Good afternoon. I call to order this May 26th Loudoun County School Board meeting. I have been notified that Vice Chair Donahue would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting. Vice Chair Donahue, please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter. Oh, Vice Chair Donahue, you're muted. There you go. Good evening. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a medical matter, and I am in my bedroom in my home. Is anyone present with you at this location? If so, please state their names. My spouse and children are also at home in other
parts of my home. Thank you. I will entertain a motion that Vice Chair Donahue's request to participate remotely be granted. I move that Vice Chair Donahue be allowed to participate remotely. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Ricardi. Let's proceed forward with the vote. Board members. Our clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes with all seven school board members who are present voting yes, and Mr. Svenson absent for the vote. Welcome to the meeting, Vice Chair Donahue.
Thank you. All right. We will now move on to the consent agenda. Board members, are there any changes to be made to the consent agenda? No? Okay. Before we vote, we have four proclamations. And first up is the Caribbean American Heritage Month proclamation, and that will be read by Dr. Rashid. Thank you, Chair Chandler. And might I add, I am very proud to read this proclamation for the Caribbean American Heritage Month. Whereas in June 2006, a presidential proclamation from President George W. Bush designated June as Caribbean American Heritage
Month. And whereas the Caribbean diaspora is vast, encompassing numerous ethnicities, languages, and cultures that have given shape to the quintessential idea of the American dream and have contributed to every aspect of society, including the arts, business, sports, politics, military, science, and more. And whereas the cultures, languages, and religions across the United States and Caribbean islands highlight a shared racial diversity and history connecting all to the ideals of liberty and equality. And whereas we acknowledge the many achievements of Caribbean
Americans whose multiethnic ancestry includes African, Indigenous, Asian, European, and Latino roots, and celebrate the impact of more than four million Americans with Caribbean ties. And whereas the Loudoun County Public Schools is strong when we reflect and respect the full diversity of our school community, which enables 96.7% of all of our students to graduate in 2025. And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools recognizes that diversity and inclusive practices benefit our learning community, which offers
a safe, supportive, affirming, and respectful environment where all members are valued and can feel a sense of belonging. Now, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board recognizes June 2026 as Caribbean American Heritage Month in Loudoun County Public Schools and encourages staff and community to observe and celebrate the culture, heritage, and contributions of Caribbean Americans to our country, the Commonwealth of Virginia, our diverse county, and our schools during Caribbean American Heritage Month and throughout the school year.
Thank you. Next up, I'm going to ask Vice Chair Donahue if she would please read the Gun Violence Awareness Day proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas ensuring the safety and wellbeing of every student, teacher, staff member, and family in our school community is a paramount responsibility of the Loudoun County School Board. And whereas gun violence poses a serious public health and safety crisis impacting students and families across the nation, including right here in Virginia. And whereas according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens across the
nation, with an average of 2,600 deaths per year, or seven children and teens dying each day from firearm injuries, with 65% as homicides, 30% as suicides, and 5% as accidents. And whereas this violence affects children's sense of physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and ability to learn free from the fear of violence. And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is committed to fostering a safe, inclusive, and supportive educational environment where every child can thrive and every
educator can teach without fear. And whereas community awareness, prevention education, responsible policies, and open dialogue are essential components to addressing and reducing gun violence. And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is committed to the principles of see something, say something, where any suspicious or concerning information should be reported to a school administrator, safe school counselor, or law enforcement officer, or reported anonymously through the Safe 2 Talk link on the school division website. And whereas national gun violence awareness efforts, such as Wear Orange
Day, unite individuals and organizations to honor the lives lost, support survivors, and promote meaningful change. And whereas the Loudoun County School Board renews its commitment to help reduce gun violence and pledges to do all we can to keep firearms out of the hands of people who should not have access to them, encouraging responsible gun ownership and storage to help keep our families and communities safe. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board formally recognizes National Gun Violence Awareness So I'll just finish reading the proclamation.
National Gun Violence Awareness Day in Loudoun County Public Schools on Friday, June 5th, 2026, and encourages students and staff to wear orange, participate in activities that honor victims and promote gun safety awareness, and further commits to ongoing efforts to educate students and families about violence prevention, mental health support, and safe, inclusive school communities. And thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. We'll move on to our next proclamation, which is LGBTQ+ Pride Month proclamation, which will be read by Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Whereas the month of June is recognized across the United States as
LGBTQ+ Pride Month, commemorating the ongoing pursuit of equal justice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, q***r, and other sexual and gender minority communities, and celebrating the accomplishments and contributions of LGBTQ+ individuals to our society. And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools acknowledges and highlights the many achievements and profound contributions made by members of the LGBTQ+ community throughout history and today to the economic, cultural, and educational and political development
of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the world. And whereas Pride Month acknowledges the ongoing struggle for equality for members of the LGBTQ+ community and serves as an annual powerful reminder of the importance of acceptance and diversity, bringing together individuals, organizations, and communities across the Commonwealth and world to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and celebrate the progress made toward a more inclusive society. And whereas Loudoun County Public Schools is committed to fostering a culture of equity, inclusion, and respect for all
students, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. And whereas LGBTQ+ students, staff, and families are valuable and vibrant members of our school community, whose diverse identities and experiences enrich the educational environment. And whereas research shows that inclusive educational settings where all students feel safe, respected, and valued positively impact academic achievement, mental health, and overall wellbeing. And whereas LCPS recognizes the importance of combating bullying, rejecting and condemning hate and discrimination,
and ensuring that all individuals have the opportunity to thrive in a welcoming and inclusive learning environment. And whereas LCPS is stronger when reflecting and respecting the full diversity of our school community, which enables 96.7% of all LCPS students to graduate in 2025. Now be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board proclaims June 2026 to be LGBTQ+ Pride Month and encourages staff and community to recognize the contributions and achievements of the
LGBTQ+ community to the Commonwealth of Virginia, in Loudoun County, and our school community now and throughout the school year. Thank you. And our final proclamation today is the Juneteenth National Independence Day Proclamation, which will be read by Dr. Rashid. Thank you, Chair, again. And once again, a great honor to read this. Whereas Juneteenth, observed annually on June 19, commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was
issued by President Abraham Lincoln. And whereas Juneteenth represents the triumph of freedom over slavery, the strength and unique historical experiences of African American, African, and Black Americans, and the ongoing journey toward justice, equality, and civil rights in the United States. And whereas in 2021, Juneteenth was officially recognized as a federal holiday known as Juneteenth National Independence Day, becoming a symbol of the nation's commitment to reflecting on the past and building a more inclusive future.
And whereas the Commonwealth of Virginia recognized Juneteenth as a state holiday in 2020 as a celebration of Black culture, history, resilience, joy, and freedom, which are American values. And whereas the Loudoun County School Board acknowledges the importance of teaching history in its full complexity and truth, including the legacies of slavery and contributions of African Americans to our nation. And whereas African Americans make up 8.5% of residents in Loudoun County and 7.6% of students in Loudoun County Public Schools.
And whereas LCPS is committed to fostering inclusive learning environments that honor the dignity, culture, and contributions of all people, and to empowering students to become thoughtful, informed citizens who value diversity and inclusion. Whereas especially on Juneteenth, we acknowledge and highlight the many achievements and profound contributions made by African American, African, and Black Americans to the economic, cultural, educational, and political development of Loudoun County, the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the United States. And now, therefore, be it resolved that the
Loudoun County School Board recognize and honors Juneteenth as a day of reflection, education, and celebration within our school community, and an opportunity to engage in learning that will ensure improved relationships and respect, and improve collective sense of belonging and freedom from prejudice and hate. Be it further resolved that the school board encourages all students, staff, and families to engage in meaningful learning experiences, classroom discussions, and community events that commemorate Juneteenth and promote equity,
awareness, and unity. Thank you. Thank you. I'll now entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move we approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. Mr. Pepper has made a motion to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Rashid. It has been properly moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda. At this time, we'll take a vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote.Clerk, please close and display the vote. Okay. That motion passes, as it says on the board, I just was taking a
moment, with three school board members voting yes, including myself, Mr. Pepper, and Dr. Rashid, and four school board members abstaining from the vote, including Ms. Ricardi, Ms. Chernov, Mrs. Griffiths, and Ms. LaBelle, and Mr. Svendsen and Vice Chair Donahue absent for the vote. With that, we will move on to our work session for this evening. We will begin tonight with the Department of Academics overview of Title I and LCPS, which will be presented by Dr. Ellis. Oh, and Dr. Ellis, I'll ask you to please introduce your colleague.
All right. Good evening, Chair Chandler, members of the board. I am here with Mr. Scott Meisenzahl, our supervisor of school improvement, and he will walk us through most of this presentation. This evening, we are here to provide you an overview of Title I, Part A within Loudoun County Public Schools. Tonight is really designed as a background on how our federal funds are used across the division, the purpose of Title I, and really preparing you to review the formal
consolidated grant application that you'll be seeing a lot of us in the next few weeks. So we'll come back with the consolidated grant application on June 9th, and then ultimately it requires your approval by the end of June to submit to Virginia Department of Education to receive those funds. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Meisenzahl to walk us through the next few slides. Thank you, Dr. Ellis, and good afternoon, everyone. Title I, Part A is a federal law and dedicated funding source designed to improve basic educational programs in low-income schools. It originates from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of
1965, which was amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015. The core purpose of Title I, Part A is to provide targeted financial assistance through state educational agencies to school divisions and public schools with high numbers or percentages of children from low-income families. The federal funding helps ensure that all children have the equitable support needed to meet challenging state academic content and achievement standards. By design, Title I funds must be used to directly
impact student achievement. We achieve this by focusing on four key pillars: providing additional services that expand the amount and quality of instructional time, offering students an enriched and accelerated academic program, significantly elevating the overall quality of daily instruction, and affording parents substantial, meaningful opportunities to actively participate in their child's education. Schools are identified for Title I status based on economically disadvantaged enrollment data provided directly from our School
Nutrition Services Department. We strictly follow federal guidelines, which mandate a 75% poverty priority threshold. This means that we must fund all schools at or above 75% poverty first. I'm sorry, if you can go to the previous slide. Lower poverty schools down to 40% are only served if remaining funds allow, utilizing a sequential rank and serve ordering system based on concentrated economic need. Next slide. For the upcoming 2026, 2027 school year,
poverty rates are calculated using the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, data paired with a federal 1.6 multiplier. LCPS serves elementary schools starting from the highest poverty rate down to 55%, and secondary schools down to 65%. This targets resources directly to the schools with the greatest economic and academic needs. As detailed on this slide, our 14 served schools for 2026, 2027 will range from Sully
Elementary to Dominion Trail Elementary. You will notice that Sully Elementary shows a percentage greater than 100% at 106.4%. This is a direct result of applying that federal 1.6 multiplier to a very high baseline data of the CEP, which is a standard occurrence in federal reporting. I want to note that while Countryside and Frederick Douglass are currently below the 55% elementary threshold, we will continue to serve these schools for an additional year and closely monitor their poverty enrollment status.
If their status remains below 55% at this time next year, they won't be served as Title I for the 2027, 2028 school year. By doing this, this allows us to monitor their data and transition them and address their needs as we anticipate the removal of the Title I status.For Dominion Trail, they were in the same situation last year where they were below the 55% threshold. They're currently sitting at 52.4%. We anticipate that their poverty percentage will rise back above the
55% threshold based on the attendance boundary changes that were approved by the school board earlier this year. Leesburg Elementary, which is not on that list and is currently served as Title I, dropped below the 55% threshold last year and is currently at 44% in this year's April 1st report. They are the only school that is currently served that will not be served for the 2026/2027 school year. Also to note that there are no new schools being added as Title I for the upcoming school year. Can you mention Robey?
Yes. So Robey High School is not on this list. They actually are at above the 75% threshold. There is an allowability to have them, what's called as a skipped school, which means we can choose not to serve them as Title I as long as we provide them the same funds they would have received through Title I, through our local budget. And so due to their lower enrollment percentages, we are able to provide them what they would have received through Title
I, through local funds, and that allows them some more flexibility to deal with some of the unique needs of their students and staff. So how funds are used in LCPS. In LCPS, Title I funds are directly applied to local classroom and supplemental support. First, they fund four and a half licensed and endorsed educators, including math and reading interventionists, alongside a dedicated McKinney-Vento specialist who coordinates vital services for our highly vulnerable student populations, and a federal program specialist who supports our Title I and Title II programs.
