms of what the impact was and their annual typical growth because that's very impressive. So I'm going to, on page 15 of the report, and this was the All Inver Virginia funding, which we were actually very grateful for and made extraordinary use of. So we did have not sure which data you want to prefer that I read,
but we did do in person tutoring. We had over 10,000 students that were, tutored. Of those who participated in the reading tutoring, thirty eight point nine passed their reading SOL with an average growth of 14 points from the prior year, which I think, is really an extraordinary growth point, for our young students. And the math, again, they had an average growth of 15 points from last year's math SOL. So on average, students in grades three through eight who were below grade level in reading and received high impact tutoring made 134% progress to their annual typical growth, which,
that's incredible. And on average, elementary students in grades three through six who were below grade level in math and received high impact tutoring made a 114% progress in their annual typical growth, as well as, close to 4,000, 3,953 students or 41.61% that received tutoring had fewer absences this year compared to last year. I think it matters when students feel like there's, you know, that level of support,
because we're often drawn to something. We're motivated by doing something that feels good. And when you're tutored and feel like you have more of a mastery and you're confident, more confident as a learner, I think it's easier to show up, right, every day. So it it's really, shared some definitely positive, data for us. I just think that this is the kind of thing that we have to highlight to our funders and say we have seen and we have the data that shows this works. But right now, we don't have funding for it.
So if we wanna continue to be the stellar school system that we are, we need to be able to fund this programming. Then finally, I would like you to speak a little bit along kind of the same trajectory, but this is on page 17, the Twilight program, because I think that's also really important for some of our older students, particularly some of the kids at work. Yes, ma'am. So the Twilight program really is a flexible credit recovery program and, it supports students' on time graduation. And we had 12 high schools participate this year serving three forty four students, which
marked a 29% increase over the previous year. Of the students involved, ninety five percent were either promoted or graduated because of their coursework, and this achieved the primary goals of the program, wherein 426 courses were completed over the 12 high schools. Thank you. I think I could probably point to a lot more, but those were the few that I just really wanted the public to to hear and to listen to see the success that we were, reaching and thanks to the hard work of all of the staff in our system.
So thank you for highlighting that. Yes, ma'am. Miss Dixon. Doctor Reed, I just have a quick remark or maybe you need to get your feedback. You know, AI is in everything in everyday life. How's FCPS planning to incorporate AI for instruction design and, also, preparing our students for that future? Well, so I'm really excited to share that we're gonna be doing a presentation for the board on October 7 at our work session, session, on AI.
And really an evening, November 3, I think we finally settled on, that is we're titling meeting the moment, right? We feel like we, are really needing to involve our community in shaping the direction that we wanna take with AI as we move forward. And also level setting so we have a community wide understanding of what we're talking about when we're talking about AI. Because it's become, I think, such a common term that I sometimes feel like I
have one, like, bubble over my head about what I think it is, but you might have a different bubble, but we're sort of talking like we're talking about the same thing. So I think the work session is going to be an opportunity to level set, where we are as a school division. And then the community evening is an opportunity to bring our community to the table and talk about how we shape our future, for our twenty second century skills. We also have a strong partnership with ISTE, the International Society for Technology in Education. Richard Collotta is the CEO.
They've partnered with ACSD. ASCD? ASCD. ASCSD. And, so we're very excited about that partnership. We kicked off the third cohort of our Lighthouse Schools, earlier this week, and you'll hear more about that partnership and what AI looks like, in that. But we're very excited about, planning forward in that space. Thank you. Mr. Dunford, go back. I love the conversation about AI, although I've been somewhat skeptical about AI generally. But I wanted to just bring your attention to a new study that was published,
on September 16 by Google. And the whole concept is learn your way is what they call it, and it's personalized learning. And it's actually the first usage of, gender of AI, and I'll circulate the, the PDF report, to you. But it's, it's, not just theoretical. They actually put together personalized, content through their generative AI platform, Gemini, and then they went out and had it tested by independent experts, which I think is exciting because they could take a single textbook, which is, you know, locked in stone once it's
printed, right, once it's published, and they could, from that, through the AI, drive content for different grade levels based based on that single point of contact and, also adapt it to different learning styles. So if you're an auditory learner, if you're a visual learner, if you're a kinesthetic learner, they could adapt it just through this generative AI. And I think that is so powerful because that for me represents the most transformational application of AI that that I've seen outside of perhaps, the medical and scientific fields.
That really could, help us to ensure that every child is getting the individualized support they need with the support of this robust platform, obviously, with the, oversight and assistance of a of a in person human teacher because that those human social connections are what guide the learning process. But, I I do hope that FCPS, being a leader in the AI, in education field already, will will actively look at this. And since it already has a a partnership to some degree with Google, build on
that and and see if we can, pilot it to some extent. Yes, sir. I I know we're taking a look at that as well as ConomeGo. We've looked at that, and those follow into the high impact tutoring ideas, without sort of the human that is part of the process, but definitely opens up doors for us for our multilingual students as well as students who just need a personalized support plan. And I think that's really all students these days. You know, I think everyone needs a little bit of extra help.
Thank you. Yes, sir. Doctor. Anderson. Thank you. I do have a question for Ms. McComb. She had to leave, but she did ask me to ask her question, which is can you share the specific developments, I'm sorry, the specific improvements in the IEP process? And she'll just take your answer. Sure. Thank you. Doctor. Presidio, do you wanna relay those, please? I know you've been working with, Doctor. Edmunds Hurd on that. Yeah. So there's a number of things that we've been working on. The first thing is we've been working with our consultants, the Internet actually, they're international
experts in the area of inclusion to review all of our IEP documents and our entire IEP process to make process improvements. So one of the first things that we did is update our IEP checklist to really clarify the things that we want to make sure are discussed in every single IEP meeting. And we've included some of the new work that the Board has done even recently with the cell phone accommodations for students with disabilities that's included on the IEP checklist now. We've worked to make sure that as part of that process, we're looking at the
ability for parents and students on the front end to really speak to students' strengths, because oftentimes in the past, I think we jumped immediately to services that were needed without really fully exploring the strengths that students had, and thinking about the types of accommodations and modifications that would enable them to be successful in the general ed setting. So we're working on that process. And, there's a lot more work that needs to be done, but we're pretty excited to be partnering with the consultants we have, again, looking at every single document that
we use in the IEP process. Thank you. Now I'm going to finish with the rest of my questions. Some things that I see that were missing from this because of previous discussions, just some focus on closing the achievement gaps, just kind of some of that data really lives in instructional services, as well as any plans or progress on writing, which we know has been an issue, and thirdly, just the reading performance of students who are in the sixth grade middle schools because we know that their teacher prep was not the same.
Well, the structure was not the same. We've had some workarounds, but I'd like to see a comparison between like students, are we having similar performances? As well as on the last page, I noticed all the field trips. Thank you for providing that, but what seems to be missing here is how are we taking advantage of TJ's Planetarium, which in years past has been open for schools to visit as, on a field trip. And I don't think I've heard about that in quite a few years. I would have to defer to doctor Presidio about the use of TJ's Planet arium.
