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Good afternoon, everyone. This 04/20/2026 regular meeting of the Fairfax County School Board Public Engagement Committee will now come to order at 04:07PM. Miss Dixit has notified the chair and clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she qualified Are you Yes. We are not getting any Hello, hello? Okay. Okay. Miss Dixit has notified the chair and clerk of the board that she is using remote participation as she qualifies as an individual with a disability under the code of
Virginia 2.2-3708.3b and the school board electronic participation resolution of 2026. This miss Dixit will be counted as in person for the purpose of quorum today and does not need to be voted in by the board. She is located in Centerville, Virginia. So, can we check your mic? Miss Dixie, can you hear us? Okay. We can't hear you. Yeah. We're not hearing you. I think she's gonna probably log back in. Okay. We are still not hearing you, miss Stix, if we can see that you're speaking.
Miss Dixit, you might wanna check your mic on your computer to see if it's not set to something different. We can see you talking, but we can't hear you. We still can't hear you. So do you want us to call you and then that way you could be listening? Okay. Let me can you hear us? Okay. Okay. She can hear us. I guess, mister Fursch is gonna call you. Thank you, miss Dixie, for being flexible. Okay. We will now vote to approve the minutes of the 12/15/2025 meeting of the Public
Engagement Committee. Do I have a motion? Mr. Frisch? Do I have a second? Mr. McElveen. McElveen? All in favor? Unanimous by all present? The minutes are passed. So we're gonna move, we did some work on the strategic governance manual edits in terms of proclamations and recognitions. We put that up for you all this morning. We were just trying to clean up and verify certain items and requests that had come in. So, we can go over it. What what I am proposing is based on the proclamations that were member brought, that
we put them as annual proclamations, which was for March the social and emotional learning that was brought by MISTICSIT. As needed, the bond citizen committee in affirming the importance of a triple a bond rating and I think that that is something that might be looked at biannually as opposed to annually. The Family Engagement Month and that was brought forward by myself. And then the Disability History and Awareness Month that was brought forward by, our previous school board member, Rachna Sizemore Heizer. And she brought that, as disability pride month, but we changed the name a little
bit further down if you'll look at that. So do I have any conversation on that, Mr. Fursch? I also see that, Pride Month is added in June. One of the things that, the previous list did was it limited the number of things that were annual, recognizing the fact there were probably multiple things that you could recognize any given community for in the calendar year. And so, LGBTQ History Month was always on the annual list, while Pride Month was something that a member could bring if they wanted to. I worry that opening the door to two LGBTQ annuals that don't require a member
to bring one, to disability, awareness or affirmation proclamations that don't require a board member to bring one of them It starts us down a path of just adding everything that we reduced previously. So that's my big ticket takeaway. Other than that, I think most of this is fine. Okay. So What I'm saying is that previously, we had many, many, many, many, many proclamations that were done every single year. Many that you would probably have trouble distinguishing between if you were a layperson, what
the differences were. And so previous PEC committee winnowed those down, not limiting the ability of board members to to bring additional ones if they wanted to. But what that meant was there was one LGBTQ, proclamation as opposed to the two that we previously did. And so, one thing to consider is whether we want to have they're not duplicates per se, but they're very similar. And there is no shortage of similar other proclamations that could be brought as annual
related to other communities that we recognize. Disability awareness month in March and then we have the disability awareness month in March and then we have the disability history and awareness month in October. And we could bowl those in. I don't think we get to say when those communities observe their heritage months.