Funds also procure SOL-aligned supplemental books explicitly reviewed for compliance with state standards and the Virginia Literacy Act. Additionally, they finance supplemental digital content subscriptions, computer devices, and STEM supplies to enhance differentiated learning paths. Title I funds also build capacity and sustain community bridges outside the standard school day. They cover registration and travel expenses for personnel to attend regional or national workshops, ensuring continuous teacher development and program compliance. To support family outreach,
funds sustain school community events like literacy or science nights and fund summer take-home learning backpacks. Finally, a portion is allocated to support students at a Loudoun County behavioral center for neglected students and equitable services for eligible students attending participating non-private schools as required by law. Active family engagement is a fundamental expectation for every school-wide Title I school. This includes maintaining regular two-way communication regarding academic progress through newsletters,
emails, phone calls, and meetings. Title I schools are also required to jointly develop and annually review a written parental involvement agreement with parents. Lastly, we ensure that families have seamless access to resources and materials to support learning at home, including books and educational websites. To ensure these federal dollars achieve a measurable impact as intended, LCPS implements continuous improvement cycles. Schools conduct annual needs assessments with root cause analysis to identify student-specific needs and align these Title I
funds accordingly. School teams engage in ongoing Plan-Do-Study-Act, or PDSA cycles, three times a year. Data is regularly reviewed to evaluate the student impact of identified strategies, and revisions are made to school-wide plans and budgets based on those findings. So in terms of next steps, Mr. Meisenzahl receives from the school nutrition office the final CEP data that we use for the consolidated grant on or around April 1st. So then we are able to make our final calculations, and he's able to
build the consolidated grant with support from offices throughout central office. On June 9th, we will present to you the consolidated application, and again, that includes Title I that we just talked about, as well as Titles II, III, and IV. And on June 12th, we send notification of any changes to Title I schools. So we would let VDOE know, for example, that Leesburg Elementary will no longer be Title I moving forward. And then if we were to add any schools, we would have notified them as well. And then on June 23rd, you will receive the consolidated
application as either an action item or consent, and that will allow us to meet our deadline of June 30th to submit to VDOE. And we're happy to answer any questions. All right. Thank you both so much for the presentation. Board members, are there any questions? Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. So appreciate the presentation. It's always helpful to see where we are with Title I. My question really is what happens, and I know we talked about the slide where some of our schools are right on that 55% borderline. What happens to a school when they drop below, right? So I know that, for example, Dominion Trail is
exiting the program, and then Countryside and Frederick Douglass are on a watch. What are they goingI know those Title I resources are used for such good, important things. How do they supplement the loss of those funds, and how has student achievement at those schools been impacted? All right. I will start and then ask Mr. Meisenzahl to fill in any gaps. And then in terms of student achievement, we may have to get back to you with more specific information. But a couple things that I do want to point out. So Title I schools obviously receive a piece of
the Title I pie, for lack of a better term. And those funds are used for the things that Mr. Meisenzahl explained. Additionally, locally, they receive, new this year, correct me if I'm wrong, is elementary Title I schools will receive an additional assistant principal, thanks to the board-approved budget. They also, just like all of our schools, receive differentiated staffing based on their free and reduced lunch percentage. The differentiated staffing will stay the same. That is not taken away from them.
So it is an assistant principal, a full-time family liaison, and I believe an additional counselor, but I'm going to get you the full list, that they would essentially no longer be eligible for if they were no longer Title I. However, we do work with the principals to maintain the support that they need through differentiated staffing, through flexible staffing, et cetera. Is there anything you would add to that? Just that we also prioritize other funding sources. For example, we have a tutoring fund that comes from this board, and when we look at allocating
those tutoring funds to schools, we look at academic need. And so those schools that may no longer be possibly receiving Title I funds, like Leesburg Elementary, we're still looking at what are their academic needs and prioritizing those local funds to support the schools and the students at the school. Thank you guys very much. I would be really intrigued to see schools that have slipped just below that threshold, how all of our metrics compare to when they were a Title I school. I think that'd be just really useful information for this board, particularly as we go forward in budget processes.
Just to add to that, it's not frequent that we have schools removed from our status. The most recent school would've been Seneca Ridge, which was due to changing the thresholds that we've set. But since I've been working with Title I for a number of years, we haven't had many schools leave that Title I status. So we are noticing a shift in demographics that we haven't experienced before. So we will definitely be monitoring the impact for those schools. Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question was also about Dominion Trail. It's still on the list.
Can you just give me details, because we had a redistricting issue, and that was because partially of the Title I status, but when do they lose that status? Can you just give me some information on that? I'd appreciate it. Thank you. So, I'll start by saying that their Title I status, I don't think influenced the boundary changes. However, they were on our hold harmless list, for lack of
a better word, this year. They had dropped below the 55% threshold, but they had just dropped below it, so we maintained their Title I status this current school year. And then as the boundary process played out, we were watching the numbers. We don't have exact CEP numbers for them with their new boundaries. When the new boundaries go into place, then we will be able to calculate their new CEP status, which our hunch is they will go back above the 55%. So to
avoid yo-yoing back and forth between Title I and non-Title I status, we are going to hold them harmless for one more year to ensure that our educated guess is accurate. Did I explain that correctly? Yes, you did. And just to add to that, while the CEP data that's released on the April 1st report is the official data, I work closely with our nutrition office to get preliminary data points throughout the year. As an example, on November 30th of 2025, we were looking at Dominion Trail of having a poverty rate with the multiplier applied of 48%.
So at that point in time, we anticipated them no longer being served for the upcoming year. But then we've been monitoring in December, we pulled data in February, and then in the April 1st report, that's where we saw that they had actually, due to participation in CEP identification, had elevated to that 50, almost 53% threshold. So there has been a change in their status throughout the year, and our planning for that has changed based on those numbers changing. So, you mentioned they're going to stay at Title I for one more year. '26, '27, is that correct?
So they will be served for '26, '27, and just like all of our schools, we'll monitor their status. If, for some reason, they do not return to that 55%, then we will work with the school administration and the community to move forward in any possible changes from there. Thank you. And if you can keep us updated, I'm sure you will. Thank you. We will, yeah. Ms. Chernov. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation. I guess one of my questions, I think I'm in the same vein. I know when I was teaching, we called kids that were on the bubble, we called them bubble kids, where they're about to bump up into the next tier.
So I'm thinking about it as bubble schools, if you will. So it's not only for me, the ones that are rolling off, but it's those ones that might be rolling in. It's like that on-ramp, off-ramp. So just to expand on your question, Mr. Pepper, is since now we are seeing for the first time people bumping up and we're losing Leesburg, so do we have processes in place to evaluate that are formalized, or is it more just on a case-by-case needs basis based off what the school's needs are as we monitor those
situations? So as far as the identification of the Title I schools, they have to be identified in rank order. So, while we are looking at the academic needs of the schools, ultimately it comes down to the enrollment percentages that dictate which schools will be served and not served. As far as the idea of continuing to serve a school that may drop below that threshold, we're able to do that as long as another school doesn't leapfrog that's not currently served over them,
because we would have to serve in rank order. So that is part of the consideration when identifying schools is, has anybody jumped up into that poverty rate that is now greater than a currently served school? That will be part of that decision-making. And I'll just add that I do want to lift up, again, all of the hard work that staff and this board has done to support schools, regardless of their Title I status, based on their need. Right? So going back to the differentiated staffing, the differentiated allotments, there are resources.
So Leesburg Elementary, while they may not have an additional assistant principal next year, they still receive a lot of resources, and that's thanks in large part to the efforts you all have made. I appreciate that, and I really appreciate what you said about yo-yoing. I think that that's part of this is jerking schools around, and when it is really just a percentage, it can be really much more delicate than that because these are kids that do have needs. And to that end, I know we did approve the AP additional for Title I, but it does concern me when I see a Frederick Douglass, just speaking
from my district, on there that's going to get a new AP, but could potentially roll off the next year. So that's like a one-year AP slot. So just things like that. If we can keep that in mind, I know that that concern's already been brought to me in terms of hiring and retention. That's a tricky position. And then my last question is just do we think that overall enrollment decline, which we are now seeing as a trend across the next few years in terms of all of our discussions, is that also having an impact on Title I status, or do we
think it's just outside of that? Yeah. I don't have a good answer to that. No worries. It would just be projecting. I don't know. I do also want to mention, Ms. Chernov, just your thoughts remind me to restate what Mr. Meisenzahl said about the cutoff. The 55% cutoff is a local cutoff. So it could be that once we have a couple years' worth of data, we look at all of the percentages, and maybe 55% isn't the right number,
isn't the right cutoff. Right? It was, at the time, very logical. Right? There was a large break in percentage between a school that was above 55 and a school that was under it, and it was a natural break for us, which is why we selected it. It could be that there's a different natural break, but again, every time we add schools, the slices of the pie get smaller and smaller. I really appreciate that background. I think that that's important, and I know the team takes great care. I worked in Title I, so I know you guys take great care in making sure
that the differentiated funds and those transitions are occurring, so I do appreciate that. But just wanted to put a couple of those things on the radar and maybe good data points for us to explore in PMC too as we look at these transitions. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Ms. McHardie. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you guys so much for this. So I guess because we were talking about the natural breaks in here, and I know I get the gist of when I was first learning about Title I schools, there's a pie of money, right? And the more people we add to eating the pie, the smaller the pieces everybody gets
kind of a thing. Yeah. Well, and I think that's good for the public to understand too, right? Because every year when we do this, I didn't understand that at the very beginning when I was first looking at this a couple of years back. There's a great children's book about that. That's why we're laughing. Okay. There you go. About the pie getting smaller. The pie getting smaller. Yeah. So the pie gets smaller the more schools that we have. And I need you guys to explain to me again how we get to 106%. That would be helpful because I'm going to get asked that question. How do you get to 106%? So that is a very good question because it can be very confusing when you
see that 106%. We don't have even 100% necessarily of the families at that school identified as economically disadvantaged. So the way we identify schools is using that community eligibility provision data, which comes from the nutrition office. We previously, maybe three to four years ago, used free and reduced lunch meal dataTo identify the poverty level, but then we received guidance from the state that if we do have what we call CEP schools, we must use that
CEP data for those schools. And so what that CEP data is, is it's identifying students who are children that are directly certified through, because they are in foster care, Head Start, Even Start, homeless, migrants, runaways, are living in households that participate in SNAP or TANF or food distribution programs on Indian reservations. So it's directly certified families that are used to identify CEP. When we use CEP data, we see that it's a much lower
percentage than when we use the free and reduced lunch meal data. So the federal government identifies a multiplier that is supposed to level that percentage of poverty up to what would have been with a free and reduced lunch. And that multiplier is 1.6. So we take that CEP poverty rate, and we multiply it by 1.6, which is intended to level it to what it would have been previously. When we have schools that have a high percentage of directly certified students, as you saw in that case of over 100%, that multiplier
sometimes brings that percentage above 100%. So as the example that you mentioned for Sully Elementary, the CEP poverty rate is actually 67% when we get the CEP data. But because we apply that multiplier of 1.6, it actually brings it up to over 106%. We find that for the schools that are not at the extreme levels, that multiplier does a pretty good job of equating the CEP data to what would have been our poverty rates when we used the free and reduced lunch meals.
But sometimes those extreme levels of the schools can really escalate the percentage. Could we actually see it at some point in time, a table that has the raw data and then the math for each of the schools, so we can just see without the multipliers and then with how that all works out? Yeah, absolutely. It's in the grant, and it's also already publicly available on the VDOE website under the nutrition section- Great ... for CEP, but we can produce that. That doesn't include the multiplier. We can take that data and apply the multiplier so you can see all the raw
numbers available. That'd be great, and then- For all of our schools ... if we could also see that over time too, because it'd be really helpful, I think, not only to see those data points, but then understand for the last, since COVID, so maybe I'll say four or five years, have these schools been increasing in percentages? I think that's helpful to us as far as from a resource allocation perspective too. So if we can see some longitudinal data on that, whatever you've got would be helpful. Thanks so much. All right. Are there any further questions? All right, seeing no further questions. Thank you so much for the presentation, and we will move on to
item 3.02, Department of Academics after school programs, which will also be presented by Dr. Ellis. All right. Hello again. So this time I am joined by Perry Hamilton, our new coordinator of after school and summer school programs. And this first update is designed to be just that, and I'm going to start by giving you a little bit of background and then turn it over to Ms. Hamilton, who has just some really positive information to share about the work that she's been doing with schools
on building out after school programs. So as some of you may recall, in the FY26 budget development process, the board at the time directed staff and provided funds for staff to focus on the five Sterling District Elementary Schools to build out robust after school programs, focusing on not just fun activities, but also instructional support and enrichment opportunities. We talked about identifying a third party vendor to support this
work, and we also talked about working with our friends at Parks and Rec to build out the CASA program to provide more instructional enrichment opportunities, and the board's desire was also to provide transportation for these students to participate in this program. Also, we are very thankful that with this direction, the board provided us an FTE for a coordinator to begin these efforts, and we're so glad to have Ms. Hamilton in this role to really herd all these cats and
get these programs off the ground. So I'm going to turn it over to her to talk a little bit about what we've been working on. There you go. All right. Thank you so much. So currently, I'll give you a little update on what we've been able to do this year. So currently, in terms of the aftercare programming, we have three different providers serving those five schools in the Sterling Park area. The third party vendor that we were able to bring in is called AlphaBest, and they are new to Loudoun County this school year.
At Guilford, we've been able to get to about half capacity in terms of student enrollment. At Sully, we have actually maxed out capacity, which is pretty impressive. Casa is serving us at Forest Grove and Rolling Ridge, and we are pretty close to capacity at both of those sites. And Sterling was able to bring the YMCA back to their site. They were gone for a year, but they've returned for the '25, '26 school year. Okay. One quick note on the numbers for AlphaBEST.
The first part of this year was spent mostly on going through the RFP process, working to locate a vendor, to go through all of the contracting and all of the steps needed to have an after-school provider in our schools. And so the program launched in February. Is that correct? Yes. In February. And so these numbers, to us, are even more impressive, given that families probably already figured out their after-school plans for the year, that we were able to secure this many families mid-year. Okay. And for the '26, '27 school year,
all of those providers will remain on-site at those schools, and we are actually going to begin enrollment for AlphaBEST. It opened today. Kind of excited about that. I know. I was like, "Whoo." For the YMCA in Loudoun, their contract for the '26, '27 school year was fully executed, I believe, on Friday of last week, and our contract with Casa for those two schools should be finalized this week. So we should be able to start enrollment
for all five schools in earnest, hopefully this week. Okay. And in terms of after-school enrichment, so I was very lucky to be able to work with the community education coordinator down in Sully and Guilford, as well as the family liaison in Sterling, and also work with the principals of Forest Grove and Rolling Ridge. And so these are the after-school enrichment opportunities that the students have down in those schools. And so there's everything from art
to Zumba and a little bit of everything in between. What are the green beans? Oh, the green beans. Yeah. So the green beans well, they're a vegetable. No. The green beans are what Guilford calls the Green Initiative. Oh, okay. So- Sustainability. That's it. Nice. They've just given it their own thing. You can go back one, just real quick. I'm going to highlight another one. What was really nice that we were able to do, so one of the schools has Girls Who Code run by a teacher. But because we were looking to expand Casa and make them a little more robust in terms of not just after-school childcare,
but to bring in some meaningful academic enrichment, I started to work with them. And so we brought in a Girls Who Code instructed by a PRCS instructor. So we started to do that, and we brought that in, and that was really well-received. And so that is one of the things that's on deck for next year, is to do more of bringing in the enrichment offerings from PRCS staff into the Casa sites. Okay. And so in terms of '26, '27, I'll finish up my work with the principals. I've worked with three so far.