Yeah. So thank you for noticing the attachment on the field trips. We just included that to really highlight that's, the division sponsored, field trips that we have. So obviously, I'm not going to go through everything that's on that list, but starting in fourth grade with music performances, all the way through things that we do for students at the high school level. So those are division sponsored budgeted field trips that we provide for. We do have access to planetariums, including the TJ Planetarium for schools if they choose to take a field trip, to a planetarium, but that's not something that we do
for all students at a particular grade level. And the chart is just the things that we do for all students at a particular grade level. I'm not even sure that the awareness that this is an opportunity exists because from what I understand, the planetarium at TJ and at TJ rivals that of what's downtown. And so I I'm not sure the awareness is there. Maybe we can be a little bit more communicative with the elementary principals that this is an opportunity that exists. Sure. Just very quickly, I wanted to speak about the pacing guides and the lesson planning. I've received some concerns and complaints from teachers, even principals that they're not as helpful
as I think people who are developing them are wanting them to be, and they're inconsistent across the, across the subject areas. I wonder how can we ensure that they are that you are receiving that feedback, which is part of this executive limitation, and we're having perhaps the folks who are writing them going into the schools to see how they're being implemented and really hearing about the concerns? No. I I appreciate you sharing those suggestions. I think they're all good. We try to do a lot of that work. I mean, first I would just clarify and we had some information in the EL-nine
report about the number of curriculum projects that we ran in the summer to update our planning and pacing guides. But I think one of the important things to note is that we develop those with, teachers from the schools during the summer. So those aren't things that are just done, at Willow Oaks or in GateHouse. Those are things that are supported and really done collaboratively with instructional staff in the schools. We do collect feedback on them. They're never perfect. There's always room for improvement. One of the things that we're working to improve right now is on some of
the resources, trying to have more examples, of how to differentiate our resources. So as we're working, again, on our inclusion work, it's really important that we have differentiated resources and we're not asking teachers to create those. Additionally, we're working to update some of our resources with videos that would actually show teachers how you would use a particular strategy or use a particular resource. So we're always open to more feedback. Those materials can always be improved. And And we go through a constant review refresh cycle every year.
Thank you. I think that was your time. Thank you, Doctor. Anderson. Mr. Moon. All those in favor, Mr. McDaniel, Ms. Marin, Mr. McElveen, Ms. St. John Cunning, Ms. Lady, Ms. Dixit, Ms. Sizemore Heizer, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Doctor. Anderson, Mr. Frisch and myself. That is unanimous. We are going to take a quick break in just a second, but we're going to do the policy review first and then we're going to flip over and take a 10 recess. So agenda item 8.01, policy review, instructional program EL nine.
The next order of business is the policy review for executive limitation EL nine instructional program. Annually, the board will review each executive limitation at the time of the monitoring report is provided to determine if revisions are needed. Board members may offer amendments to executive limitations at any at any regular meeting provided they send the final language to the board and clerk at least forty eight hours in advance of the meeting to at which it's to be considered. At this time, no amendments have been submitted in advance of this meeting, but board members may provide comments on e l nine before we vote on maintaining their current
language for the next year ahead. I call on miss Dixit for a motion. I move that the school board maintains executive limitation nine instruction program as it currently detailed in the strategic governance manual. Is there a second? Second. Mister McDaniel. Miss Dixit, would you like to speak to your motion? No. Mister McDaniel, would you like to speak to your second? Okay. Seeing no other board members, then we're gonna go ahead and, vote for the motion that's on the screen. All those in favor, Marron, Mr.
McElveen, Miss St. John Cunning, Miss Lady, Miss Dixit, Miss Sizemore Heizer, Mr. Dunn, Mr. Moon, Doctor. Anderson, Mr. Frisch and myself. So that is unanimous. So we are going to take a quick ten minute break, and we will be right back. Board members, please take your seats. Board members, please take your seats. Okay. We're gonna come back from recess. Agenda item 9.01, academic matters. I call on doctor Reed for academic matters.
Thank you, madam chair. And this evening, academic matters, we're gonna talk about future ready students in Fairfax County Public Schools. And we're excited to highlight some of the innovative learning experiences our students engage in across elementary, middle and high school to support academic and career careers equity commitment to
center student voice in preparing our students for success after graduation. So as we think about what it means to be future ready, we feel that our students need rich learning experiences, durable skills, and exposure to career related learning that best match their unique interest and goals. And honestly, I think as many of our students are preparing for careers that don't yet exist, they don't even necessarily realize what, their interests or goals might be. And I think many students have to have that experience to find out what they
don't wanna do, just as often as what they do want to do. So tonight, we'd like to showcase a few examples, that are targeted towards goal five of our plan. In FCPS, career exploration actually begins in elementary school. One of the ways our elementary schools focus on this is through opportunities for students to begin connecting personal interests and skills to classroom leadership roles. Some elementary students complete skill and classroom leadership roles. Some elementary students complete skill and interest inventories, explore job postings, write letters of interest,
develop early resumes, and assemble portfolios that capture their experience. It's also an opportunity to see some of our portrait of a graduate skills in action. Another opportunity in middle school in particular is Fairfax County Public Schools is partnered with Junior Achievement, and our eighth grade students attend Finance Park as a economic and financial literacy education program that's conducted through business partnerships. And it's an opportunity, for all of our eighth graders to engage, at this building.
And honestly I went I've spent a day there with eighth graders. It's right near Frost Middle School I believe. And, really it's experiential learning and where students actually find out that it costs a lot more to do some of the things that, they thought perhaps cost less. So it's an opportunity to provide relevant real world financially literate decision making. And each middle school has a Finance Park lead teacher who coordinates these trips and ensure that, our eighth graders take part in this simulation.
At the high school level, there are numerous opportunities to explore future career interests. And additionally, our annual FCPS College post secondary night are coming up in the coming month here in October. And these are great opportunities for students and their families to learn more about post secondary opportunities. Tonight, we'd like to highlight a unique learning opportunity called to industry. So in partnership with local business and community partners, we host an annual instruction to
industry I2I Future Ready Conference, which connects our students with over 125 local employers in high demand career fields such as business, healthcare, technology, and engineering. The event, provides students with a chance to gain hands on exposures to career pathways. And last year's event created 3,000 student to employer interactions with over 200 paid internships. The event, will take place in March this year where students will explore career presentations,
networking mini sessions, and mock interviews. Additionally, our, FCPS offers unique and specialized programming for students, with disabilities through our career and transition services programming. Tonight we'd like to highlight some of those opportunities that these services provide in partnership with local business and community and transition services. So there are a number of different types of events that are highlighted on this slide that occur over the course of the year from October through April and provide
opportunities for our students to explore future career opportunities. Finally, future career opportunities. Finally, madam clerk, let's go ahead and watch the video to see student student learning experiences in action. Our goal is simple. It's to prepare every student for a successful future. That's why we're so excited to offer rich learning opportunities that align with goal five of our strategic plan, ensuring that every student graduates ready to thrive in life after high high school. Through their K through 12 experience, students across FCPS have targeted opportunities to explore future
careers, build financial literacy, and develop portrait of a graduate skills. These experiences will help them transition successfully through graduation and into their adult life. At the elementary level, schools are doing simulations where students explore different classroom jobs matching their personal experiences and skills with roles, like line captain, technology support, or even clean up crew. Applying for jobs this year was different because we actually had, like, more of a choice for which job we picked, and it made us feel it made us have
a more real world experience building resumes and applications, having to list down our skills and what we were good at, how we could work in a group. It all we also had more of a choice. There was a wide range of jobs to pick from, so that made it more hands on and lifelike. Finance Park is an experience that all eighth grade students attend. Before they go, they spend three weeks learning about financial literacy, which includes savings, spending, and career options. If you visit a Finance Park, you're gonna see a bunch of different businesses.
Students go from storefront to storefront where they're going to have to make some tough decisions. What choices are they making for their cars? What type of groceries are they purchasing? Are they going on vacation this year? Are they budgeting for that vacation? Finance Park is a great simulation for all our eighth graders to experience what it feels like to be an adult making some real life financial decisions. Every year, FCPS and surrounding school divisions across Northern Virginia team up with Virginia Ed Strategies and the iNova Healthcare System to host Instruction to Industry, a future ready conference.