So we don't have to fold them in. We just have to and we don't have to do what I'm proposing either, frankly. But what the board previously did is they picked one and then if a board member wanted to bring the other one they could. Either one. Okay. I'm gonna call phone a friend that has been helping me with this. Hi, this is me, Jessica O'Connor, staffer for Marcia. Just to clarify, currently the governance manual does have two different, annual, proclamations related to LGBTQIA plus Pride. It's the October, history month and then also in June that's currently in the governance
manual. So I just wanted to clarify that those are currently there in As annual process? Yeah. So there are two there. So if that if one was meant to have been taken away at one point, I don't know, but that's not what's currently reflected. And then yeah. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody was, clear on on that point and that the, the March observation, which was previously called, disability affirmation, the correct term is the Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month. That's what's used in the FCPS communications and our colleagues from that office, I'm sure,
can confirm confirm that. And so then the the concept is to add an additional, one, which is typically also observed in FCPS regarding general disability, celebration. Does that help, Mr. Persch? Yeah. Insofar as I'll want to do the research to figure out when they added Pride Month back because I'd always taken it as one of my proclamations previously. So, I hear what you're saying and I know how we did try to winnow it down and I'm wondering if we could have a list, kind of like split
the baby, and have a list of these are the annual and then maybe have a list that if members want to bring this forward or is that going to be too complicated? Like Members can do whatever they want. Well, I know, but I know they can do whatever they want but sometimes they may not be aware of And there might be some members that might wanna bring some forward if they're aware of them. Yeah. I mean, I think we're only adding well, the bond one would be biannual.
The social emotional learning because it covers so many of our it is in our strategic plan and it's one of those things that we really emphasize that I think sometimes doesn't get enough attention. I kind of feel that the value of it is important. I was just putting it out there for the sake of the conversation. Right. I'm fine with the changes Okay. On a macro level. I like the idea of putting together a list just as like a maybe like a Google Doc that can be added to over time that can help board because sometimes board members get to the end of the calendar year and they're like, I
wanna do one more, but I honestly can't think of anything that, you know Right. That might not have already been covered. So I like the idea of, like, a running list of things that board members could consult or things that we've done as one ops that we could add to. We probably already. Yeah. So we do. We have, an annual proclamation tracker where you can see what ones remember brought in the 2425, and we've updated it, for the 2526, although I think I need to update it a little bit to see what has been brought this year. We also have the annual proclamation schedule, which shows what annual proclamations we have every
year and a little bit more it's it's a little bit more organized by month. So, it's not necessarily by topic like it is in the strategic governance manual, so it makes it a little easier to read. Yeah. But I do like the idea of having, like, some of because sometimes we don't know. Like, sometimes there are things that are happening in the community and they're big things, but we don't know, like, what month they fall in and that there are recognitions. You guys can chime in about, you know, certain things that you think that, you know, sometimes would be worthy of it and and we may not be aware of
it. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. No? I don't think we that we think that there anything and there is anything missing. Okay. And we don't ourselves necessarily acknowledge as many as the Board does. Thank you. I'll make a motion. Sure. Oh, Ryan's gotta stand up. Sorry. I was just going to add that I think this is a, this is good work. And are we gonna talk we're gonna talk separately about the others. Okay. Great. So so then so this this goes to making these annual proclamations.
So, yes, would someone like to make a motion? Oh go ahead. I did have a general motion, in the thing that was more just approving the overall changes regarding proclamations and recognitions. I don't know if you want to do just an overall one or if you want to do it one by one. I'll probably put just the overall one into the minutes. Okay. We'll just let's go through all of them and do an overall one. Okay. So then now we're gonna go down to recognitions and these are based on some member requests and, one of them that was advocated for was the International Society for
Technology and Education, certified teachers, the ISTE, And part of that was because we do the certification for our teachers, that we just did at our last board meeting. And my understanding is that getting it, getting ISTE certified is very strenuous and actually might, is very difficult and we don't have the teachers that we have in our community that have gotten that certification should be recognized. So it would be handled as a recognition, which I think is a really good
recognition because of the amount of work that the teachers, and staff members that go through to do that. The other one that was also brought up by a board member was The U. S. Presidential Scholars at the beginning of each academic year to recognize the distinguished graduating high school seniors named as, US Presidential Scholars. And then the next two that we're talking about is the International Science and Engine Engineering Fair winners and the CAPEASE winners. And the questions that I had about this was one was both of these were
brought by mister McElveen, which I think is fantastic. Do we want to just recognize the winners or do we want to recognize the participants? Like, for example, like like Cappies, like, if you were nominated it's a big deal. And I'm not sure how many with the International Science and Engineering Fair winners, how many that would involve. So do we wanna just recognize the winners or the participants? So I I do think we just we, I guess with ISAF, it's we'll take each of these separately. So ISAF, you probably have about maybe 25 to 30 going.