I'm working with two more this week to develop what we would like to present the parents in terms of just a flyer for the entire year, for the '26, '27 school year, that lists all of the clubs available for fall, winter, and spring. And we'll have a balance throughout those three sessions. So it will just be clear that there's no cost to the families. The time span and daytime of those clubs will be balanced. And just to have a greater academic and enrichment balance, it was a lot easier to get
some fun clubs started this year. But as the year went on, a lot of teachers came to myself and my community partner in the schools talking about, "Can we get more STEM, more robotics, more science?" And it's like, "Yes, we will." And so that's really our thrust for the fall. Also streamlining things like dismissal, club coordination, so that it's a very smooth operation from the regular school day's dismissal to club dismissal in the afternoons. All right. And so for our next steps, continue collaborating with Casa. I meet monthly with their children's programming director.
Working with AlphaBEST, I meet with their equivalent of a children's programming director. She has a different title. I meet with her regularly, and we actually have a meeting Friday to talk about the successes that we've had this year and planning for enrollment and just streamlining some things for next year. One of the things that is a goal of mine is to maximize enrollment in all the programs, because when you have students staying after school, you have students that you can tutor and enrich and extend their learning and all sorts of things.Working to continue to provide transportation
and extend the group... Or excuse me, expand the group of students for which we are providing transportation, and gathering feedback from staff and families to see how we can further expand the opportunities that we're providing for their students. All right. And I'll just make a note on that expansion. So we, as you all know, did not include any recommendations for expanding in this current budget development process, and that is because really this year was a year of growth and development
and we didn't have any data to show the best way to expand, because we didn't have that information yet. I do think that after a full year, we will have a better idea of where expansion is needed and the best way to recommend doing that. So I just really appreciate Ms. Hamilton's work building these programs with the school staff. Historically, after-school programs have really been a function of PTOs and PTAs, or
CASA completely independently run simply using space in our schools. So it's great to have that connection with the schools to build out these programs. And we are happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much for the presentation. I'll kick us off. As one of the board members that advocated for this program really from the beginning of my term, in the first term that I served on the school board with other colleagues, I am so pleased to have this update and to see this finally coming to fruition. Families in our community really advocated for this program over many years, and I know
that this means a great deal to the families that you're serving in Sterling. And I have already heard from many of the families a hope that we'll continue to evolve. And I will just say, it's so heartening to see how it's coming together, and I'm as excited to see how it continues to progress, and I love to talk, Dr. Ellis, about some of the ideas that you have in what we believe this program could potentially become in the future. Thank you. So with that, board members, are there any other questions or comments?
Yes, Ms. Ricardi. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's really great to see you, Ms. Hamilton. Thank you so much. This is so exciting. I have heard from a lot of our families as well, in Sterling Park in particular, about these programs, and I'm excited about this. And congratulations on the enrollment numbers in just a short amount of time. I think that's pretty incredible, to be honest with you. I think one of the things that we struggle with, just generally, is getting families really engaged, and so I think this is an incredible opportunity for our students. I just had a question about the programs themselves, because I think, are they completely subsidized 100%?
Are there stipends? How does that work? So AlphaBEST is completely subsidized. Okay. For Parks and Rec, CASA, I don't have access to their information because they're Parks and Rec. But I can tell you that part of my work was to work with the family liaisons and other school staff to better facilitate families accessing the CASA Cares program- Mm-hmm ... which subsidized through Parks and Rec. And very similar to what my colleague before me was discussing, parents and families that were eligible for certain programs like
TANF, and food stamps, and SNAP, EBT, and things like that, automatically made them eligible for free tuition in aftercare. So however, and I know that the YMCA was not subsidized, that was parent pay. But for this coming school year, I am excited to say that AlphaBEST will continue to be subsidized, PRCS CASA for those two schools will be subsidized fully, and the YMCA will be fully subsidized as well. So the parents will not have to pay anything at those
five schools. That's fantastic. And one of the things I would love to know, just from a cost perspective, is once we get... They're subsidized through, I guess, I'm assuming programs that we already have or through county funds of some sort, but when it comes down to the remaining costs that are still left to be paid, could we get an idea of what that ballpark number is? Mostly as we're going into the budget season- Mm-hmm ... it may be something that we want to-- I'd like to look at us being able to fully subsidize it for at least our Title 1 schools in this program, and perhaps all of them. I just think it's an incredible
opportunity, as you mentioned, from an education perspective, to not only have the fun programs that are in here. And I love the green beans, by the way. Their school is amazing. They do amazing green stuff there. But to be able to also fold in reading and math and other opportunities to really help get kids that need it, give them some additional support and remediation. So I would love to be able to find a way for us to be able to fund that. Yeah. So it would be great to have the financials on that too. But congratulations, honestly, for getting this off the ground, for getting really great partners, for creating really great programs.
Some of these things, I'm looking at this like, I want to go do some of these. They sound like a lot of fun, don't they? Yeah. Zoom, but there you go. Oh, thank you. But thank you so much. Thank you. Well, I will just, to add on to my earlier comments, say I have continuously heard throughout the advocacy period that parents are very hopeful that homework support will be included, and I think that would be viewed as a very positive-Addition to the program as we build it out. And I really think this is one of the best ways that we can possibly level the playing field,
because we're able, in this way, to offer these enrichment activities to students who may not have had the ability to have them otherwise. And it's just a great opportunity for us to support our students. So, thank you for the presentation. And seeing no further questions from the board, we'll move on to our final work session, which is Department of Academic Summer Programs, and I believe you will both be giving the update. We're back. Okay. So similarly, Ms. Hamilton has been very busy collaborating with multiple offices
across this building and at the school level to do many things in support of summer programs. And so one of the things that I am happy to announce is that we will be launching a program evaluation of elementary and middle school, summer school, and high school credit recovery. She has worked very closely with our research office to develop the research questions. We have that all ready to go, and we'll be able to share that information with
you in the fall. She's also been busy building out other pieces of summer school, and I will turn this over to Ms. Hamilton to... Oh, one more thing I want to say, sorry. One of the reasons that summer school came on our radar as a program that we need to evaluate was just based on feedback that we've gotten over the years. In addition to the actual structure of summer school, we get feedback a lot on the communication of our summer program opportunities. Families sometimes find it difficult to find the information.
Once they do find it, it's not all in the same place. And then similarly, we have varying enrollment procedures depending on the program. And so Ms. Hamilton's been working with the team to streamline all of that information as well. And I will stop talking and turn it over to you. Thank you. All right. So just a little where we're about to go, which I cannot believe it's just about June. So we're about to get started on summer learning season, and so in terms of what we have about to start for this year, we've got
several remediation programs that are offered just about every summer, elementary, middle, and high school credit recovery. We have ESY, and I'm very excited to share that the English Learners Office has developed virtual high school for our English learners nine through 12 that addresses the need of our EL students who are in high school but have other family commitments or need to work, this opportunity to learn virtually. At different times of the day, they get to pick a session, and they get
one-on-one or one-on small group instruction throughout the summer. And so that is one of our new programs. Very excited to share that. In terms of enrichment and extension, so we have a lot of offerings, and many of these are offered summer after summer. The two new ones, the second bullet down, the Academy of Global and Linguistic Studies at Dominion High School. So this one is a new program altogether at Dominion, and so for their rising ninth grade class, they're having
a brief summer session to welcome their students in and give them a taste of what they'll be experiencing for the school year. The Math Summer Boost program, about two-thirds of the way down on the slides, that is an asynchronous opportunity for students in sixth through ninth grade that need remediation, excuse me, reinforcement or extension, additional practice, or if they want to get a leg up in math skills. This is offered through our Schoology platform, and it is just finished last week, so that's very exciting.
And so we'll be launching information and communicating that to parents, teachers, and stakeholders on how students can access that. And Summer in the Trades, we are still enrolling for this opportunity. This widens the pathways and opportunities for students to learn about, get interested in what we have to offer for MATA. And so students can do one or two weeks where they check out the different hands-on trade opportunities and perhaps think about enrolling in MATA when they're able to in their 10th grade year. Here we go. No, we're good.
All right. All of this is on the heels and in the midst of our summer programs redesign, and I'm really excited to say that with my program partner, Joanna Kim, and everyone else that I'm working with, which is a huge team of people, we are on time, if not a little bit ahead of schedule. And so we started off by conducting a full inventory of all the summer programs, and I felt like we'd be done and we'd find another one, but we've got them all. And now, engaging stakeholders, defining roles, figuring out who was the program owner, what roles were within the program, who did what, who knew what,
establishing program success metrics, what a student needed to be or have or know or do to be a part of the program, finding those things out, and howWould they be registered or enrolled? As Dr. Ellis said, they weren't all done the same way. So we got all of that taken care of on time. Go to the next slide. And then with all of that information, and then making sure that we had everything correct, we were able to build and launch a draft website. We going to show? Probably not. Okay. All right. Well, another time. Which is really cool. And so then we were able to review the website with the
leadership collaborative work team. We got really meaningful feedback from that group of folks. We took their feedback, went back to the program owners, and then we were able to really clarify what we want to go onto the summer website so that everything is all in one place, whether you're a student, a teacher, a staff member, community person, a parent, that you know what's available for students over the summer. 90% of our registration processes for summer programs are now through ParentVUE, which feeds into Phoenix, so that any
data that's needed for any sort of program evaluations or any other data purpose is available through Phoenix. And hold on. I have one more thing. And so, oops. In addition to that, I'll just add one more quick thing. We're working with the in-house LCPS communications teams and Aptigy to make sure that our website is accessible to all members of the community, whether it has to do with access for ADA reasons or whether you're on your mobile phone, your iPad, your device. But we're just trying to make sure we've got all the bases covered.
And that's it. Okay. And we are happy to answer any questions about summer programs. All right. Board members, I'll open the floor to questions. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you guys. Summer programs are something that are near and dear to my heart because I work very heavily involved in Falls Church City Summer Program. And so I was excited to see just the plethora of options that our students have to pick from. And I had asked this to Dr. Ellis earlier, so I don't think you're surprised about the VLO program. Students in that program can actually get ahead or take additional credits that they might not be taking during the school year. Is that correct?
That is correct. Okay. And what's the cap on that program? Just out of curiosity, because what's happening, and this is really coming from our community as well, is there are students who are, I don't want to say forced, but really desperately need to take a VLO summer course, whether it's a PE or a personal finance economic situation, and they're finding themselves locked out or not accepted into that. So is there a cap on it? What does it look like? And how can we prioritize need over want? Great question. So the VLO, we call it our term three, which is our summer term,
is for excuse me, typically for enrichment or getting ahead. We have just this year shifted to a streamlined registration process for that. Prior to this year, it was a little bit like "The Hunger Games." It was all first come, first served. The system would crash on the first day that enrollment was open, and we would get tons and tons of emails from families. Just like Mr. Smith says, like trying to buy Taylor Swift concert tickets, right? So we have cleaned that process up with the
amazing support of DDI, and the process now goes through the student opportunities portal, similar to other program registrations. It is now a lottery, and there is a prioritization that happens before the lottery opens. So the system opens and students can put their names in the lottery. School counselors look at the students from their school. Any student that is a rising senior in danger of not graduating gets priority placement into the course that they need to graduate prior to the lottery opening.
Now, that does not include students who have to make hard decisions about courses they're taking because they also go to the Academies of Loudoun or some other program. I just want to be clear about that. These are rising seniors who are in danger of not graduating. They get priority. And then the lottery opens. There is a cap, just because we have limited staff hired to run the courses. That being said, now that all of the enrollment is in
the student opportunities portal, we will have really good data this year on the number of students in the lottery for each class. And then we can predict and hopefully expand course options next summer by expanding the number of teachers to teach the course. So did I answer-- I think I'm missing one of your questions. No, I think that really was extremely helpful, Dr. Ellis. Okay. Like I said, really, I love the idea that this is for the obvious reason, that we're prioritizing kids who need the course to graduate. That's the number one, and should be the number one concern to make sure they have all the credits that the VDOE requires of them.
And I think that you did a really good job explaining it. I think that maybe analyzing the data this year and seeing, for example, we were able to accept 250 personal finance and economics kids, but 500 wanted to take it. What does that mean for staffing in the future and trying to balance those numbers? I really would love to be in a situation where every student who wishes to take a summer course can take that summer course. Ms. Shurnoff. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you so much for all of this. I know it's long overdue. We've done a lot of talk about program review through the Performance Monitoring Committee, so this is so exciting to see this in action.
And I love, first of all, that you called it Summer Learning Season. I want a shirt. I love that. It's so perfect. I am very excited about all the options as well. Just as part of the thought process, and I pitched this question to Dr. Ellis and Mr. Lewis earlier today, it is sort of coming to my attention that some of our schools have, and especially at elementary, that are no walker schools. They have no walkers, only bus riders, are facing significant barriers in being able to access summer school because of transportation barriers.
And so just as we move forward, it looks like from Mr. Lewis's response here that that might be a bigger budget discussion, but I would be curious to know if there are other schools that are having access barriers because of transportation needs. Because that is something that I think we would be wanting to talk about and at least I would be wanting to explore and consider. In terms of, we're talking about access and giving all of these options, but I want to make sure our kids that really need to get to summer school to close those learning gaps can get there, and I won't bring up year-round school. No, I'm just kidding.