This is a regional event designed to connect students with local employers in high demand career fields. Participating high schools send students on this field trip that provides hands on exposure to career pathways, essential workforce skills, and meaningful industry connections. But this isn't your typical career fair. Instruction to industry takes things to the next level with career cluster themed rooms, dynamic networking workshops, and even rapid fire mock interviews. And the impact? It's huge. Employers reported more than 3,000 students to employer interactions, over 700 planned follow ups, and
nearly 200 paid job and internship offers, all from just one event. And this year, it's bigger than ever. Over two full days in March, the conference will serve twice as many students as before. These opportunities, especially starting at a young age, will open students' eyes to the possibilities that they may have never known about, allow them to dream of a bright future, and give them the tools to thrive regardless of the path they take. So madam chair, that is academic matters for this evening. Thank you, doctor Reed. At this now, I'm gonna invite board members to ask any clarifying questions or provide
comments. We're gonna kick it off with miss Dixit. Thank you, doctor Reed. Amazing work being done in our division in terms of getting the students' future ready. I'm I've loved I loved Finance Spark when I visited with my son many, many years ago. I just wish it was open to more students and other grades too. Like high school, I think after eighth grade, they don't go back to this at all, right? Maybe a refresher in twelfth grade might be needed because then they're ready for real life after that. So they need to know how to manage money.
I really like the instruction to industry future ready conference, and I think it's going to double the size. That's great. Is it possible to do, like more IT specific conference, something like that, as we are into this industry right now. And we are like a Silicon Valley of East Coast in Northern Virginia, and so many big companies are here, innovative, innovations are happening, and AI is another division. So So I would like our student to get exposed to that also, because there
are a lot of students right now after college are not being able to get the jobs they're this industry is looking for. There's a mismatch happening. And if our students know what this industry is looking for and they can intern with them, maybe it'll help them to future, help them with their education post secondary as well, and then maybe come back to work for these companies. So I would love to, you know, you know, see if something like that happen with our maybe with the our IT department also supports that.
Yes, ma'am. It's a regional conference, so I and you were correct. I know our Northern Virginia Tech Council led by, Jennifer Taylor, they're really working to make us a hub, right, in Northern Virginia, a technology hub. So I will make sure we pass along that, request that we increase the IT presence. Thank you, miss Dixit. Doctor Anderson. Thank you. I I heard about the IBCTE certification. I am not sure I have that term correctly.
Can you speak to that a little bit? I think you're talking there is an IBCTE capstone certificate, and I I'm not sure where we are on that here in Fairfax County, but doctor Presidio likely will know as it's part of our instructional program. Yes. So we do offer the IB Career Related Learning Certificate, and students can earn that at all the IB schools if they complete the coursework and then there's additional assessment work and things that they need to do. But we do offer that. It is available.
And can you explain how that's a benefit to students? Well, I think, again, the focus of the presentation tonight obviously was some division wide things that we're trying to do. But, all of it is related to, as Doctor Reed already mentioned, kind of allowing students to explore interests, that they may have, for future, you know, post secondary education or future careers. So if a student, for example, in an IB business class, completes the career related learning program, that might give them additional information and additional skills that would inform, their
selection of what they might want to study when they're in school. And I'm using that particular example, because my son who just graduated last year participated in that and he decided to major in business and finance when he went to college. But again, the point is to allow students to have that deeper dive and really understand how to apply the more theoretical learning, that they're getting in school to what, those career opportunities would look like in the real world. Okay. Thank you. I thought that was an exciting development. Glad to hear that it is here. Thank you, Doctor.
Anderson. Miss Lady. Sorry, I'm gonna be quick. The I Future the conference that that they referenced. What's it? I2I. I saw that the gentleman being interviewed had the CTE sign behind his head. So I'm just asking is that only the kids who are currently enrolled in a CTE course? And how long have we been doing this? No. It's open to to students regardless of whether or not they're enrolled in CTE courses. Although most of our students are enrolled in CTE courses.
I think, 65,000 students complete a CTE course every year, middle school to high school. So most of our students are, but it's open to anybody. That's our work based learning specialist that you saw who is part of the counseling and college and career readiness office. So he just happened to be filmed with the the CTE banner behind him. But, he supports work based learning experiences for all students. And how long have we been doing this event? It's a couple years. I don't know exactly how many years, but I think we're in the the third year, if I'm correct. So I think this is the third year.
Okay. So perhaps it's since I left because I don't recollect it. No. It's relatively new. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's great. I mean, it's fantastic, and I love the expansion of it. I just wanna make sure it's open to all students, because, you know, some well, you're correct. A lot of our kids do take a CTE course. Not all of our kids do outside of econ and personal finance, or perhaps AP econ if they want the more rigorous version. But the opportunities for internships and things like that are pretty phenomenal, for kids who
are very much in a, you know, different track than a than a categorical track. So that was my main question. Thank you. Thank you, miss Lady. I hope that we get invited to the I2I conference next year because it were that would be exciting. Yes, ma'am. So agenda item 9.02, opening of schools report. I call on doctor Reed for the opening of schools report. Well, thank you, madam chair. I am thrilled to be able to provide our opening of schools report and sharing a recap of our strong start to the 2526 school year. For tonight's opening of schools report, I'll be sharing who we are and how we
provide a world class education for each and every student in Fairfax County Public Schools. I look back at the success made possible through the efforts of our incredible community, and I look forward to what the new year is gonna bring for our students, staff, and families. I could not be prouder of team FCPS. We have an incredible community of students, staff, and families, and we have been working hard as we prepared for this year. I think you'll see the fruits of our labor here shortly and recognizing that, as
we work together in an aligned coherent fashion, anything is possible. So let's roll the first day of school video round all through the town. The wheels on the bus goes round and round all through the town. We've been waiting for this What grade are you guys?
Second grade? Doctor Reed. I'm your superintendent. It's nice to meet you all, and we wanted to say welcome to the twenty five twenty six cheer and welcome to kindergarten. And so, mister Muick is over there high fiving the wheels on the bus. But, he sings that in senior leader meetings as well. Fairfax County Public Schools for the first time is proud to have seven of the top 10 high schools in the Commonwealth be Fairfax County Public Schools, as well as the number five school in the nation according to US News and World Report.
We have 262 students from 19 different high schools that are among the semi finalists named by the National Merit Scholarship, corporation for 2026, which is a 40% increase in numbers over, 2025. And our standard of learning results continue to show our division outperforming, state averages. We've also increased the number of eighth graders, as you can see, enrolled in algebra over the last several years from 58 to seventy four point five percent. And they are continuing to pass at similar rates even as we've, increased our numbers.
Next slide. Let's talk a little bit about ready for real life and our seniors. For the class of 2025, we've identified that eighty one percent of of our students enrolled in a college equivalent course, over 16,000 earned industry credentials, 5,400 successfully completed a career and technical education course, and our students earn more than 168,000,000 in scholarships. As we think about enrollment, we remain the ninth largest school division in The United
States with 199 schools and centers. By public school enrollment, we continue to be larger than 11 states and the District Of Columbia. Our learners are incredibly diverse, and we're proud that 85% of our funding goes directly to instruction and supports student learning. Our students speak more than 194 languages and more than one in three are eligible for free or reduced lunch and meals. More than one in five are multilingual learners. More than one in six receive special education services. And 7% or just about 13% are eligible for free or reduced lunch and meals. More than one in five are multilingual learners. More than one in six receive special education services. And 7% or just about 13,000 are military connected.