And, is that right? Yeah. And so those those would be the ones we would recognize. Folks that I think it's supposed to be it's not supposed to be winners. It's supposed to be participants. Okay. Yeah. So it's it's ICEF participants. Okay. Because these are the Okay. Yeah. So it's it's ISEF participants. Okay. Because these are the folks we send to the international science team. Right? And, yeah, I mean correct. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So I think yeah. And I I think when we did this last year, we had maybe almost 15
show up just because it's we were doing it in June after school had ended. But I think if we're, and this has it for July. I would I wouldn't change that. I would put it either in May, late May, or ideally late May. Because I think they go there and, I just doing students in July is is a loser generally. And then, finally with Cappies, you know, I do think it would be we'd probably
have too many folks if we did all the nominees. I think winners, it's probably the right amount. And, I mean, we can calibrate this over time. But that's my general sense for now. And I sorry. And then the one other thing, on The US Presidential Scholars, I don't think it says at the beginning of each academic year. And that I may have said in that language, but that's not right because I think they're designated maybe in October, November so I think that's one we could probably do in the early part of the calendar year. So those are my thoughts. Thanks.
So we can look up when they're designated OC Mystic set. Oh, hold on. You're you're gonna be put on speaker. Yep. Sima, you're gonna need to mute your computer. Just the speakers. Alright. Now it's good? Yep. Okay. So what there are lots of nominees, participants, and capes. Right? Maybe are we going to name every person or we're just going to say participants? So I think what we're discussing is if when we do the recognition, should we do nominees or winners? And, mister McElveen expressed that maybe we should just do the recognition for the winners
because he thought there would be too many if we did it for the participants. What what are your thoughts on that? Their winners are also like the whole team. Are we going to just say the school's name and or like I think we I I have no problem either way. But but I know sometimes they're like 20, you know, part spends from one team. Correct? Yeah. So we'll be reading out, like, those names and I know. You some of our proclamations are really recognitions are very detailed. But some are not that like, we say, hey.
We are recognizing cap these and all the nominees and the and the, winners. But are we really, like that's the part I I'm I'm a little confused about that. Where where where do you think us us going in which direction? Mister Push. On the the two pieces, first to Ryan's points about the timing, I think we can leave that to the clerk and the chair to figure out the appropriate timing based on when things are, so that they don't have the dates that are necessarily listed in the motion, but, like, whatever fits best.
Right? On miss Dixon's point, I think this would be more like, the athletic recognitions where, we go around Robin with board members and, like, let's say, Oakton High School has six winners. I read Oakton High Schools, and then Melanie reads South Lakes, and then Ryan reads, Lake Braddock, and and then, you know, whatever. It just goes around and you read, like, the list of winners from that school. If there's a list of 25 people, I I don't think that that's necessarily ever the case. There might be, like It would be like dance ensemble, but you would say the
dance ensemble. You would need their 25 names. Yeah. Or you would just say the best musical and we wouldn't necessarily read every kid. We just recognize the school. Right? We don't read the names of every athlete, for example, when we're recognizing a team. Does that work? Makes you sense. Understood. Yes. Correct. I'm unmute I'm mute I'm going back to Okay. So I do agree that we should let the, the chair and the clerk decide when these fit best in the calendar because I know we had to move things around the calendar because some were heavier. But also to mister McElven's point when it involves the kids not making it so
late in the school year that they're not going to show up, especially because a lot of these kids might end up being seniors and they're just not going to show up. We've had problems with some of the athletic recognitions before where they were too late. So they were either competing with playoffs, or championship games, or after graduation. And so it's super early this it seems early, but it's by design. Right. Of course. We were looking up the Presidential Scholars Program, for 2025. They announced the scholars in September 2025.