But just putting that sort of food for thought, I think I have the answers I need for now to go back to our schools that are struggling with this, and there's maybe some creative ways we could try and work some things out, but just for future food for thought, I would love to make sure we're maximizing access for kids in the summer, and I'm sure families would appreciate that as well. So thank you for your work. Oh, thank you. Further questions, board members? We have a little bit more time, and I would normally move to the first item on information. We had also talked about going to closed, and I don't believe that we have enough
time to go into closed at this point. Ms. LaBelle, would you be able to introduce 8210 with the time that we have remaining? Introduction to student discipline. Yes, we can do that briefly. When we went back and looked at student discipline, we have been basically working on it all this year. We revised and cleaned up a number of policies that work together. We talked about first--
Oh, good. Hello, Ms. Scanlon. Would you like to clear this up? I was going to go through the policies, but if you would, that'd be great. Sure, I would be happy to. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. As Ms. LaBelle was expressing, the SBAC committee and the full board, both this school year and last school year, has been working its way through a variety of student discipline policies. This policy, 8210, student discipline, works with several other policies. It can't be considered in isolation.
It does work with policy 8205, which you revised and approved earlier this year. That policy pertains to authority to take disciplinary action. It also importantly works with policy 8220 and the three accompanying regulations to that policy. That is the policy which sets forth the various sanctions that can be applied, and the regulations set forth the processes, including appeals processes for each of those various sanctions. And our regulation, 8220.3,
importantly sets forth the rights of our students with disabilities and the protections that they have under the student discipline process. This policy, 8210, sets forth the roles of various parties in our student discipline process, including our students, our parents, our teachers, our administrators, the division superintendent, and the school board. And then its main purpose, in my view, is to ensure that our students and families have full appropriate notice of the types of
behaviors that subject a student to student discipline. The revisions in this policy primarily were to remove certain content that is addressed specifically in other policies, including our policies on compulsory attendance, the two policies I previously mentioned, and also another policy you will review tonight, 8265, on student searches. And also, the revisions added a number of violations to the
list of misconduct for which a student can be disciplined, again, simply to ensure that all in one place, that list was very comprehensive. What I found was some of those violations, for example, are sex-based violations, were in other policies, as they should be. But I also wanted to ensure that all in one place was a very comprehensive list. So those are the major revisions that you're going to see. Again, in summary, removing certain topics that are addressed
specifically in other policies and adding to the list of possible student misconduct so that we have it all in one place to ensure full and appropriate notice. All right. Thank you so much, Ms. Labelle and Ms. Scanlon, for introducing item 12.03, Student Behavior and Accountability Committee Review of Policy 8210, Introduction to Student Discipline. And board members, I'll ask if you have any questions. Dr. Rashid? Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering, wanted to ask my fellow board members if you received the SEAC recommendation. It wasn't submitted in time to be on
board docs, so it was kind of hard to say. So I was just going to ask everyone here if you did receive that email, if you did receive the email. And then on the end of the slides, I think towards the end, it does say what they were recommending. I know that the feedback for 8210, there was a lot that was of concern. I believe there was feedback from equity members, equity committee, and from the public. So I just wanted to make sure that there is a lot of consideration for 8220 as it is with
8210, as Ms. Scanlon has mentioned. I also wanted to just kind of bring up for discussion the MDR, the Manifestation Determination Review. So that's something I just wanted to make sure that we do consider, especially when we're thinking about how if there's a student with disabilities and there's a violation that's unintentional. So this is something that I would like to have definitely considered, but I'm glad everybody got the SEAC recommendations and that this will be considered. Was just wondering what are the next steps for
this information item? Ultimately, it's most likely to come back for action as it stands today, especially if there are some outstanding concerns about whether or not feedback has been appropriately addressed. Dr. Rashid? Yeah. Thank you, Chair. And just in response to what you said, in one of the recommendations for SEAC, they are recommending a, if I'm not mistaken, I don't have it in front of me, but the work session, to hear more stakeholder feedback in regards to this policy. So I do recommend that it go back to committee based on all that information.
Sorry. Yeah. Oh, I'd like to make a motion that it go back to committee, if that's possible right now. Okay. Dr. Rashid has made a motion. Is there a second? Point of order. Yes. I think because it's information item, Mr. Allen, can you chime in? I think you'd have to suspend the rules. Oh, yes. Thank you, Ms. Chernov. Yes, I was about to hop in to clarify that as well. So given that it's an information item, per policy, there's kind of four approaches you could take, and during information, you're not taking official votes, but you could take a temperature check, right, to send it to consent.
One of the prescribed approaches is sending it back to committee under policy, so you wouldn't need to take per se action in that regard, but it would require a temperature check and a majority of the board. Okay. So just for clarification, if a board member wanted to officially send this particular policy back to committee for further consideration, they would first need to make a motion to suspend the rules, and then second, if that motion passes, then make a second motion to send it back to committee. I mean, I don't see it going to the consent agenda if there are
significant... But we could certainly take a temperature check. Board members, is there any appetite for sending this to consent at this time? To the consent agenda? No. So just for clarity, in Policy 2430, Section E, it sets forth the four approaches to take for an information item. The first one is return to the appropriate committee for further review, which I hear Dr. Rashid proposing. The second is continuing it as an information item at a future meeting of the school board. The third is placing the matter on the agenda at the
following regularly scheduled business meeting as an action item, as the board is accustomed to doing. And the fourth is placing it on the consent agenda item at the next regularly scheduled business meeting. Okay. Does it require that we do a motion to suspend the rules? No. We could send it back to committee based on a temperature check. Thank you for that clarification. Board members, I will ask at this time that we take a temperature check. Please, by show of thumbs up, if you would like to send 8210 back to the SBAC committee.
Mm. Okay. So it looks like there is not an appetite to send it back. Mr. Pepper, would you like to speak to the information item? Yes, Madam Chair. I think that my vote on this, whether or not to send it back, is a little bit premature. I really want to hear the discussion of the board about their thoughts on this item before I decide what I think the best approach is. If that's fair, because I could share my thoughts because I've seen the SEAC recommendations. For me, I actually do think some of the changes they suggest are
warranted, particularly as it talks about students with disabilities, but I think that that can be done as a simple amendment. I also don't particularly feel like the reason they want to send it back to the committee was more tonal than it was content related. They felt the tone appeared to be a bit punitive, and that's why they wanted a working group. I don't know if that's the best use of a time or a working committee.And then there was one more comment that I'm really struggling to find in here because they said it was out of line, and it didn't quite match about something along the lines of, and I'm going to read the quote exactly, it says,
"The phrase other student misconduct is too broad." I will actually speak to that as a school administrator and say there are some times that not everything falls neatly and politely into a tight little category, and you might want to have something like that in the policy. And I just need thoughts on that from my fellow colleagues here, because that's just where I'm at on these things. Ms. Chernov. Thank you, Madam Chair. I tend to agree with my colleague, Mr. Pepper, on this. I think we have a couple of weeks before this is an action item, and looking at it before the meeting, it seems like we can get a better sense
from SEAC and work with Ms. Scanlon if needed to see what is appropriate and what is not. I also worry about timelines. We live in a weird world here on the school board, where our fiscal year is July one to July one. Our school year is August to June, and then elected officials come in January to January. So we are actually on three different calendars. It's really important to me personally that this is solidified and in place so that we have this ready to go for the incoming school year. And so going back to committee feels like that would
create a substantial delay to making sure that if there were any changes that were adopted, that can be communicated appropriately to our schools to make sure they understand if there are any changes. So, that's my two cents on the SEAC information. I have been in touch with the chair of SEAC this afternoon, and it sounds like we can have that conversation in between and present amendments as needed at the next meeting. And then I did just have one policy question, if that's all right. First of all, I want to thank you, Ms. Scanlon, for this work. This is a comprehensive job that you
have done to review all these policies and to get things sort of neat and tidy, I would call it. And having this list, I feel like is just so much clearer than having things scattered and cross-referenced throughout. The one thing I did get a question about, was if it might be appropriate now that we have a generative AI policy to cross-reference that as it does address the line 172 on forgery, cheating, and plagiarism and dishonesty as it relates to using AI. So that might be something to think about.
Maybe we don't need to put AI specifically in this policy as it is changing as we speak. But I would think that maybe since we've done that work in the policy, that that could be a cross-reference that we could add. But just food for thought. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that the committee and Ms. Scanlon has put in a lot of time on this policy. We have had numerous sessions where we've discussed it, and we are very concerned that this policy go to action before the end of the school year so that we may start the next school year with all
of this information out to families and to students, because to try to do it after the school year starts doesn't seem fair. So if we can get some work done and get any amendments that might need done before our last board meeting, that would be greatly appreciated. So if what we're doing, rather than sending it back to the committee, but sitting down and working or communicating with SEAC so they can tell us or discuss with us what they see as necessary or a
reasonable change, then I think we can go ahead and move forward on it before school closes. Thank you. Thank you. Well, from my perspective, I was willing to vote to send it back to committee because it did speak to me their request for a work session. I know from our experience in student services, the work session was really a meaningful experience and very productive. And it was a huge investment of time, but it was very productive, and the process was successful. And so I know I'm always
concerned about making sure that we have adequate feedback from our advisory groups and especially our parent advisory groups, so it was meaningful to me to consider that, having had both experiences. But you win some, you lose some. It didn't necessarily go that way, right? Did I see Mr. Pepper? And then we'll come back to you, Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I completely agree that the work sessions we had at student services were outstanding, and they did such a good job. I just want to add two really brief points. The real reason that I don't think for the work session was needed, because it wasn't so much about the content, it was just about phrasing.
And I think that that's something that we might be able to look at through some simple amendments to make things a little bit less punitive. And then the second thing that I would add is, in addition to SEAC, I would also love to hear in these next few weeks from some of our other advisory groups, MSAC, GEAC, any others, equity council, that want to provide feedback on this policy. I think it's also extraordinarily necessary to hear from them on a topic such as this. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle? If we go ahead and send it back to the committee, our committee doesn't meet until just before school closes. So that becomes an issue. That's why if we're going to do any work on this
policy, it needs to be done prior to the SBAC meeting. Sending it back to committee isn't much help. Thank you. Any further discussion, board members? Excuse me, Madam Chair? Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. Would you- I was hoping I could speak briefly, and I apologize. I tried to turn my camera back on, and for whatever reason, it's not turning on. But following up on Ms. LaBelle pointing out the scheduling, in that SBAC doesn't meet again until the end of June, just before the summer recess, I wanted to propose, instead of sending it back to committee, if my fellow
members would be in support of putting this item on for the next school board meeting for information again, so that we have additional time to gather feedback, to maybe propose amendments. The difficulty with when we propose written amendments, when an item is on for action, is that even if we are able to prepare the drafts in advance, they're only posted on board docs on typically the Friday, a few days before the meeting, which does not give much chance
for the community to be able to review and provide input on our proposed changes. So from my perspective, if the consensus that I'm hearing is that this policy needs a little bit more time and feedback and a little bit more consideration, I wondered if that might be a satisfactory solution if we put it on for information again, we try to have our proposed changes and amendments ready in advance of the next meeting, and then we don't vote on it for action until
the last meeting of this body in June. Well, thank you so much, Vice Chair Donahue, for chiming in. I will say I visibly seem to see a lot of support, but just for belt and suspenders, if we could just have a thumbs up if you support Vice Chair Donahue's suggestion that we bring this item back for information to the next meeting. And that is unanimous. And so with that, conveniently, we have made a decision. This item will come back at the next meeting for information, and it is the perfect timing for us to
go into recess. So we will recess this meeting for dinner and reconvene at 6:30. The board is now in recess. Good evening. The board is coming out of recess at this time. We'll continue with item number six, the pledge of allegiance and national anthem. Nearing its 30th anniversary, the Potomac Falls Choir program has been a community mainstay for the entire history of the school. Under the direction of Mr. Luke Black, the Potomac Falls High School Choir program looks to continue its established excellence into the next 30 years and beyond. Made up of students from all grade levels and
backgrounds, the program strives to unite and empower young people through the joy and companionship of singing. The choir thanks the school board, the Potomac Falls High School administration, and the people of Loudoun County for this opportunity. Now please stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Oh say can you
see by the dawn's early light. What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight. O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly
streaming. And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. O'er the land of the
free, and the home of the brave. Of the brave. Thank you so much Panthers, that was amazing. And of course, I'm not just saying that because my child is your classmate. You guys really were incredible. Thank you for being here tonight. With that, we will move on to item number seven, our Administrative Advisory Committee update. Tonight, we'll be hearing from the Equity Council presented by Mr.
Shaheed Muhammad, the Director of the Division of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. And Mr. Muhammad, when you get settled, I'll ask you to please introduce your team. All right. Well, good evening, Dr. Spence, Chair Chandler, and members of the school board. As stated, my name is Shaheed Muhammad, and I am the Director in the Division of DEIA. I am happy to facilitate the spotlight on the newly formed Equity Council this evening, and I'm joined by three members of the council who will share perspectives later on in the presentation. Ms. Tanvi Naresh, a student at John Champ High School.
Ms. Banan Malkawi, a parent of a student at Potomac Elementary School. And Ms. Cassidy Kavanaugh, staff member, a digital experience specialist in the Department of Digital Innovation. Next slide. So the newly formed administrative council to the superintendent has met three times, the Equity Council. The first meeting was virtual and designed for members to get to know one another and review the purpose, goals, and responsibilities of the council. The council comprises of 25 members who are parents, students,
LCPS staff, community members, Loudon County government officials, and members of the Loudon Interfaith Community. The school board liaison is Vice Chair Anne Donahue, and we thank her for her collaboration and support. Meetings are held every other month, six meetings in total for the year. And the division of DEIA also offers office hours monthly for members to share ideas, important information, or concerns. The current members of the council will serve through the end of the 2026/2027 school year. Applications can be submitted for council membership for the
'27/28 school year in May of The applications are reviewed by a cross-functional team made up by members of DEIA, Rossi, and the Division of School Leadership. Next slide. The Equity Council is tasked with advancing educational equity across division systems, policies, and practices. The Equity Council's core responsibilities are: to advance student and staff belonging, to ensure the division has a strong, equitable, and deep instructional focus from which all students benefit, and to engage in data analysis and provide feedback and
recommendations on school division policy, regulation, practices, curriculum matters, and other essential functions. Next slide. Thank youThe Equity Council's work is driven by two goals aligned to the One LCPS Strategic Plan. Goal one, educational excellence, and goal two, staff and student belonging. Educational excellence is the pursuit for students that combines high-level academic achievement, inclusive learning environments, student wellbeing, and positive character development.