As we think about our staff, for the first time in many years, we started the school year with 99.7% of our positions filled on day one. It's the lowest in three years. We have a total of 41,298 employees including part time and hourly, making us one of the largest employers in Virginia. We started the year with a 141 ambassador teachers from around the world who are doing incredible work, and this is a program where there are over 700 ambassador teachers
coming to The United States with just over 20,000 of these impassiter teachers applying for 700 positions. I'm grateful for the efforts of our dedicated and innovative educators and all of our staff who support our work in all kinds of roles across the the school division. It's one team, one mission, and it's showing great results for our children in this community. We know that, FCPS works with many types of businesses that, remain valuable assets students
and the young people in Fairfax County. These partnerships take many forms and meet the needs of our schools which help drive our strategic plan. They provide key foundational donations, mentors, tutors, speakers, after school programs, student clinical experiences, mentoring, needs based donations, workforce development, arts, Get two Green. All of our work is honestly the result of tremendous partnerships and our strong community support which has, sustained the traditions of excellence here in Fairfax County.
As we think about engaging our community, engagement that's intentional is fundamental to our mission. As you can see, we've got an exciting schedule this year again, including 20 family vision group meetings. We had a great start kickoff meeting, at our event earlier this month. We're also moving forward with community and employee conversations, which take place throughout the fall, winter, and spring. We've already had several of these meetings and honestly continue to hear, valuable feedback that guides our mission driven work. I wanna thank everyone continuing this work in the coming year.
When we think about food and nutrition services, the new menu items that are being rolled out are really exciting. We've had 22 new lunch recipes and six new breakfast recipes. And I don't know about you, but I remember, being at a dinner sometime ago that, Joe, let me think, the Frugal Gourmet, I'm trying to remember what his real name was, but he was the guest speaker and he said, you know, most American households have 15 to 20 cookbooks and make the same 10 recipes all year long.
So it's exciting to see that we're gonna have 22 new lunch and six new, breakfast recipes. Lots of opportunity for student feedback and engagement and a focus on sustainability and scratch cooking. We know processed, food is not best for our young people. And let's think about those buses and all of our drivers, mechanics, routers, dispatchers, just an incredible team in team transportation. It was thrilling to say that 96% of our bus routes were on time on the first day of school, which is incredible as one of the largest school on
time rate on the very first day of school. So we continue to, see a drop in our vacancies. A 48% drop year over year is an incredible drop, in our vacancies. And as you can imagine, the logistics involved in managing a fleet as large as Greyhound with 6,987 routes, driving 93,731 miles every day. Our team does incredible work. We're also this year excited to pilot a new safety and routing system on our
school buses. The new tablet based technology includes real time navigation, the radio frequency identification check-in for students, which you're gonna hear more about, and live bus tracking for families, all designed to make the ride safer and more efficient. So we're thrilled about our work in transportation. And let's take a look at, some of our building data. We have 28,000,000 square feet of buildings with a 188 Energy Star certified buildings currently with a 100,000,000 plus worth of energy saved division wide over the last twelve years.
As we think about, digital resources, we continue to improve our student device experience. We've purchased, 28,000 new laptops, which by by the way, we did purchase fewer than we had intended based on budget, circumstances last year because we extended 50,000 current laptops, and just upgraded them to replaced four seventy projectors as you can see on the slide. And we've seen a tremendous uptick in our digital tool engagement with almost a 30%
increase in parent digital consent with a 90 digital You to see the value our families get engaging digitally with our division. And we're thrilled that we are for the first time having an online calendar that, is going to include events from all schools, programs, and the like, which is gonna be a tremendous asset to our families. And there'll be a whole another, presentation just on that to the board.
As well as for the first time, we're gonna be developing a mobile app, which actually is developed and is available in the App Store, for either, Android or Apple phones. And this app will be able to put the power of, news feed into every, family's, phone, mobile phone because we find that more and more our families are on the move and can monitor calendar, parent view, and news feeds with emergency notices. Information about that very shortly with a video as we complete our beta feedback period. Our Capital Improvement Program, just wanna clarify those programs that were completed this summer.
We provide during the first week of school, this is another data point that's not on the slide, but during the first week of school, the office of facilities management received 3,042 work order requests. And within the first two weeks, the team successfully fulfilled and completed 1,537 of these, and are continuing to complete, those tickets. We capital projects, added modern amenities, enhanced safety, removed modulars, and did renovations, created new classrooms, offices, libraries, summer infrastructure work completed is an enormous, number of projects and, again,
are completed and schools under construction are listed. We've already mentioned our new safety tools, technologies and menu items. So what can different focus. And we continue to work hard to take our game up in every way possible. We know that, Fairfax County Public Schools drive the engine of our economy. Strong schools support strong the engine of our economy.
Strong schools support strong businesses, which support strong families and residents and community. And we need to recognize that our work here in FCPS doesn't just impact our students, it impacts our staff, our families, and everybody, across our community. So when our schools thrive, our communities thrive and we appreciate the community support and partnership in that. So welcome back Fairfax County Public Schools, and, happy to take any questions, but this, presentation is posted for those who wanna revisit it and rewatch the video over and
over and over again. So thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Doctor. Reid. At this time, we're gonna go to Doctor. Anderson to kick us off. So many parts of this were exciting to hear. I'll just start with some of the good news things that I saw. The teacher vacancies, that's always been a high concern, and it is very exciting and not to mention comforting to parents to know that their students, their children are starting the school year with a teacher and not with a long term sub. So I do wanna share kudos on that.
And I would be remiss if I didn't extend kudos to mister Muick on the driver vacancy, reductions. I just wanna know how did you do it because from what I understand this year, we don't have any double back buses. So I'm gonna have mister Muic and mister Solomon, answer because the two of them are a powerful team to, solve this issue. Mister Muic, we'll start with you and then float to mister Solomon. Yes, ma'am. Thanks, doctor Anderson. It was, definitely teamwork between transportation and HR, and the big thing was putting everything in one location.
So we have all our normal, hiring conferences that the transportation team does, at Lorton, at Stone Croft. But once a quarter, they have one here at the, at GateHouse. And, William's team shows up with, fingerprinting. We've, worked to get Inova to show up to do physicals, blood work. So, you know, once you get the driver candidate here, we can do everything. Help them with their resume, do the interview, get the blood work. You know, the the more you get done before between the two of us to
do that or our teams, really. We just we were smart enough to get out of their way and let them work. That that that's very convenient because you also prevent all the delays for them coming back to do all of those things. Great strategy. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. You're welcome. And mister Miuick took the words right out of my mouth, making it a one stop shop so that our candidates can complete everything stop shop fashion versus having to
send them from location to location to location. And for what it's worth, hiring a bus driver requires additional steps that other positions don't require. So doing it all in one stop shop fashion while they're with you increases the likelihood that they're hired exponentially. That is I do have a follow-up question for you, mister, Solomon. I know that we're highly staffed, so that's great. But in terms of the substitute, are we having a shortened period for from application to actual, approval? Application to actual, approval?
At the beginning of the year, that's when we see our peak hiring volume for substitutes, and we are seeing it take on average or we're seeing it take on average about four weeks. As of our in a normal situation, it takes about two weeks. Wonderful. Thank you. And I also noticed here, doctor Reed, that our ambassador teachers came up to 141. I think we had a 125, 26 last year. It it it's okay. I I my wondering is with what's happening in the federal government regarding, visas, do we have impact to this program based on that?
Mister Solomon? At this time, there is no impact to the j one program. You may recall that there was a temporary pause or challenge with, j one candidates getting appointments with the Department of State to complete their visa processing back in May. However, at this time, we have no indication that there is an impact to the j one program. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. I'm so glad to hear that. One of the other things that you highlighted here, I can't find which slide, but it speaks to the consent form. As a parent who has to do this for multiple children, across so many layers,
thank you because this was the easiest year where I was able to just it was in one place, and I just kept on going sheet after sheet after sheet. And I yes, no, yes, no, or toggle to do it all. It is so much easier. I cannot stress how much easier that form has or that platform has become. And I'm sure some of the other parents had the same experience. Huge improvement. So for that, I I'm I'm very, very, very, very, very grateful. My last question is regarding, enrollment.