In 2024, they announced the scholars in May 2024. So, you all may want to figure. Yes. So you guys okay with this? Okay. Thank you. So then if we move further down, we were looking at consolidating and putting things together so that it's one proclamation, and we were looking at the consolidation of social workers, school counselors, psychologists, and nurses appreciation into a single proclamations and add security officials
to the same as they are not recognized elsewhere. And then we'll just omit the week and month designations because they fall all over. You know, we'll find a place where we can put it in the calendar when it's not overly burdened with proclamations or recognitions. What are your thoughts on that? And then the other thing that we noticed was that we have in in none of our proclamations are assistant principals added. So we wanted to, keep the principals and administrators appreciation in January, but add the assistant principals. Even though they're recognized like this past month, but they're not in any other of
our proclamations and they do a very heavy lift and they should be recognized in a proclamation, so. And then we were looking at also the dates. But now, I'm wondering because of what mister McElveen said, we were looking at moving from June till July, the VSBA Business Award, the student representative end of term, and the National Merit Scholarship winners recognition. Yeah. So I think that's fine for VSBA. No issue. Student representative, no issue because their term does run through that time.
National Merit Scholarship, this is, like the this was the same meeting at which we did the, ISAF winners last year. And again, we had a very low turnout. It was the last meeting in June. So I would suggest moving that up as well to probably late May. Do we do we have the them by late May? Yeah. We have them by late May? Okay. Are you talking about the semifinalists, the commended students, or the winners? The winners. So, they start rolling in during May.
But I they trickle in over time. Right. Because there are some that are corporate awards. Yes. Exactly. But I think we have like, as of now, we already have the list finalists. Of the finalists, yes. Right. And that's who we would be. Yes. But in terms of the actual winners of who actually are awarded scholarships, we have not received any of those releases yet. I think yeah. I think this is supposed to be finalists, not winners, because winners would just be limited to the court. There's there's other ones that are related to the university as well.
Let me, let's go back and see what it looked like last year because it was the last meeting in June. I think that it was probably the right amount of people, whatever we did last year. I think it was finalists. And then we just had a low turnout. The the finalists is a very large number. It's like a 181. And I think we maybe had, like, 30 show up. Okay. It's, like, 95% of the semifinalists. Right. Anyway, I think it's a good thing if we have more to celebrate for that one at least. Okay. So you wanna make it finalist or winners? Finalists.
I'm gonna double check that that's I'm looking at board docs now. Because I remember I had to read read a very long list of names. I was hoping to avoid I mean, I guess it's a big deal if we were finalist. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, keep going and I'll look. No. So those were the things we were looking at based on member input and looking at some of the things we saw that were missing. We you know, I included, like, some general edits, which you will see on the notes where, developmental disability awareness month replaces disability affirmation because that's the language we use,
and then to put LGBTQIA plus instead of LGBT. And then, AAPI to spell it out, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month. Same thing for, LGBTQIA plus pride month. Adding to Custodian and Food Nutrition, adding employees. And then doing the advisory committee members in July. And the Holocaust remembrance in April. That one you put April 14 on, that changes year to year. It happened to be April 14 this year, but the year before it was 2324.
So it should just be April. Okay. Yeah. I think it okay. Without objection. Yeah. Because I think it had April, May and we just we're just gonna put it in April instead of putting it in May. I think we had to Yeah. In one draft, I thought, said April 14, and I was like, oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. So that's kind of the stuff that we wanted to to look at for this meeting. We, I know what we had discussed before was having a second student representative, but the work that has to go into getting all of that done in some of
those processes I mean, this wasn't on the agenda or anything. Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. Go ahead. I sent it around. Yeah. So it was winners. So it's yeah. Anyway, let's just keep it as winners. Yeah. It's managed. Okay. Second. Yeah. Must think oh, okay. But I think I just let me move that. Yeah. Not in this question, but I think I just want to know about the participation and the efforts of these proclamations we are doing. Okay. The you wanna know about participation?