It involves all staff, students, and parents dedicated to all students succeeding and thriving in the school environment. Staff and student belonging is the shared experience of feeling welcomed, valued, accepted, and cared for within our educational community. It is more than being present. It is knowing they will be successful, heard, and available of all opportunities. Ensuring educational equity makes good on our promise to each and every student that they will receive the opportunity and resources they need depending on their specific situations.
We believe that all students can succeed, and all students, staff, families, and community members possess valuable perspectives and experiences that strengthen our community. Educational excellence is the ongoing pursuit of high-level academic achievement for every student, and the Equity Council engages in work that is focused on student outcomes. These outcomes include, but may not be limited to, improved SOL test scores, math and reading proficiency, higher numbers of students accessing rigorous course pathways, graduation rates, 3E readiness framework data,
and data contributing to a strong sense or lack of belonging. The LCPS Equity Council reviews and evaluates system-wide data for students through an equity lens. In August, when the council meetings resume, the council will build out the year-long agenda with topics that align to specific system-wide data metrics. Council members provide feedback on policies, and there have been opportunities for the council to discuss community concerns and highlight important events and success within the LCPS community.
Over the last two meetings, Equity Council members have engaged in work sessions using the LCPS Data Dialogue Protocol, examining student SOL performance data. Data dialogue norms are reviewed during each meeting, and a comprehensive analysis of SOL data broken down by schools and student demographics takes time. Council members worked collaboratively during work sessions at the two meetings, as well as taking personal time at home to do analysis. Focusing on the why, being solution-oriented, and ultimately recognizing that student success and challenges are shared
responsibilities has led to the council preparing findings, questions, and recommendations that will be shared with Dr. Spence by July 1st. It will be in the form of a memorandum. This memorandum serves to communicate the collective voice of the council, as well as stand as an accountability measure for the council's work. Next slide. And now I would like to hear, or we have members of the council who would like to share their perspectives as members of the council, and we'll first start with Ms. Tanvi Naresh, student at John Champ
High School. Good evening, everyone. As a student leader on the Equity Council, I value that I get to share my opinions on how to make our school district more equitable. Schools are the first place where students are taught how to grow and how to be leaders in the real world. That's why I believe that getting feedback from students is an amazing way to let LCPS make that easier for us. In general, I believe our perspective should be prioritized in the decision-making process, as policy-related district decisions are eventually
going to affect all students in some capacity. Since becoming a member of the Equity Council, I've been able to provide feedback on many policies, engage in positive discourse with other members of the council, and analyze student data to stay informed about what changes are needed to foster an empowering environment in the community. Thank you so much to the LCPS DEIA team for providing me with this opportunity, and I welcome more student voice opportunities in the future for LCPS. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Naresh. And now we'll hear from Ms. Benan McCauley, parent at Potomac Elementary School. Good evening, and thank you for having us. As a parent member of the Equity Council, I cannot overstate how critical parent voices and participation are in shaping the conversations that impact students, families, and our broader community. As parents, we often see both the micro and the macro. We experience directly how policies affect our children day to day, academically, but also socially and emotionally, while also seeing patterns and concerns across schools and communities.
This perspective is important because it helps connect our lived experience with division-wide decision-making. What makes Equity Council especially valuable is its broad scope. The work is not centered on one group or one issue or one school. It focuses on all students and division-wide systems. So when we're analyzing data, we are discussing trends and identifying barriers and opportunities. We help bring forward informed recommendations to the superintendent.Data does matter, but
data is strongest when it's paired with family and community context. Our voices on the council help connect the numbers with the real experiences, what families are seeing, what students are navigating, and what the division has opportunities to improve access, communication, and support. I also serve on the Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee, MSAC, and that experience strengthens the perspective I bring here. To me, the distinct difference between MSAC and Equity Council is the scope and the magnitude of both committees. MSAC gives me the opportunity to work more closely at the school level
and around specific needs and concerns, whereas the Equity Council allows us to zoom out and to examine the overall systems, the trends, and the systemic issues, while bringing those school-based experiences into the larger conversation. We get to see the macro through the micro, and that helps ground broader recommendations in real-life experience. This not only intersects but integrates and builds upon the work of other committees, because equity touches every part of our division and every student within it.
Discussing systemic issues and reviewing system-wide data from my and our cultural lens is instrumental. It projects that, as a parent, I am being trusted, I'm being informed, and being an active partner in support of the wider LCPS community. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Malkawi. And we will now hear from Ms. Cassidy Cavanaugh. Good evening. As a staff member who's worked on both the Equity Committee for two years and now the Equity Council, I've seen how our transformation from an ad hoc to an advisory committee has further aligned our work with the goals of the division to
aid in student learning and lifting all voices. Just as you as an elected official have an impact through your voice and the voices of your constituency, the council also impacts the decision-making process by offering our voices to the highest-ranking school official in LCPS, the superintendent, Dr. Erin Spence. As members of the Equity Council, we use our voice and agency to have a positive impact on our public school system. We use transparent, two-way communication across differing communities and are afforded the opportunity to inform, amplify, and examine the academic and social emotional experiences of students in LCPS,
relaying that to Dr. Spence. We all value this opportunity and understand the responsibility of membership. I believe that we, as members, are agents of change. By both hearing concerns from the LCPS community and performing targeted data analysis, we will provide informed recommendations to improve education for all our students and assist those who need it most. Thank you, Ms. Cavanaugh. Thank you, Dr. Spence, Chair Chandler, for this opportunity to spotlight the Equity Council. And if there are any questions, we're here to answer. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the presentation. It's so nice to hear from each one of you and to be able to reflect on your perspective as we've made the change from the Equity Committee to the Equity Council, and to really be able to reflect on your lived experience. It's especially nice to have parent and student volunteers who are here to share their experience with us, so thank you. And of course, we appreciate our staff always. But it is just really so nice always to hear from students and parents. So thank you for taking the time to be here today. And
Ms. Malkawi, it really did resonate with me, the perspective you shared in how the committee is different from MSAC, so thank you for that. And with that, I'll open it up to board members for questions. Ms. Ricardi? Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for being here tonight. I really appreciate it. So as chair of the Performance Monitoring Committee, data is my world, and I really appreciate that. So I would love to learn a little bit more about what do you guys think are the couple of really big successes that LCPS does well, and then a couple of areas where you think we really need to focus and something that really needs to be on our radar.
So I'll start, as a staff member in the LCPS, and bridge some information from the Equity Council members here. I think the commitment to educational excellence is something that LCPS does very well. We have incredible staff. We have incredible teachers, administrators, who come every single day with their sleeves rolled up to make sure that the educational experience for all students is top-notch and a place where students can thrive. I'd also say the ability to collaborate and communicate issues and concerns
in real time is also a huge strength for LCPS, because it enables us to be able to work on issues and things that impact students and families quickly and effectively and efficiently. So I would say those are two things that come to mind in terms of what we do very well. And then I'll open it up to any of the members that might want to share. In terms of just the data that I can recall from memory, we consistently perform above state average and globally in terms of all of our student success on SOLs. That's something that we've seen across the board.
The area that concerns me the most is where there are certain groups that are performing still above state average, but below what the overall LCPS population is. And so right now we're looking at that data and trying to determine any sort of recommendations that we can put forward From a student standpoint, I do think that the staff does an amazing job to make sure that every student feels equitable and feels a sense of belonging. As for a main point of concern, again, like Ms.
Cavanaugh said, there are still some groups that are performing under the average of Loudoun County, and we want to do our best to try and make sure that it becomes more equitable. I think as a parent, it has been very eye-opening to look at, again, like they both mentioned, the performance academically of students in Loudoun County compared to Virginia as a whole, and compared to the nation. So when we're looking at the numbers, you can see why parents would want to live here, why parents want to stay in Loudoun County, and why
families would move to Loudoun County specifically for the schools. And that is something that we hear in community conversations about why choose Loudoun County as a place to live or work. It's really LCPS being a magnet to the county itself. And that's very important, both not as just performance academically, but it's also how students reflect their sense of belonging as a community. And the school for students not being just a place we're going to learn, but a place where we're actually thriving in that social, emotional, and
building that cultural capacity as a community. So, that kind of streamlining between LCPS as a school district and Loudoun County as the community we live in is seeing that streamlining between students feeling like they're part of both, and they're not coming at home and it's a separate entity from being at school. And so that sense of belonging is a belonging not just to home and identity, but also to the school and to the Loudoun County community as a whole. So I think that's one of the aspects that makes it very interesting to look at numbers and then reflect it in the lived experiences
as parents or families or as community members. Yeah, great. Thank you so much. Now just one more follow-up. In the makeup, because I'm not sure exactly what the makeup is of the council, and being from Sterling and Sterling Park in particular, I'm always really concerned about making sure that our Latino population is equitably represented in all of these efforts. And so do we have a pretty good representation across the different districts and across all the different diverse groups that we have in Loudoun? Yes. We have a very diverse group that make up the members of the council.
And I could get you the specific information regarding who's on the council, if that would be beneficial. Yeah, that'd be great. Or just even the districts that they're in. We just had a presentation earlier about- Yeah ... the seven Sterling Park schools are all Title 1 schools, and academically, in some cases, struggle in some ways. And so I want to just make sure, as you were talking about the data, that we're looking at that too, and that they're represented in the work that you all are doing. So thank you guys so much. Yes, thank you. Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think you mentioned that Loudoun County government officials attend. Can any school board member come and attend
your meetings? I was told previously we were not able to. Can you clarify? Yes, the Equity Council members' meetings are closed meetings. We do have a school board liaison on the committee, which is Vice Chair Donahue, but those meetings are closed. I thought you mentioned Loudoun County government officials. I thought it was more than one. It's just Ms. Donahue? Loudoun County government officials, not LCPS school officials. The Loudoun County government work in the government offices for Loudoun County. Oh, okay. So they're elected officials, or?
No, they're not elected officials. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Board members, any further questions? All right. Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you for being here tonight. Sorry, Madam Chair? Oh, I'm sorry. Before you leave, I see Vice Chair Donahue. Would you like a moment to make a comment or ask a question? Yes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I apologize for any interruptions. But I did want to say, as the liaison from the school board to the Equity Council, I wanted to thank Mr. Mohammed for your dedication to this work, for the presentation that you brought before the board today.
And I wanted to thank everyone who's with you and everyone who participates in the Equity Council, and remind everyone that while Mr. Mohammed is an employee of LCPS and this is part of his job, everyone else who is involved with the council, to my understanding, does it on a volunteer basis. So whether they are staff members who are part of the Equity Council, me as the liaison, students, parents, members of the community, they are all doing this in their precious free time with no remuneration for themselves. And they're doing it for the benefit not
just for themselves or for their own students, but to benefit all of the students and staff in our county. And I am, as a parent of two students in LCPS, I'm incredibly grateful for the work that all of you do. So I just wanted to express my thanks to all of you and also say that I very much appreciate being in the position of the liaison to the Equity Council because it does give me an opportunity to see the work that is being done, and I'm really grateful for that. Thank you.
Thank you, Vice Chair. All right. And with that, thank you again for being here, and have a nice evening. And before we move on to the next item on our agenda, I have been notified that Mr. Svendsen would like to remotely participate in tonight's school board meeting. Mr. Svendsen, please state your location and whether this is a medical or personal matter. Mr. Svendsen, I'm not sure we can hear you. There's a technical issue. Can you hear me now? There you go. Thank you. Okay. Something is happening with the screen, but I will go for it. I am in a hotel room, and no one else is here. Thank you. And then, this is
a personal matter? Yes, it is. Okay, thank you so much for that clarification. Then, Mr. Svendsen has made a request to participate remotely. I'll entertain a motion. I move that Mr. Svendsen be allowed to participate remotely in this school board meeting. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. Second. Oh, and I thank you so much, Vice Chair Donahue, for that second. It has been properly moved and seconded that Mr. Svendsen be allowed remote participation. Board members, we'll move forward with the vote. Please record your vote. Okay. Vice Chair Donahue, could you please state your vote?
Yes. Thank you. And then Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with all eight school board members present voting yes. And Mr. Svendsen, welcome to the meeting. Thank you. All right. With that, we'll move on to our student school board representative's comments. This is item number 8.1. Emerson Gatlin is a senior at Loudoun County High School and serves as student council president. She has been a member of the student council for four years and previously served as communications director. Emerson has helped organize many school activities, including making homecoming free and helping reestablish Loudoun County's homecoming
parade. She also founded We Stand Together, an organization designed to connect special needs students to student council members and the general school population. Emerson is a member of the French Club and the National Honor Society and has been on the varsity swim team for four years, serving as team captain for one of those years. Welcome, Emerson. We're so excited to hear from you. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. First, I would like to thank you all for having me here tonight. It is truly an honor to speak on behalf of my classmates and represent Loudoun
County High School. Before sharing my story, I want to recognize some of the incredible accomplishments from our students this year. Loudoun County High School had nine sports teams earn Catoctin District Championship titles. Three teams became Region 4C champions, and both volleyball and wrestling earned state runner-up titles. Our football team also became state runner-up for the first time in school history. While athletics are a huge part of our school culture, I believe something equally as important is the community that we have built inside of our
school. At Loudoun County, we currently have 52 active clubs and organizations, including 11 new clubs added this year focused on service, culture, advocacy, and inclusion. Additionally, Loudoun County is home to the only NJROTC program in the county. These organizations give students opportunities to discover their passions, build friendships, and create meaningful change. One of the things that makes Loudoun County so special is how easy it is for students to make a difference. If students see a need in the community,
they are encouraged to take initiative and build something meaningful. That accessibility turned leadership, and involvement creates a culture where students feel valued and empowered. Before coming to Loudoun County, and even during my freshman and sophomore years, I struggled to find where I belonged. In many ways, my life looked typical. I had great friends and a loving family. I loved swimming and student government, and I was known as the funny friend in my group. But privately, I often felt disconnected and unsure of myself. School became even more difficult when at the end of my sophomore year, I was
diagnosed with anxiety and ADHD. By junior year, I decided to become more involved in student council. As I spent more time participating in school activities, I realized the students in our special education programs often had fewer opportunities to connect socially with the larger student body. That realization inspired me to create We Stand Together, an organization designed to connect special education students with student council members and the general student population. Through adapted PE classes and school-wide activities, I got to know these
students personally and learned how much we had in common. One of the first activities was called the Things That We Love notes. I remember walking hand in hand with one of the girls from the special education class while she excitedly talked about participating. I was nervous at first about how the other students might react, but what happened next became one of the most meaningful moments of my life. I watched these students thrive. They introduced themselves to new people, passed out the notes, explained the activity, and built friendships. Students who had felt isolated were suddenly included,
celebrated, and connected. Watching their confidence grow changed me completely. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged, too. Through helping others find belonging, I found my own. The students at Loudoun County High School begin every day hearing the words "Stay compassionate, courageous, and carpe diem." What makes our school so special is that the students truly live by those valuesPrograms like Peer and Sources of Strength, along with countless student organizations, constantly create opportunities for students to connect and support one another.