We are about 4,000 off from the end of last year. We anticipating growth and where are we seeing this or is it scattered across the grade levels? Could you speak to that, please? Yes, ma'am. We generally grow from the beginning of the year through till the October October, but we, are slightly obviously lower enrolled this fall than we had predicted. But again, we're continuing to grow, perhaps not as quickly as other years. And we do have some, students, for whom they're a bit reluctant, to be in
school at this time that we're working on creating some online options, for them at this time. Oh, thank you. Do they still count as FCPS FCPS students? They will be once we enroll them. Oh, I see. Alrighty. Thank you. Thank you all. Yes, ma'am. Mister Moon. Thank you, madam chair. Thanks for the presentation. I remember the first day of school getting up at 04:30 in the morning to go to our first switch by 05:30. It was very early in the morning to accelerate. With the slightly less lower enrollment, I know it's going to grow, but as of
this point, does that bring us some savings? At this point, probably in incidentals, but we're gonna have to we're gonna be monitoring that to see, what the trend line shows and, keep you updated on that. Okay. I guess with a lower enrollment, perhaps we get the less state funding. There is a bit less of that. That's right. Yes, sir. Upsetting. Okay. With that, I wasn't looking at that math data. Eighth graders enrolled in algebra one or higher, which showed a tremendous jump from 2022
to 'twenty three year to 'twenty five, 'twenty six school year, 58.4% to 74.5%. That's a remarkable 16% jump. And below that slide at the bottom, I would see for fifth graders, I think you wanted to include the fifth graders information taking advanced math going up by 10.6. I would expect if you want to grow high school students or eighth grade will take higher math, then it's got to start from early or grades.
So looking at elementary school data is perhaps the right thing to do, maybe the fifth grade. Why is that only 10.6% when eighth grader has shown higher increase in taking higher math? Well, so the 10.6% in fifth grade year over year is just year over year growth in numbers of fifth graders, if I'm reading it growth in numbers of fifth graders. If I'm reading it correctly, it's hard to see. Well, you said you said since twenty to twenty three. So it was it's not the auto audio.
Oh, there. I can read it on that. Right. 10.6% increase. So So it is not as large an increase, and I think we're going to see larger increases once we have a math basal curriculum. But we do have, a significant number of sixth graders now in algebra, which we've not previously had, and it didn't make it into this report. But I think miss Lemon has that data for us. So miss Lemon, can you share and we probably need to add it to the online slide. We have 741 students this year in algebra, one in sixth grade.
It's an increase? And it's an increase. Last year, I believe it was 30. So from 30 to seven forty one. And I want to say 33 are participating in our virtual class and 33 schools. And more of a visual learner than auditory. So if you could put that into writing, so that I could go back later. Yes. We'll get something for you for sure. Okay. Thank you. That pilots expect to expand.
So over the next two years, we expect to see algebra offered in every elementary school, all 141 Okay. For our students. I'm excited to see ninety nine percent seven of our positions, you know, being filled at the beginning of the year. But, however, did our position reduction have something to that? Most certainly. Right? We had fewer positions to fill. That's correct. Okay. That's that's a sad part of the fact of a senior 99.7.
But at the same time, 99.7 is much better than what I used to see though. Yes, sir. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's what I have. Mister McElhinney. Well, thank you, doctor Reed. This is a very helpful presentation. And I do wanna say how much I value being able to visit schools with you, so I really appreciate on the first two days being able to go around. It'd be nice if we could do that more throughout the year and have those opportunities. The slide on community engagement is also a very impressive slide. I would argue it may be too impressive.
I think we have we may have taken things too far when it comes to community meetings on various topics. I think we need to think critically about topics we're engaging community on so there's just not a, people don't get get tired of hearing from us. There is value in doing targeted engagements that engage people on critical topics at critical times. I think the boundary meetings that are taking place right now are an example of
where we may have taken things too far. So that's just something for to take back and consider. On the slide about our transportation work, I saw there are listed 31 electric buses. I, you know, my recollection last year is that with the grants we had received, that would have brought the number to something around 85 or thereabouts. So is 31, is that what we're stuck with now given that we've had to We're actually at 48 because we received, I believe, 17 before the uncertainty with the
federal grants around EV buses. So I believe we're up to 48. And had the certainty been there for, funding for the remaining, we would be up to what, mister Muick? It would have, we would have gotten us up to about 108. There was about another 60 that got snagged with grant, problems. Yeah. We were on a we had a good tailwind going, but we're I believe at this point plateaued at 48. Got it. Okay. That's very helpful. On the food issues, so one of the things that's come to my attention as
well as several other board members is that we've seen, an increase of energy drink usage among students, particularly in middle and high school, and that's concerning. About a decade ago, we made a very concerted effort, to remove all soda products from our schools. So, a very concerted effort, to remove all soda products from our schools to get rid of our sugary drinks and other things. And I think that was a great stance. Obviously, kids aren't procuring energy drinks at school, but they're bringing them in. So I think that's a community conversation we need to have, but it can be
very harmful to student health. And I know our principals are addressing that on the front lines, but if there's we can think critically about how we can address that more broadly as a district. And then I think finally, just speaking broadly about beginning of school and the school year, I think it's no surprise to anyone in this room that it felt like there wasn't any summer this past summer. And we've become much more our summer has been really constricted.
This year we're going into the June. So I do think there's value in bringing back some form of the calendar committee or at least having that conversation as a Board. So welcome thoughts on that. I think that's probably a Board conversation, that we need to have if that's something that you all want to take a look at. But I would agree the summer flies at this point for sure. Ms. Sizemore Heizer. Thank you. And, thank you for this presentation. I think there's some really amazing successes in here.
Kudos to your transportation team for 98% on time or it it was I mean, it that's amazing. I remember that the lure when I was a parent for many years staying at that bus stop, it was like, oh, it's first day. It'll take a week or two before anyone's on time. That was that was the statements at the bus stops. And so to see 98% on time the first day is amazing. I do like to point out on slide 11 the $100,000,000 saved in the last ten years from the Energy Star buildings. I think it's more I think it's really valuable to lift up that when we are doing programs that are helping our climate, it also helps us save money.
And that's an important fact to lift up. I do wanna mention, doctor Reed, just for the community to know, on slide eight when I think it's like when you talk about the community meetings and it's okay. And you're flipping. I I'll I'll let you know I have a question. Don't worry. But I just wanted to commend you for that. We heard when we started on the board from a lot of families that there was enough family engagement, there wasn't a family, you know, inclusion, there wasn't a chance to talk to to families. And you did it the first year and I thought, okay. Well, this is her first little listening tour.
That's gonna be it. And you've continued to do it every single year. And that is to be commendable because I see when I go to schools and back to school nights and other events, I see families talking about how engaged they feel with their schools. That's also kudos to the hard work of our building principals and their admins and teachers, but you can see a different level of feeling engaged. Even if they're frustrated, they at least feel like they're engaged with. So kudos to that. I wanted to ask a little bit about the enrollment decrease. You know, maybe it's probably too early to have a sense of what's causing that.