So basically, when we have these, lot of these, proclamations and and, you know, it's really well intended. But sometime the community members are either not aware of them or they don't, like, come to us receive them. And I've happened few times already this year, but we were just literally looking for people to come and join us for at the dias. Right? Like, we're like, I remember the Arab heritage month. There was no representation from the community. And I was just wondering, like, can we, you know, can we do more efforts
in bringing the community to receive the proclamation? I think that's a great topic for our future PEC agenda is what's the out what do we do for outreach? Okay. Like, I know what I do if I have a proclamation, and I know that the clerks have a process that they use. So should we move on with the vote and then Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking I was not trying to block the vote or anything. Oh, no. No. It's fine. Sorry. But that that is a great point because I know what I do too. Like I send out things. But okay. So so let's move forward on the motion.
All those in favor? Oh, wait, before excuse me. Before I do this, just when we're talking about VSBA business, the way it's listed, the way we have it listed is VSBA business honor roll award. So we can just make sure that language is correct. If we can vote all of that in. All in favor? Okay, that's unanimous by everyone present. So just moving on a little bit more of things that we are looking to consider, is when it comes to proclamations and recognition, we're looking to coordinate with the
school board office standard operating procedures that is that are being developed by the admin committee, And then considering also as we looked at certain proclamation minimum content, such as one of the things we noticed on the Women's History Month, it should include specific references to International Women's Day. This one already does but there's no standard for the content to ensure that it would be the same for future years. So there are some things like that that, you know, we want to make sure are in the proclamations. And then the other thing is moving the majority of formatting and procedure guidelines and
specifications to the strategic governance manual annex and future school board office, standards of operating procedures. And also include a template. So I think that would make it easy for everything that we have as standards but also when somebody wants to come in. I remember that, you know, when I wanted to come in and bring a proclamation I had no idea how to, you know, do that, so I think that template would help everyone if there was a basic template. And I recognize that sometimes if we're recognizing a certain person it might look a
little bit different, but if there's a basic template we have something to work from. So those are things that, you know, we could look at in more detail as as also adding what mystics had brought up, what kind of outreach do we do for all of these proclamations? Like, what is the mechanism that or responsibility of the school board member versus the clerk's office. I think we should add the discussion about this possibility of another school board student member to the agenda and perhaps begin the conversation about expanding the student leadership program.
Those conversations could maybe be on the same agenda since they're very related. And then if everybody's agreeable to adding those, I would like to make I would like to make a motion to adjourn since we're at the end of our agenda. Yeah. So we can't is there any way to discuss any of that? This It's not been agendized. Okay. Then I not speaking to any specific agenda item, I will just say that the the election for student representatives, is currently underway. I know the first round is on the twenty third, and then I think the second round is May.
And I do think it would be an easy fix just to take the top two for next year. The student leadership program, we could wait till later, but, that one I think is time sensitive. I I think that when we start looking into because there's also funding implications in the budget because they're paid, and so that's something we have to look at. So right. Okay. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. We started looking at it and we're like, this is like there's too many things we have to pull together. But to your point, and I actually did not think about the funding implications which
I should oh that should be top of my head as a school board member. Phone a friend over here. Yeah. Hi. Just just to note on on that that there are, it's a rich rich potential conversation in terms of if it would be, for example, the top two students and which like, there there are different considerations like which geographic region they would represent or there's a certain, like, discussion, a risk discussion to be had around the methodology and what you want to do. I do think that there could be possibility of like taking advantage of the timing there but there's also a school of thought potentially around pulling from the student leadership
program. Like it's, there's a lot of things to discuss on on that note note, just to add that. And we're working with the Clerk's Office to come up with kind of a proposal along those lines. But that's all. Yeah. At the next meeting, we will look at that. And I just wanted to say that we had discussed that, but that wasn't the reason I started talking about it is we didn't bring it forward because there was a lot of things that was, like and the other thing that we had been discussing was the toolkit. And also there's a lot of things with that. We were held up because it had to go to IT to get the platform and everything, so there's a lot of things still, mechanisms that are going on there
that which I know this isn't on the agenda, but we've discussed in the past. And there there's a lot of fine tuning that we have to get to before we can discuss. We can I can put it on the agenda, see if we get some of the yeah? Okay. Okay. Mister Frisch? Move to adjourn. I oh, second. Okay. All in favor? Alright. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Marcia. Not ready for a replacement. I'm sure I would. At this point, I would like any dog, but, that much to take on after
sixteen years.