That is what makes Loudoun County High School different. Its sole focus is not just on academics or athletics. It is a community focused on the people. I also want to recognize the incredible role that the school board, administrators, teachers, staff, and our wonderful principal, Dr. Luttrell, have played in creating this environment. They have built an environment where students are encouraged to lead, innovate, and advocate for one another. Because of that support, students like me can turn ideas into organizations and struggles into strengths. The world could learn a lot from the culture that we have created at Loudoun County
High School. Imagine what schools, workplaces, and communities would look like if everyone felt included, valued, and supported the way that students do here. Before I end tonight, I want to thank everyone who helped shape my journey. Thank you to my teachers, administrators, family, and friends who supported me throughout high school. Thank you to the special education students who changed my life in more ways than they ever might fully realize. And thank you to Loudoun County High School for helping me understand the true meaning of compassion, leadership, and community.
Loudoun County High School did not just educate me. It gave me a place where I finally felt like I belonged. Thank you. Thank you, Emerson, for sharing your experience with us and for really being willing to reflect on what mattered in your high school experience. And I have to say, there's no doubt that you helped change Loudoun County for the better. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, we'll now move on to the superintendent's report, which will be presented by Dr. Aaron Spence, our superintendent. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the board. It's always my pleasure to bring some good news from around our school division.
I'd like to begin this evening by asking Beth Karstet to please stand up. Ms. Karstet, this evening, has been recommended to serve as the next principal of Balls Bluff Elementary School, and we're pleased that you've accepted that recommendation. Congratulations to you, Ms. Karstet. Ms. Karstet's currently the assistant principal at Guilford Elementary, previously having served as assistant principal and dean of Stuart-Weller Elementary School, and she started her career here in LCPS as a special education teacher, also at Stuart-Weller, and we welcome you to your new role. Congratulations again. Next, LCPS seniors at Dominion, Park View, and Potomac Falls High Schools had an incredible opportunity this year through the George Mason University Direct
Admissions Program. Students who earned a 3.25 GPA or higher by the end of junior year were eligible to take advantage of direct admission to George Mason University. This opportunity, which streamlined the application process, gave students increased confidence about their futures. Specifically, across the three schools, more than 550 students were eligible for direct admission, and almost 350 of them completed the application. The number of students from the three schools planning to attend GMU in the fall increased by 35% from the previous year, which is a direct result of this program's success. For the Class of 2027, the program will expand to all LCPS seniors with a
3.25 GPA or higher, and families can expect more details about this opportunity soon. The partnership reflects LCPS's commitment to removing barriers to higher education and expanding access to post-secondary opportunities. The third annual Together in Remembrance event was held on Friday, May 22nd, bringing students across Loudoun County together in a meaningful tribute. More than 3,000 students at 33 LCPS elementary schools built wooden flags using kits donated by the veteran-owned company, Flags of Valor. Veterans attended to support the activity, and older students partnered with
younger students to help them construct their flags. This hands-on project was paired with classroom lessons exploring the importance of honoring those who served and the traditions connected to the holiday. The event fostered reflection, collaboration, and gratitude as students learned about the sacrifices made for our country. We want to thank the Division of Family and Community Engagement, our sponsors, and our educators for bringing this meaningful experience to life. Recently, Virginia Delegate David Reid presented Broad Run High School senior, Sanaya Yamin, with a ceremonial framed copy of House Bill 410, signed by Governor Spanberger on Thursday, May the
14th. Sanaya earned this recognition after partnering with Delegate Reid's office to help create and advance the bill requiring local school boards to participate in the SAT School Day Program so juniors and seniors can take the SAT during regular school hours. Sanaya recognized that many students face barriers to accessing the SAT, making an already stressful process even more difficult. Understanding that access to a key college admissions exam should not depend on circumstances outside a student's control, she reached out to De- Dele- Excuse me, Delegate Reid's office and worked collaboratively to move this bill
forward. This legislation ultimately passed the General Assembly with no amendments, and families should look forward to further communication about this from LCPS in the future. The Rock Ridge High School yearbook program earned national recognition from multiple organizations this year, highlighting its exceptional student journalism. This year's publication won Best in Show at the National Scholastic Press Association Fall Convention in November, received a Gold Crown award from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, and was honored with a prestigious Pacemaker award from the National Scholastic Press
Association in April. Rock Ridge is one of only seven high schools in the entire nation to earn both a Gold Crown and a Pacemaker this year, and is the only LCPS high school to receive these distinctions in 2026.Congratulations to Alan Scubal, a teacher at Cool Spring Elementary School, for being named the 2025/26 Outstanding Teacher of the Gifted from Region 4. Mr. Scubal's credentials, experience, and recommendations earned him the highest evaluation by the selection committee.
Congratulations also to Gretchen Swierenski, a reading teacher at the North Star School, who is this month's SHINE Award winner. Ms. Swierenski was nominated by a fellow North Star teacher who shared that she works tirelessly with North Star students who face the highest stakes, and those who feel that graduation is out of reach. As a SHINE Award recipient, Ms. Swierenski received a gift coordinated by the Loudoun Education Foundation and sponsored by Apple Federal Credit Union. SHINE, or Spotlighting Heroes in Education, is a joint LEF and LCPS initiative celebrating our staff who go above and beyond for students
and our community. And then finally, this evening, I would like to join the LCPS Office of Sustainability in celebrating the completion of year two of the Green Teams program. Tomorrow's Green Team Gallery Walk will showcase the work students and staff have completed throughout the year. That celebration will take place from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. right here in the LCPS administration building. Green Team leads and student leaders will highlight the eco-friendly projects developed in their schools, and outdoor learning fellows will share additional sustainability initiatives. All LCPS families and staff
are invited to explore the environmentally focused learning that's happening across our school division. Join the celebration and see how our students and staff are leading the way in sustainability. And Madam Chair, that concludes my report. Thank you so much, Dr. Spence. And with that, we'll move on to item number 10, our public comment. Procedures for public comment. Thank you for engaging with the school board through the public comment process. The school board welcomes comments from Loudoun County residents and believes that strong community engagement and outreach are important components of a successful school system. Speakers must limit comments to the time allotted.
Based on the number of speakers and the agenda this evening, all speakers have been allotted two minutes each for public comment. Please be advised that speakers who miss their time slot will not be called at a later time. Decorum and civility. All audience members shall maintain civility, decorum, and respect for the functioning and dignity of the school board at all times. Please remain seated unless arriving, departing, speaking at the podium, or during a break. Violations of civility and decorum and respect include shouting, heckling, jeering, applause, or other
noise which disrupts or delays the meeting, obscuring speakers from being able to see the school board and vice versa, interrupting speakers, attempting to speak when not called to do so by the chair, and approaching a speaker or otherwise attempting to intimidate, disparage, or distract a speaker, staff member, or other meeting attendees. Speakers should refrain from vulgarity, obscenities, defamation, profanity, and other like breaches of respect, nor may speakers target, criticize, or attack individual students and/or individual division employees during public comment. As a reminder, school board Policy 2520 states speakers may not
target, criticize, or attack individual students during public comment. Speakers should communicate those concerns to their school principal or an appropriate school official. The school board requests that comments on an individual student or employee-related matter not be shared at public meetings where the disclosure could violate applicable confidentiality requirements. I do want to take a moment to clarify a few things. As has been explained previously, speakers can personally identify a student or employee without stating a student's or an
employee's names. That is, personally identifiable information is any information that a reasonable person can link together to pinpoint an individual student or employee, and where the individual student or employee is known to others in their school and surrounding community based on the context that is shared. The school board welcomes you to share your concerns but asks that to the extent you have prepared remarks that target, criticize, or attack any individual students or employees, you generalize such remarks to ensure compliance with board policy. For example, comments that target,
criticize, or attack a student or an employee, or a student or an employee from a specific named school, or a student or an employee with any characteristics where the information would personally identify that student or employee to others in the school or broader LCPS community would violate school board policy. However, comments that discuss general concerns with students or employees at schools and do not target, criticize, or attack an individual identifiable student or employee are permissible. Under school board policy, I, as the school board chair, am charged with the
responsibility to maintain order during school board meetings. Accordingly, when reasonable, I will warn of breaches of decorum, civility, and respect and ask speakers to redirect their comments prior to possibly discontinuing individual speaking privileges or taking other actions to preserve the civility, decorum, and orderly conduct of the meeting. Such action includes calling a recess in order to maintain and/or restore order. If speakers fail to comply with board policy regarding public participation, you will receive a warning and a request to redirect or generalize your comments.
Should you fail to redirect or generalize your comments after that warning, you may be asked to yield the microphone, at which time you should yield the microphone as well as the floor and take your seat, and then I will call the next speaker. To the extent necessary, I will also warn of breaches of decorum, civility, and respect for attendees prior to taking other actions to preserve the orderly conduct of the meeting. Speakers should face the dais and direct their comments to the school board. Per School Board Policy 2520, members of the school board will not answer questions or respond directly to the public during the public
comment period. Violations of decorum, civilityBy any meeting attendee may result in the chair directing staff to remove the attendee from the remainder of the meeting. Repeated or persistent violations of decorum or civility by the audience may result in, on the decision of the chair, public comment being tabled until later point in the meeting's agenda, limiting the number of attendees in the meeting room during public comment for safety reasons, or public comment period ending for the evening. Distribution of materials to school board members.
Copies of materials for board members should be given to the public information officer in the media box at the back of the boardroom before the start of the meeting. Please provide 12 copies of the materials. Under no circumstances may a speaker approach the dais. The public is reminded that access to school board meetings is available through LCPS-TV on 1070 HD and Verizon Fios channel 43. The live stream of the meeting may be viewed on the website. We look forward to hearing your comments. We usually start with virtual public comment, but there are no participants signed
up for tonight. So we will start with our in-person comment, and our first speaker is Taylor Satiser, followed by Kristen Washington. Breathe. The human cost of silence. I came here tonight not just as an employee, but as someone who genuinely loves the students I serve every single day. These children, I can't see. Oh, shoot. And this community have become part of my
life and part of my heart. Last week, our class was learning about small, medium, and big problems. So tonight, I ask a simple question: when a student comes to you and asks for help, oh, gosh, I can't see, sorry, with a big problem, do you stay silent and hope that they stop asking, or do you help them? For the past 264 days, I have been fighting for access for a medically necessary procedure that multiple healthcare providers have recommended
for my health and long-term well-being. I was repeatedly told that no further review existed, and all other options have been exhausted, and that no appeal rights applied to my situation. At the same time, I was told that LCPS is self-funded, administers its own health plan, and can make exceptions in certain circumstances. And people say that the body keeps the score, and after 264 days of stress,
uncertainty, and emotional exhaustion, while still showing up for my students every day, I now understand what that truly means. During my last public comment, I experienced emotional flooding after caring- Thank you. Sorry, excuse me. I didn't mean to do that. Thank you. You're great. All right. Our next speaker is Kristen Washington, who will be followed by Chris Countryman. My seventh-grade daughter passed the reading SOL this year for the first time. She's dyslexic. She didn't pass because she's
getting supports through the school. She passed because her English teacher taught her test-taking strategies through her flex time. My daughter is still two grade levels behind in reading, writing, and probably even more in spelling. What this tells me is that, number one, the schools care more about the students passing the SOL than what they're actually learning. And number two, that the SOLs test your ability to take a test and not what you actually know. I have been fighting since the third grade
to get her an IEP. She has been diagnosed with dyslexia. She has orthographic processing disorder. She's been evaluated by the school twice. She has had an IEE twice, and I cannot get her the support she needs. I currently pay $4,000 a month for private tutors to help her close that gap. Parents desperately want to work with the school in the most congenial way possible. Most parents are not looking for a fight. In fact, they would prefer a meeting where they did not have to request what should
be offered. They would prefer to not bring an advocate or have to pay for an advocate. They are very aware that any relationships that are damaged during an IEP process could negatively impact their child's everyday experience at school. So when they start asking the tough questions or bring an advocate, just remember they didn't want it to be that way and it didn't have to be that way. Dr. Kelly Salmon Hurley said that. On a related note, Chromebooks do not help her.Her English
teacher told me she used the word astronomical in an essay. She couldn't tell me what it meant. Chromebooks do predictive text, autocorrect, and spell check. That's not helping my dyslexic student learn how to read, write, and spell. Thank you. Our last speaker for this evening is Chris Countryman. Good evening. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the strength that has been displayed by our first speaker tonight. She has been phenomenal in not giving up, and I would like to finish her speech
for her in my time. During my last public comment, I experienced emotional flooding after carrying months of fear and exhaustion privately while still trying to hold myself together. The emotion became overwhelming, and I struggled to get the words out. But she came back tonight. She came back tonight because showing up matters. In special education, we teach our students to advocate for themselves even when communication is hard and the process feels discouraging. So tonight, I'm trying to follow the same lesson I teach my students every
day. I am simply asking for compassion, meaningful human review, approval of my medically necessary bariatric surgery, and the opportunity to remain healthy enough to continue serving the students and families I care so deeply about. Thank you for your time. Thank you. With my time left, I'd like to talk about calendars very quickly. LEA conducted a survey last week. It was a one-week survey, but it resulted in over 900 employees
participating. And one of the most valuable outcomes of the survey is that we now have real employee data to help guide calendar decisions on issues such as holidays, workdays at the beginning and the end of the year, as well as workdays between marking periods, and even the length of winter break. While employee opinions varied, several clear priorities did emerge. About 86% of respondents were 10-month employees, and nearly 80% were certified staff members. I look forward to sharing more detailed information with you later.