I know there was some conversation about just the the kindergarten birth cliff, right, that can't that came through. But do you think the current policies on immigration or what's happened with the federal workers and people moving out of this area could have had an impact. So that's a pretty big decrease from last year to this year. And I think it's a decrease from what we expected as well. So I'm curious if you guys have any data or or do you need to figure out what's going on? We have some data and I I'll be providing some, reporting on that in the
coming weeks. We also traditionally start lower and continue to build over the first few months of school. So, but I do think, clearly some of the immigration policies have impacted families and choices, so. I would just are you aware of any students who are choosing not or their families are choosing not to send them to school for fear? Because that is what one of my worries is that we have are we seeing a greater rise in chronic absenteeism? Again, it may be too early to tell, but I worry about students missing out
on education because of fear. Right. So we're in our sixth week of school, so it's hard to establish absenteeism rates this quickly. It is. But I I can get back to you on, the other topic. I think just something to watch. Right? Because if if we do if that's the fear, how can we engage our families to make them try to feel safe Right. In this environment to send their kids to school? And then the last thing I would just say as a an area perhaps to work on a little bit on we talked about page seven about partnerships, and you and I have had many conversations about the number of organizations and businesses in the
community that are very eager to partner with our schools, and I think that's an area for growth. So I would love to see more information about these partnerships that you list, maybe in a Friday letter, and then areas plans for for growth in that area, especially if I just finished my sentence, in areas of tightening budgets, I think those partners have become even more important. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, miss Sizemore Hauser. Mr. Dunn. I appreciate the discussion about declining enrollment. I think it's concerning. I think, there was a great, article recently in the Hechinger Report, online, that this is a trend nationwide and maybe immigration has something to do with it, but it's
also just families are having fewer kids. And I went to an education conference this summer and I learned from some colleagues in California and elsewhere that, you know, there is just a dire situation in some school divisions, which maybe you saw in your previous school divisions where you where you, were a leader, that and they are going to such an extent that they're hiring marketing firms that specialize in bringing in more students. And I think we don't want to get to that point. So I know I mean, this is a wonderful presentation.
The videos are amazing. But I think there's still a long way that FCPS has to go in its marketing and communications. There's just not sufficient public awareness of the incredible data that is in this report. I would love to get a sense of how this data compares to our peer school divisions and how it compares to private schools within Fairfax County because I bet if you rack and stack, we're head and shoulders above our private school competitors.
And that's data that we need to publish, that we need to put out there because, there are a number of families in our county who have chosen to homeschool or to private school based on their belief that their kids will get a better education. But, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that any public school in our county will give, a kid a better education than homeschooling or private school regardless of the school or how qualified the parents are who are teaching. And that story needs to be told because, you know, ultimately, we're in the same
business as as, you know, any consumer retail establishment. We need customers to come in the door because if they don't, that undermines that undermines the foundation of credibility that we when we go to the county for, you know, further further contributions to fully fund our budget. And so I just ask more efforts be made to tell that story to the public, not just to us. You do a great job of telling us, but to tell the public and figure
out ways to do that. I I love the state of the schools and other things you do, but sometimes I feel we only talk to, you know, PTA members and those who are already in the know. We need to get outside that bubble to reach the people who are retirees and might be encouraging their their sons, their daughters, their their relatives to either move here or not move here. And I know housing affordability is definitely an issue, but but those decisions can be influenced by word-of-mouth. Yes, sir. Thank you, mister Dunn. Miss Dixon. I just lost my chain of thoughts.
I don't know. So I wanted to just say, first of all, doctor Reed, that, FCPS, of course, is is a trendsetter, school system in the country, and we are continually, improvising, improving the scores and everything else. Just like the Algebra one benchmark we have, I wanted to know, and this can may not be linked to our strategic goal, but how about science, and mainly computer science? Are we tracking that also as a like, more number of students enrolling in them
or we are encouraging them to do because that's where I see the future is? Yes, ma'am. I I know this afternoon, I just reviewed a survey that's going out to students about computer science. And I also you know, I think our conversation on October 7 at the work session, we're gonna talk a little about, how we're programming our CTE courses across the division, how we're doing a refresh or planning a refresh for our academy courses in conjunction with the conversation around the new Western High School, in conjunction with just making
sure we have global work, and knowledge priorities in place across the school division. So I think there's that's a topic. There's more to come on. And, of course, for much of the data science, machine learning, quantum, AI, a lot of it relies on mathematics. So and the ability to build logic and prompt writing, you know, around literacy. So, Doctor.
Anderson, did you need to go back? Doctor. Anderson, do you need to go back? Yes. Just very quickly. I I really wanted to just comment on, mister McElveen's comments regarding the calendar. I have been receiving a lot of feedback from, parents about the calendar and, again, because of just the lack of summer, and I'm not sure what you're hearing from the teacher associations. But I'm wondering, is there a space for us to make that one of your community conversations or a survey so that we can get more robust feedback?
Because I'd like to get a sense of is the feedback that I'm receiving in a vacuum, because it's it's been more than I've received, I think, in, you know, the last few years. And I know we had routinely before had a parent feedback component to the calendar process. So I think right now we have a perpetual calendar that's always three years out. One of the serious concerns that that I was faced with when I first came to the division in the 2022 is we didn't have a calendar for that fall
because we hadn't, come to agreement on that. And we don't ever wanna be in a situation where we can't have calendars at least a couple for travel, for families, for our military, families that are moving in and out and having that information. So I think before we wanna start surveying, you're asking my opinion. So my recommendation is before we start doing the surveying that the Board decide whether you want to step back from a perpetual calendar that enables us to have a
three year out planning cycle. Because gathering information, I think once you make that first decision, then you would wanna gather information about how you might wanna amend it. But right now we're we have the three year out calendars, and that I think is a topic you'd wanna decide first. Sure. I I think there's some opportunity here for conversation because I don't think these two activities are mutually exclusive because if because because parents have loved the three year calendar because they're able to plan all of the things that you've just said. But there has to be some space for us to get some feedback within that
process. So I don't think we stop the outlook, without having I don't think that we can, remove feedback about the calendar to still keep a calendar in front of them. There's some space to do that, and I'd just like to figure out what that could be. Perhaps it's knowing we have the next two calendars coming and we are providing we're getting feedback now for the fourth year. But something has to to change because the emails are continuously they're being more dissatisfied.
And I I think there's a space for us to also hear the community voice on this. And I hope you can figure that out with your team. Well, actually, I'll wait for the direction of the Board before I direct the team on that because that's currently something that's it's set. So I wanna make sure that I am, following the direction of the board. Sure. So I will raise that for the board's consideration then. Absolutely, Doctor. Anderson. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Doctor. Reed. You bet. Thank you. Agenda item 10, consent agenda. Our adopted rules of parliamentary procedure, Robert's Rules, provide for a consent agenda listing several
items for approval of the board by a single motion. Many items listed here have gone through board review and documentation has been provided to all board members and the public in advance. Items may be removed from the consent agenda by the request of a board any board member prior to the meeting. The consent agenda items are on the screen. Is there any objection to approving the consent agenda? Hearing and seeing no objection, the consent agenda is approved. Agenda item 11, new business. The following areas are new business agenda items. There will not be a vote on these items this evening, but the action is
scheduled at a future meeting. Agenda item 12, board committee reports. I call on Mr. McElveen for a report of the audit committee. Thank you so much. So the audit committee had our inaugural meeting for the year last Monday, and we're pleased to welcome Mr. McDaniel to the Committee, this year while the rest of us are old timers. During the meeting, General Koh provided an overview of our audit plan for the year, and we had a thirty minute technical meltdown, which was a highlight. So, that was the extent of that first meeting.
Thanks. Thank you, Mr. McRaven. Agenda item 13, superintendent matters. I call on Doctor. Reed for superintendent matters. Intended matters. I call on Doctor. Reid for superintendent matters. Thank you Madam Chair and welcome to the first full week of fall. It's pretty exciting that I can't even believe we're already in fall to be honest the first full week. But here we are. We have our fall sports season in full swing including the launch of girls flag football with our media day on Monday at Westfield High School and Tuesday at Annandale understand that Washington commanders will be present for our uniform reveal.