Thank you. And that brings us to the end of our public comment period for this evening. Thank you all for coming out today and for providing your public comment. With that, I don't see a need for recess. Does anyone on the board disagree? Okay. So we will continue ahead with our next item, which is item 11.01, our action item from the Department of Support Services, the Fiscal Year 2028 to 2033 Capital Budget and Fall 2026 Elementary School
Attendance Zone Change Process meeting calendar. Tonight, I'll make the motion, and that is that the Loudoun County School Board adopt the proposed meeting calendar for the Fiscal Year 2028 to 2033 Capital Budget, and an Eastern Loudoun Planning District Elementary School Attendance Zone Change Process. Further, the following elementary school communities be notified of the attendance zone change process: Algonkian Elementary, Countryside Elementary, Forest Grove Elementary, Guilford Elementary, Horizon Elementary,
Lowes Island Elementary, Meadowland Elementary, Potomac Elementary, Rolling Ridge Elementary, Sterling Elementary, Sugar Land Elementary, and Sully Elementary. Notifying a special school community does not indicate that the attendance zone currently serving the community will change, only that the school attendance zone adjustments may be reviewed, proposed, and/or adopted. Given that I made a motion, I'll ask, is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Rasheed. And to that, I'll just briefly speak to the motion. The proposed meeting schedule will facilitate the identification of projects for
inclusion in the school board's Fiscal Year 2028 to Fiscal Year 2033 Capital Budget, as well as review certain select elementary school attendance zones. The capital budget provides a multiyear forecast by which facilities required to support educational programs are planned, financed, and constructed. The superintendent's recommended Fiscal Year 2028 to Fiscal Year 2033 Capital Budget will be presented on October 27th, 2026. A combined school board public hearing and work session is scheduled for November 5th, 2026. An additional work session is scheduled for November 30th,
2026, and the school board is slated to adopt the Fiscal Year 2028 to '33 Capital Budget on December 15th, 2026. For the school's attendance zone change process, an attendance zone change process for Eastern Loudoun Planning District elementary schools will address current and projected student enrollments in relation to available school capacity in the planning district, guided by Policy and Regulation 6530: Changing School Attendance Zones. A series of public meetings will begin in October 2026 and continue through
December 2026. The schedule includes public hearings and work sessions culminating on December 15th, 2026, with the school board adopting any attendance zone changes for Eastern Loudoun area elementary schools. And with that, school board members, is there any discussion? All right. Seeing no discuss-- Oh, yes. Vice Chair Donahue? Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize, obviously, I missed the last meeting where this was an info item, so the questions I have might have been addressed at that time. But I was hoping to askTwo questions.
One, at one time, I believe there was some discussion, not during any school board meetings, but some offline discussion about the possibility of pursuing the review of attendance zone boundaries for the high schools as the next step of this comprehensive process, rather than going to the elementary schools next, in the interest of being able to keep school clusters together, and with the thought that it might be easier to work
backwards. So I was wondering what happened with those discussions. And I have another question. Looking at the proposed calendar and the extra meetings in October and November, I'm wondering if there is any possibility of combining any of those dates. My memory from last fall when we went through this process with the attendance zone hearings and the budget hearings, in addition to all of our regular school board meetings and committee meetings, it was very hectic
to have all of those additional meetings added in. And I know that we are required by law and by our own policies to have certain public hearings on both the attendance zone prospective changes and the budget questions, but I still would like to know if it is possible to combine any of these proposed meetings together to reduce the overall number. Those are my questions. Thank you. Ms. Tate? Thank you, Chair Chandler. To answer Ms. Donahue's first question regarding the review of high school attendance zones first and then
elementary schools, that is certainly at the discretion of the board. We had recommended elementaries in the fall so that they could, if any changes were adopted, they could take effect in the fall of '27. We typically do elementary boundaries the fall prior, and that gives us time to plan in the second semester of next school year for any zone changes. The secondary school process is a little bit more involved,
and we were proposing that for your calendar this time next year in the spring of '27. But again, it's at the discretion of the board. We were going to be bringing you that calendar after winter break. To the second question, looking at the calendar's dates for October and November, we are guided by Policy 6530 when it comes to the attendance zone change process, and the board has recently, in the past couple of years, adopted changes
where we were combining work sessions and public hearings for those attendance zones. Those meetings start in October. The superintendent's capital budget will not be presented until late October, and November is very tight with the school board conference, with the Thanksgiving holiday, and other dates to have more meetings in November. Again, we defer to you, but as I count it, we have five additional meetings outside of regularly scheduled board meetings
between October and December. Two in October, three in November, and one in December. But again, we defer to you, the board, if you wish to look at other options. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just had a question for Ms. Donahue because I wasn't privy to that conversation, but it's an interesting one. And I just want to make sure I understand it correctly. So there was a conversation perhaps around doing the zones in the cluster instead of doing it all elementaries, then all middles, then all high schools? Because by the way, that fascinates me, especially because all
of my schools are in a cluster together, and they all feed together. So that's an interesting concept. Could you just clarify that a little bit more? Madam Chair, may I respond? Yes, please. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ricardi, for the question. And to be clear, this was not part of any official meeting. It was just an offhand, offline conversation that I assume all of us have, the type of which I assume all of us have regularly with various staff members. But yes, I did inquire at one point
if it was possible to perhaps review the attendance zone boundaries for the high schools first, after I had already been told that my understanding was the next step of the process that we're currently in of reviewing attendance zone boundaries would be to start looking at the elementary schools, but by geographic region. So not looking at all of them at once. And I understand the reasons that Ms. Tate has laid out for going to that step next, but I had inquired at one point if it would be potentially possible to look at the high schools
first and-The reason why I had that thought was because when we were doing the attendance zone review, the last one that we did, it became clear that there were a number of schools that were-- The elementary schools and middle schools were split feed, that the clusters were not in alignment, that a number of the high schools had students coming in from a number of different schools. And I had wondered if it
would potentially be easier to address those issues if we looked at the high school boundaries before we looked at the elementary school boundaries. My concern has been if we rezone the elementary schools as our next step, and then we rezone the high schools. And this is understanding that, we can look at attendance zone boundary changes when we feel that we need to. We may have a need to frequently look at attendance zone boundary changes in different areas either because enrollment is
significantly increasing or significantly decreasing, or for various other reasons. But I did have a concern that if we rezone the elementary schools and then we rezone the high schools, that we will still be stuck in an area of, we have unaligned clusters and split feeder schools. And then we may have to go back and make additional changes to elementary school attendance boundaries zones to try and correct those issues. I hope that helps.
Ms. Chernoff? Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Tate, may I ask a clarifying question? It's my understanding that this elementary rezone was actually, I'm trying to think of a better word, delayed, punted once before. In our first term, this was brought to us, and then we decided to wait. But there's some significant overcrowding that we're trying to address here. So it was actually supposed to even happen sooner. And then additionally, it was my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, if the high school realignment and rezoning really has to do with making that happen all at once with
HS14 as part of that bigger picture, as it's added in. Would those two things be correct? Yes, ma'am. Staff had brought forward a calendar this time last year for-- or two years ago for a Fall- Yeah ... '24 review of Eastern Loudoun elementary zones, and that was mutually agreed upon to pull that discussion and save it for a later date. With respect to the secondary process, and I do want to share that it would be both a middle and high school attendance and review.
Our middle schools, presently, we will have equal number of middle and high schools, so we anticipate that we would establish, as has been the practice of prior boards, a pure feed where a middle school feeds to a high school. That is at least how staff is approaching that when we get there. It is tied to the opening of HS14 in the fall of '28, as well as the completion of the Park View High School project with the new school in the fall of '27, recognizing the project will be fully complete in '28. And any attendance zone changes adopted,
it is again anticipated by staff, not necessarily fact, if the board has the desire, would be that those changes would not take effect until the fall of '28 with the '28, '29 school year. So it would be two years in advance that we would be establishing. And that sometimes is a little tough when we're looking at areas that are developing, recognizing we're slowing, but we do have areas within the county that are still growing. Does that answer all your questions? I didn't write them down. Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate that clarification.
Okay. Any further discussion, board members? All right. Seeing no more discussion, we'll move forward with the vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Vice Chair Donahue, please state your vote. Yes. Mr. Svendsen, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. All right. That motion passes unanimously with all nine school board members present voting yes. With that, we will move back to our information items. And the first information item tonight, 12.01, is the Legislative and Policy Committee revised Policy 2350, Appeal of Administrative Decisions, which will be presented by Mr.
Svendsen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, Policy 2350 has some revisions that clarify the appeals of administrative decisions, clarifications about when they're permitted, when authorized in both policies and regulations, and there's some clarifications about timelines and the finality of decisions on appeals. So, we did incorporate some amendments in theCommittee level, and as always, appreciative of the public feedback, especially MSAC for their detailed and thoughtful
comments. And so that's reflected in this version that's coming before the board. I will note that staff would recommend that we make an amendment to the policy as presented, just to add an additional cross-reference. That would be the insertion of a cross-reference to Policy 8160, Exception to School Assignment Due to Attendance Zone Change at line 70 to 75 of the red line version. And the rationale is that
this policy should be added since denials by staff of late exception requests are appealable to the select committee of the school board. So this is just making sure that we're capturing all the policies that are implicated by 2350. So with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Bergan, if he has anything additional to add, and to you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Dr. Bergan? No, nothing to add. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. And then board members, do you have any questions? Yes, Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. Really, this is a quick question, I guess, for Mr. Svendsen of all. I know he's kind of on the screen here, but
you were just mentioning the amendment from staff. I'm assuming we'll get that in writing before the next this goes to action, just so we can read through it. Yes. And that I would ask for that reason that we don't put this item on the consent agenda, but we move it to action item for the next meeting so that folks have time to look at the amendment, adding that cross-reference. Perfectly. I appreciate that very much. Yep. Thank you for that clarification. Any further discussion? All right. Oh, yes, Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Svendsen. I have a couple of questions about the
proposed red lines, some based on my review of the red lines, but also on reviewing the public feedback and the MSAC feedback on this policy. So there were a couple of suggestions to increase the timeframe where we require that the student or their family appeal within 10 days. There were requests to extend that time period to be longer than 10 days. So I wondered if that was discussed in
committee, what the origin of the 10-day requirement is. And I have a few other things. So I don't know if it's preferable for me to stop and for your answer to that, or if you want me to raise my other questions. I'm happy to maybe kick this to Dr. Bergan. So at the committee level, we had a helpful presentation that walked through the public feedback, including MSAC's, and I can't recall if there was a slide in particular on this element and why it wasn't
included. So I will ask Dr. Bergan or Mr. Allen to speak to the 10-day timeframe. Sure. Thank you for the question, Vice Chair Donahue. It's good to see you up there on the screen. We did discuss that feedback briefly with the committee. The rationale from the, I believe that came from MSAC about extending the 10 days is sometimes families may not know the policies, they may not know how to navigate the policies, they may not know what their rights or procedures are. And our response would be, we're very happy that we have an ombuds
office who could assist families with those sort of questions. So if they're not sure what the next steps are or who they should talk to, or if they need support or translation services, that the ombuds would assist them in all those ways. Okay. Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue? Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess actually just one other question for right now. The feedback points out that the policy doesn't seem to say anything about hearings. And I was curious because certainly as a member of various
select appeals committees over the last two and a half years, I have sat in on many hearings, as all of my colleagues have, on appeals from administrative decisions. So are those hearings, are those discretionary to the select committee? Are they spelled out in regulation? Are they spelled out in the other policies that specifically set forth what decisions are appealable? Where does that authority come from? So one of the revisions that was added in committee is at lines 39 through
43 of the red line, and that describes the discretionary authority of the committee to have a hearing if they feel it would assist the committee in assessing the issue and hearing the appeal. And I think there might be additional information, depending on the issue being appealed in the cross-reference policies. But I will defer to Mr. Allen or Dr. Bergan on that point. I have nothing further to add. That was a good catch from MSAC to,
as I'll repeat what Mr. Svendsen has already shared at lines 40 to 43, to give the committee the opportunity to invite the appellant to a hearing, or for the appellant to ask to present themselves to the committee. As to other policies that allow for a hearing, I would defer to legal counsel. Thank you. Board members, any further questions? I did have one addition in response to the first question that Vice Chair Donahue raised, that is that what we also discussed in committee, if I recall correctly, is that for the
types of actions that are appealable under this policy, the importance of when a decision is communicated to a family, that the information on how to appeal is communicated clearly when that decision is given. So, that kind of related to training and ensuring that each office is going forward in doing that. So, I don't know for the particular decisions if staff wants to speak to that, and maybe that's something we can revisit between now and
when this comes as an action item. But that was something we discussed in committee, the importance of making sure that the process is clear to families when they receive a decision that can be appealed. Thank you, Mr. Svendsen. Staff, would you like to provide further clarification, Dr. Bergen? Yes, I would echo that. There was discussion about staff preempting and letting families know, when the answer was no, what their steps are if they wanted to appeal to the select committee of the board. As a for instance, the amendment that Mr. Svendsen was speaking to that staff is recommending, is that we do a
cross-reference to policy 8160, which is exception to school assignment due to attendance zone change. And any of you who've been part of a select committee in the last several months know that you have been hearing from parents who wanted to appeal because they missed the window to say that they wanted their kid to stay. They knew to come to the select committee because we prompted them and said, "The answer's no, but if you want to appeal, here's the procedure to do so." And Bev Tate has personally called out and spoken with parents about the steps that are necessary. Thank you.