So we're very excited. There's a lot of interest across the school division. And, I can't wait to see some of our first Scabes. I also had an opportunity to visit Glasgow Middle School and visit with some of our middle school students to create a video that'll be coming out to the community regarding the implementation of our middle school weapons detection software. And I wanna thank Owen, Deanni, Jared, Alex, Willow and Isla who spoke candidly about why safety matters. So very excited about that. Had a chance to visit a number of schools in the last couple weeks.
In particular, Longfellow Middle School with new principal Chris Butser. Had a chance to visit PE class as well and learned how to shoot an arrow. Archery can actually be a lot of fun. Attended and got my first library card in Fairfax County. So had a chance to be part of, the get a library card, Fairfax Library Foundation's National Library Card Sign Up Month is this month.
So if you haven't, get out and get a library card. There's a lot of exciting selection. So great opportunity to meet with folks. Also attended as I'm on the board of the Northern Virginia Technology Council, we had an opportunity, Gautam Sethi and I, to attend who happened to co found, the cybersecurity, firm CrowdStrike and learned a lot about, cyber trends and how technology around our region
is growing to Mystic's point. It's really a hub here. And enjoyed our Educate Fairfax fourth annual alumni hall of fame where we inducted a number of alumni. And I continue to be so proud to be part of a community that has the amazing graduates and the folks who do such incredible things. So special thanks to our community and all our staff. And, finally, just lastly, I did attend the Nattaway Pow Wow. Rick Kelly is one of our Chiefs and he's in our IT department.
And then the seventeenth annual Ashajyoti five ks fun run. And the foundation shared $75,000 to a number of our schools this year. So a big thank you to them and everybody who turned out to that. So thank you Madam Chair. Thank you Doctor. Reid. Agenda item 14, board matters. Next on the agenda is board matters. I will call on each board member to speak. We're gonna kick it off with mister Frisch. Thank you, and, for tolerating my head cold and illness. I really regret not being able to join everybody there tonight.
I understand we had more politicians from Richmond in our parking lot, so that's always welcome. I'm sure they'll keep coming back after November. In any case, it's been a busy couple weeks. We had a fantastic time at Oakton's homecoming game, for our very first night at the game in Providence where we're encouraging people to come out, and cheer on our football teams, cheerleaders, flags, marching band, etcetera, so the community can see our our very talented students in action. And the Cougars happened to defeat the Cavaliers, for their homecoming game.
So that was exciting to be there with Doctor. Reed and, Principal Lane as well. The very next day, I was at Miller Heights Neighborhood Bash, which is always a fun event, in the Oakton area, talking with members of the community. And then this past weekend, excuse me, I cohosted the second annual Providence Day back to school celebration with supervisor Palcic, and was grateful to have Chairman McKay, delegate Marcus Simon, doctor Reed there. The Marshall Statesman cheer team was fantastic.
We had the Vienna singing princesses. Princesses. If you've not seen them, they're amazing, and they're from all kinds of different FCPS schools, lots of other great entertainment and, activities as well. This past Sunday, I joined Mothers Out Front standing in for miss Marin, at, Louise Archer, with doctor Reed and Hunter Mills supervisor Walter Alcorn, and delegate Holly Seibold as we, celebrated Sunday, which is a new national day of action to celebrate all things
solar and renewable energy. We talked about our new solar, panels going in at 25 more schools bringing us to 35, and the new electric bus that are on their way as well. And then finally, presuming I'm better, I will be attending McLean's football game tomorrow night, against the Yorktown Patriots, as our second stop on this, night at the game where we're encouraging Providence families to come out and support their local high schools. And then the following Friday, October 3, is Marshall's homecoming game, and we will be
doing the same there as well. Also against the Yorktown Patriots, I'm afraid they're gonna think I have it in for them. I don't know if the buzzer has gone or not. You had I think you had, like, thirteen seconds left. Alright. Well, lots to be proud of in Providence District from National Merit semifinalists to Green Flag Schools. Just very grateful, for a wonderful start to this school year and appreciate everything that staff has done, and the hard work of my colleagues to help get it off without a hitch. Thank you, mister Frisch. We hope you feel better.
Mister Dunn. Well, I've had, the opportunity and pleasure to attend many back to school nights at, Bellevue, Bucknell, other elementary schools, and recently I saw, recently I saw a great presentation about, AVID and elementary schools at Gunston Elementary. All of this is very exciting and there's just such great enthusiasm among parents and students at all the schools I visited. And so I wanna just say thank you to all the parents who are the first, educators of their children, who continue to guide the education of their, children throughout
their educational journeys, and you serve as indispensable partners, to Fairfax County Public Schools, to teachers, to school administrators, and ensuring that their students receive a world class education and achieve optimal student outcomes. Thank you. Miss Sizemore Heizer. Thank you and, just exciting fall. I can almost smell the pumpkin everything in the air. So if you guys can smell the pumpkin everything, let me know because that fall is my favorite season. The football games, the homecoming parades, and Halloween, and all of the things, I'm very
excited. And speaking of Halloween, don't forget, on October 4, the Kings Park Library has a costume exchange. So if you have a little one who wants to turn in their costume and get a new one, come check it out. In addition to that, just a reminder of the folks out there, I'm sending another news letter, but in my newsletter this week, the student leadership program is, seeking applications for a student leadership to represent the Braddock District, so please get your your students to apply. I'm really excited. We had a great inaugural program last year. I wanna thank the Canterbury Woods community for having me at their, meet PTA meeting
last night to talk about some of their concerns around the budget, impacts to their schools and the importance of STEAM teachers. And so I'll be talking to you more, doctor Ri, about that tomorrow during our check-in. And I'm very excited to announce that Wakefield Forest had a very exciting renovation celebration, where they actually had a sock hop theme because their school was founded in 1955, which was super exciting. And Bonnie Bray's renovation is close to finishing. So congratulations to all the National Merit Scholar semifinalists from the Braddock District and the 12 Braddock Green flag Flag schools for your echo friendly programs and your Get two
Green programs and I look forward to seeing you at a football game very soon or a volleyball game and hopefully a flag football game as well very very soon. So with that happy fall everybody and have a great night. Thank you. Ms. Dixit. Happy fall everyone have a good night. Ms. St. John Cunning. Buenas noches everyone, I was happy to attend the community conversations at Woodlawn Elementary with doctor Reed and engage with parents and see some old colleagues there. Also, I had fun attending the running the field at Edison High School where all
the pyramid schools come and all the future eagles get their little shirts that say I'm a future eagle and then they get to run the field. And it was so exciting to see all the parents, all the kids, and see them all at the stands cheering for the football game. I also had the opportunity to go to Lewis High School to see the initial presentation of the Lewis leadership team students projects. They were so thoughtful. They were so, amazing. I can't wait to see them when they come to the end. Finally, I would just like to talk to, our proclamations tonight.
We are so lucky to have an organization in our community that helps support our students and supports them in a manner they get the things that they need, but their families and the students are supported in a manner that retains their dignity. And I wanna reiterate the importance of literacy. One of the reasons that I'm so proud to be on this board is we are doing the critical work. When when literacy day was established, it was because of the importance of it.
It is a human right, a human right to be able to to read. We teach that here. We provide that. And it's not just reading. It's showing our kids how to learn and have critical thinking skills. That is the foundation of all of our academic endeavors for our children to learn how to read and to be literate. So I encourage everyone at home and our children to read as much as they can. I also encourage them to get a library card from their local library because the
library doesn't only loan out books, they loan out a lot of other items and they have amazing programming for our kids. So, with that, I'll say goodnight and please make sure you all read. Thank you, mr. Joan Cunning, mr. McElveen I want to begin by reflecting briefly on the Alumni Hall of Fame event that Doctor. Reed mentioned and that My at large colleagues and Doctor. Anderson and I attended last Wednesday. I truly believe that's one of the, if not the most powerful event, that that
our county hosts every year because we get to see how our graduates go off and change the world. And for those who were there, they'll recognize, the power that we're in. Mr. Jim Acosta's remarks, as you know, he is one of our alumni of, Annandale High School. But he talked about immigrant experience and and the values of this country and just really touched me greatly. So thank you to Jim and our other, 10 inductees into the Hall of Fame.
I also had the privilege of going to the VSBA Legislative Conference, this past Friday in Richmond with Doctor. Anderson, Ms. Anderson, and Ms. Marin. I really valued the opportunity to engage in fellowship with my colleagues and folks from around the state. I will say the conference itself and the lunch situation were subpar, so we'll need to work on that in the future. And then finally, earlier this week, I was in New York for Climate Week, and one of the most interesting ideas I heard come out of that was that some
districts are using the waste heat from data centers to heat their schools. So that is something, unfortunately, we're gonna we may consider, in the future. Thanks. So I believe last night I went to my final back to school night of the season. That was Dogwood Elementary School, which did not disappoint. They had a wonderful, set up for the specials, teachers, and they provided childcare in the cafeteria, so dinner was on while the parents and families got to visit the classrooms. I, then went over to South Lakes High School for the community boundary meeting that
was there, and this was that general, sort of update. And, you know, I remain available for input and articulating the decisions that, you know, I will need to make about boundaries. And so, you know, headed on Monday to the superintendent's conversation and then meeting with concerned families connected to Flores Elementary, in particular, about the designation of Western High School for programming. Headed to Madison tomorrow for homecoming and then because I just can't get enough of marching bands, I'm going to the Marching Band Festival at Herndon High School on Saturday. I invite you to join me. It's gonna be fabulous.
I hope it doesn't rain. And then I'm really stoked for the first committee meeting that's been scheduled for the joint facility review committee with the Board of Supervisors. That's the kind of stuff that makes me very excited. So have a great weekend. Thank you, Ms. Maron. Mr. McDaniel. I have been very busy over the last few weeks, crisscrossing the county looking at very early in the morning I'm not a morning person, very early morning, 07:30, 07:45 watching the open gate, machines, the the the weapons detectors at work, Westfield, Edison, Chantilly, Woods, and a couple more.
I can't remember off the top of my head. The most interesting thing I did was the Clearview Elementary School, back kind of the back school night barbecue where the kids got me to jump rope. I jumped rope, I made nine jumps before I lost balance. An Airpod flew 10 feet out of my pocket, and later that night I had to take three Aleve, just to be able to go to bed. But the funniest thing that happened to me in the last couple of weeks, I was picking my daughter up from the bus stop and it's gotten to the point where she just gets off the bus and runs off with her friends, which is
great, but she got about a 100 feet ahead of me. And I said, Alice. She turns around and goes, and I look at her and I'm like, what have you done? And she turns around looks at me and goes, and takes off running again. The kids are doing well. With that, good night. Thank you, mister McDaniel. Doctor Anderson. Thank you. I think, mister McAlveen stole some of my thunder because I did wanna talk about the alumni, hall of fame. It was great, especially as the Anadale Adams had three individuals who were being recognized
in addition to Jim Acosta, who had a wonderful, wonderful speech, speech, that was pointed and timely. Obviously, he is an analyst and speaker. We also had Amir Abu El Ahwah who is the chief of staff for our own board of supervisor chair, Jeff McKay. He was an ADAM as well as Dennis Scarborough, an Air Force veteran who currently serves as the executive director of operational readiness for the US transportation and, Transportation Security
Administration for TSA. So it was just really wonderful just to see the very best, that not the very best that Fairfax has to offer, but how they've come and are impacting the world. And there was a wonderful, recipient who is the most accomplished violinist. She's a musician and is just going around the country. Just very impressive. It's a very nice event, so I do encourage you all to attend as well. Just very quickly, I do wanna say thank you to all of the principals for their wonderful back to school nights and open houses. Families have been very appreciative of having the opportunity to engage with staff and with
teachers. And it was very interesting at Poe, miss Barrow also did a video. In addition to the school board video, she did a video during the advisory lesson to introduce herself to the community. I thought that was a great way since they don't do assemblies beforehand for the principals to have an opportunity to to be heard in terms of what they wanted to accomplish. Also visited in the last couple of weeks Poe Middle School and Bryn Mawr Middle School as well as Eddyson High School. And I just want to really give some kudos to those principals for all their wonderful work. And at Poe, I want to highlight the fact that, there is a new approach
of all hands on deck when it comes to the advisory, period. They are teamed up and everyone is involved. Principal, deans, everyone is there to connect with the students. They develop they develop also their own community building relationships and they will be there the entire year. And I find it fantastic that the administrators have have also caught out that time to build relationship with kids, and I know that they're going to see exponential, benefit to that. I also wanna say thank you to, the principal of Bryn Mawr Park, principal Williams,
for all of her work of work of running a school during a renovation, which, I don't know if mister Gordon is there, is a week ahead of schedule, which is a better position to be than behind schedule. So that's also fantastic. And at Edison, it was really wonderful to hear from the principal and seeing how their focus on culture and community has really impacted their discipline work. So it does, when we focus on things and put the right strategies, we see
the results and I'm not seeing that at these schools. Thank you and good night. Thank you, Doctor. Anderson. Mr. Moon? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to note a couple of celebration holiday coming up starting with Yom Kippur on October 2. So wish a meaningful holiday to Jewish students and families on October 2. But more importantly, Mr. Maccabine knows about this. Harvest Moon Festival is coming up on October 6. Harvest Moon because that's the day when we have largest moon based on the lunar
calendar. It's August 15 according to lunar calendar. And for Japanese, Tsukimi and Tetrantho for Vietnamese, and they will be celebrating a day of harvesting everything they have worked so hard on that day. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, mister Moon. Miss Lady. Yes. Thank you. This upcoming week is Blue Star Week, which raises awareness and fosters support for military connected families who often move to new communities, especially in the DMV.
Fairhurst County Public Schools is committed to ensuring our military families feel welcomed and a sense of belonging to their local community. I certainly appreciate your service and sacrifices. I have also been out in the out and about in the community like my colleagues. I enjoyed being at Langley High School's pyramid gathering. It was interesting to see the marching band come in because it was middle schools and high school and lots of instruments. Unfortunately, they fell in that game to Westfield, but, they will rise for another occasion.
Also in terms of boundary meetings, I enjoyed being there at South Lakes last night with my colleague, Miss Marin. Also want folks to know that there is a boundary meeting on Saturday morning at Marshall High School. That's at nine a. M. I will be there virtually, to hear folks and what their feedback is for that particular pyramid. Also, we'll be at Hayfield for robotics on Saturday. And then the Herndon High School Marching Band Competition that will be hosted. I will be there to see my, marching Hornets. And this Friday, I will also be as with mister Frisch, the McLean football game.
And then next week, I've got a couple visits. Churchill Road, Longfellow, and Lemon Road, I will be with, visiting next week, and I look forward to that. And, also, for those of you that live in the town of Herndon, the Herndon State of the Town, which is presented by our mayor, will take place Tuesday evening, at seven p. M. So I will be there and would love to see some of you folks out there as well, and I think that's it. Thanks. And with that, at 10:40PM, we are adjourned.