Okay. Seeing no further discussion on this item, this item will come back at the next school board meeting as an action item. And we'll now move on to 12.02, the Legislative and Policy Committee revised policy 3040, School Building Administration, which will also be presented by Mr. Svendsen. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, policy 3040 concerns school building administration, and the revisions include an errant reference to charter school, as that is not applicable in this policy,
and additional language was added to reflect Virginia Code and VSBA model policy. Again, as with the previous policy, we were really appreciative of feedback from the public, especially from MSAC for their comments, and some of which now appear as amendments in the document. Thank you. Board members, do you have any discussion? All right. Yes, Vice Chair Donahue. Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of questions. So, looking at the red line on line 20, mentions other
supervisory personnel. I was curious what that's referring to. If there's any examples of what the policy means by other supervisory personnel. This may have been discussed at the committee level in the presentation on the public feedback, so I'll ask Dr. Bergen, as I think that this may have been along the lines of a recommendation from MSAC seeking clarity on other supervisory personnel. And if I recall correctly, this may be related to adhering to the language that's in code or
VSBA model policy, but I will kick it to Dr. Bergen or Mr. Allen if they have additional thoughts. Vice Chair Donahue, can you repeat what line you're seeing that at? Line 20 of the red line, "Assistant principals and other supervisory personnel participating in the evaluation and documentation of employee performance." I was curious who the other supervisory personnel would be. I think I could speak quickly to that. Dr. Svendsen. There are certain instances where there are folks who work in our buildings, and there's joint supervision. And so if you've got folks, for example, and I may get this wrong, but
custodians, other nutrition staff, folks like that, where the principal's input may be solicited, but there's other supervisory personnel who are involved in their evaluations. So, I think it's probably contemplating those situations. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. And I have a couple of other questions, if I may. So firstLines six through 12 outline responsibilities of the principal. I was curious, if the principal is not available, is the assistant principal responsible for fulfilling these roles and responsibilities that are laid out in lines six through
12? I don't recall if that came up in committee. Dr. Bergen or Mr. Allen? I can probably answer that one for you as well. Dr. Spence. That would depend on the availability in question. So we have different codes for that. If you have a principal who's out short-term, which we would define as less than two weeks, then there wouldn't be somebody else responsible for that. There would be a substitute principal that we may be able to place into the building for that timeframe, and they would carry some of those responsibilities. And then there would be a period of time where if there's a vacancy, that there may be an interim,
and there would be a time where perhaps the person was going to be out, but it's not a vacancy, and they would be out for a longer period of time, where we might, and I might be switching these two, but there would be an acting or an interim in those two scenarios. And in those cases, the acting and interim appointments would be responsible for those lines. Thank you, Dr. Spence. That's very helpful. I was asking just because it struck me as a little bit odd that the opening paragraph references principals and assistant principals, but then assistant principals are really mentioned only at line 20,
related to evaluation of employee performance. So I was a little surprised that this policy goes into so much detail regarding the responsibilities of principals, but then says very little about the responsibilities of assistant principals. And another sort of related question that I had was if it would be appropriate to include deans or any other kind of front office staff in the policy if we're talking about school building administration. I think
I can answer the two questions the same way. The reason the assistant principals are only mentioned in lines 20 to 22 in that case is because they are involved directly in the evaluation process, but ultimately it's not their recommendation that would carry weight forward in terms of a personnel action. That would have to come from the principal. So the assistant principal couldn't make that, so they're kind of working under the principal. And I would say for the remainder of the policy, the same would apply to any other staff who may have anything that needed to be conveyed relative to the operation or management of the
schools or property. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Spence. Okay, so the only other thoughts, suggestions that I had were, looking at the red line on lines nine and 12, there are references to rules and regulations of the school board. I'm assuming that that's kind of holdover language from previous versions. And I respectfully would suggest that it should be changed to policies of the school board because that, I think, would make it more consistent with how we discuss what the school board
actually puts forward, particularly because the school board does not make regulation, right? The superintendent makes regulations. And similarly, on line 16, I think it was an MSAC suggestion, this says principals must have received training. I would suggest that we change that to successfully completed. And if I need to make official motions tonight or when this comes back before the board, I'm happy to do that. Thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. And then Mr.
Allen, was there a point of clarification that you wanted to provide? Yes. Thank you, Chair Chandler. Ms. Donahue, just for your clarity, this language tracks fairly verbatim the language of Virginia Code 22.1-293, and so that's where the rules and regulations language. But all the questions that you've asked are well taken, but that's what's stated. The specific language that you've asked about is stated in the Virginia Code. Thank you, Mr. Allen. Thank you, everyone. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and sorry, I'm going to piggyback a little bit off of Vice
Chair Donahue here. The first thing is this policy is called school building administration, but it really just seems to be about the duties of the principal. If this truly is about school building administration, I would even suggest perhaps a sentence, and I'll think about this, about that the duties of the assistant principal, which are mentioned in terms of supervision, should be other duties assigned to them by the school principal. Right? Because same thing with deans, their duties are assigned to them by the principal. If we're talking about the roles of a school administrator in a policy, otherwise, this policy reads like school building principals.
So that's just kind of where I'm at thought-wise on this policy. Secondly, the other thing that I would perhaps love to see in the red line is something along the lines of between 14 and 16, it talks about a principal may submit recommendations to the superintendent for the appointment, assignment, promotion, transfer, and dismissal of all personnel assigned to the principal's supervision. And it might be in a different policy, it might be a question for Mr. Allen or someone else on the board. What if aemployee disagrees with the principal's recommendation,
wherein that lies in the policy. For example, an assistant principal was asked to transfer to a teaching position or something along those lines, what the remuneration might be for that individual, and/or cross-referencing it if it's in another policy. Those were kind of the two big things, and then I think that Dr. Spence helped clarify the role of multiple supervisory people. I was personally thinking of the director of school counseling perhaps evaluating their staff as well. So, thank you again. Thank you. Would anyone on staff like to speak to Mr. Pepper's question?
Well, there were several statements in there. Can you repeat a specific question? So, I think the question would be, is it somewhere else in policy, Dr. Bergen, where it explains the remuneration if a staff member disagrees with the principal's recommendations? Yes. So, there's going to be two places for that. One is going to be in the collective bargaining agreement for staff who are covered under that agreement. The grievance rights are covered under there, and then there's policies covering grievance rights for non-covered employees that you'd find under the personnel policies. Okay. Could we cross-reference those perhaps
in this policy? I'd have to defer to Mr. Allen on how to- Yeah, that's a really good question ... cross-reference the CBA, but we can certainly cross-reference the grievance policies. Right. Yep. I think that was the larger question I had, and the other question would be, do we need a sentence in this policy enumerating the role of perhaps an assistant principal or a dean? Just something as simple as other duties as assigned to them by the principal, considering this policy is about school building administration, but it really only talks about the principal. We have a job description for our assistant principals that really covers that, and I think the intent of
this policy is just to highlight that for each building, there is a single administrator who is ultimately responsible for building administration, and then all of the other folks who report up through them would be given those duties as assigned as described in the job descriptions. But ultimately, I think it's just trying to identify that if you're looking for the person who's responsible for administration of that building, that starts and ends with the principal. And I appreciate that clarification, Dr. Spence. I just don't feel like the policy reads it that way, right? Even if that's the case, then the policy might need an introductory statement about the
principal being the point person for that building, just so we know. What I think I'm struggling with, let me just back this up, I'm struggling with the intent of this policy, and if that's the intent of the policy, then I feel like it should read that that is the intent of the policy. All right. Thank you. Any further discussion? Well, given that there seems to be an appetite to perhaps amend, this item will be back next time for action. And with that, we'll move on to 12.04, Student Behavior and Accountability Committee, Review of Policy 8265, Student Searches Involving Students and Seizure of Contraband, presented
tonight by Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is another one of the policies that ties in with that package of three that Ms. Scanlon was talking about a little bit earlier. Ms. Scanlon, would you like to address this? I would be happy to. Thank you. Thank you. I would note that most of the revisions to this policy were made simply to improve clarity and reduce redundancy. To that end, there were some portions of information that were redundant to information that was provided in the companion
regulations. So where there was redundancy, those portions were removed. In addition, there were significant sections that lended itself really to the training that is provided to all of our school-based administrators and to other officials who have the authority to conduct searches. Some of that training-specific information was better condensed. We did add to the policy two items, primarily for the purpose of notice. First is the use by LCPS of weapons
detection systems on occasion. For example, our metal detectors and also some of our cameras are now equipped with AI that can detect weapons, so we wanted to be sure that our students and families had full notice of that. We also added for the purpose of notice that LCPS may use a third party to conduct a drug screen if such a drug screen is a condition of enrollment to a specified program. The reason that is included in this
policy is simply because a drug screening is a type of search. I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. Board members, any questions? Ms. Ricardi. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have several questions, actually. So, I want to just start from a big picture perspective, which is I know we have this select committee that's also looking at the SRO MOU, and so I'm curious where we are with that and how that plays into any updates or changes that we would have in this policy related to these two things. I feel like there's two moving parts, and I'm not sure where they
intersect. So, I guess that would be my first question. I have a couple of follow-ups, too. Dr. Bergen, I don't know if you have any updates, but at this time we've been in negotiations for scheduling. No, ma'am. I'd have to follow up with Ms. Ricardi. I'm sorry. So, in terms of the SRO committee, my most recent understanding was that we were in the process of attempting to schedule- Yeah ... a time for the committee to meet. Yeah. My apologies. We are in communication with LPD and LCSO about finding a time after the summer
break to bring the panel together with the members of the select committee. So, that would be in an August timeframe. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi? If I could add to that response- Yes ... simply for your consideration, that the authority for school officials to conduct searches of students is really quite constrained and set forth in various case law. And the case law that is most pertinent to this topic is literally decades old, cases that were
decided in the 1980s. For that reason, I don't envision that any discussion surrounding the SRO MOU would impact this policy, simply because this policy must comply with case law and the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon. So, that's a great lead-in to my question. So, there's a piece in here that says that SROs won't be involved in any searches. So, I'm just
trying to figure out, again, we have this policy that says one thing, but then we've got a committee that's going to be looking maybe at something else, and I'm just trying to figure out where the points of this are all going to marry. I would be happy to address that. I believe the portion that you are speaking of in the policy is related to school-based searches. So, when our school administrators conduct searches, they are required to have reasonable suspicion, which is defined in case law, in order to conduct that search. SROs are held to a very different standard and a higher
standard of probable cause. So, for that reason, when the search is school-based, it really does need to be conducted by a school administrator, unless there are significant safety issues. For example, if there were a report that there was a firearm or an explosive device on school property, then clearly that is not a search that we would want our school administrators to do minus the expertise of a school resource officer. Where our partners in law enforcement have
probable cause, then they can conduct those searches. But at that point, those are not school-based searches. They are law enforcement-based searches. And when that occurs, our partners in law enforcement would direct us to stand aside, to stand down, so that they could conduct their law enforcement investigation, one part of which would be that probable cause-based search. Great. I think I could also offer just a little bit of additional clarification on lines 386 to 392. This is all contemplated in terms of what the
SRO search would be, and it's pretty specific language that says, "Any search initiated and conducted by an SRO or other law enforcement officer will be in accordance with federal and state law, the agency's own policies, and, if applicable, current version of the memorandum of understanding between the Loudoun County School Board and Sheriff of Loudoun County and Leesburg Police Department." And then Rae, if you could just speak briefly, the MOU covers search and seizure by law enforcement and their responsibilities, and those are directly aligned with state code, correct? That is correct. They would be covered under the SRO responsibilities as
a part of the MOU. Great. Thank you for that clarification. I really appreciate it. I just had one more question just for clarification. So, I know that we've got the K9 searches that we've been doing periodically and randomly as we need to. It's my understanding that not all high schools use their lockers, perhaps, and that sometimes that contraband could be found in a student's backpack, which would be in a classroom which isn't searched, because they don't search kids' personal stuff. So, how are we negotiating that? How are we navigating that? Because kids are pretty smart when it comes to hiding stuff.
And so, if we're not searching in classrooms when students are in there or their gear is there with them, how do we... I know having raised four kids, they're smart. They figure things out. They figure out not to get caught in things. And so, I guess my question is, do we have anything factored in here about those kind of searches when we're looking for serious contraband, but the dogs are just in the hallway? They're not necessarily searching where the contraband would most likely be. If I could, I have a little bit of concern about discussing this in open session because of some of the
specific conversations that we have regards to student safety in this particular construct related to K9 searches. But I'll also defer to Wes, because I don't know how much you want to get into. There are some very specific constitutional issues regards to how we conduct those searches Thank you, Dr. Spence. I think, Ms. Ricardi, if you could submit these questions to Ms. Scanlon, and maybe we can take a closer look and make sure we answer those sufficiently. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any further questions? All right. Seeing no further questions, this item, I believe, should come back for action at the next school board meeting.
Given the conversation, I think it would be inappropriate to put it on consent. So with that, we will move on to our final information item for this evening, item 12.05, Student Behavior and Accountability Committee review of Policy 8270, Student Dress Code, which will also be presented this evening by Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am very happy to bring us to our main event this evening. Before we get started, and before I ask Ms. Scanlon to present some things, I will say
that we have received lots of letters with lots of suggestions. Do this, don't do that. We even had people telling us, "Make us have uniforms." And I thought, "Oh, that'll go out well." But okay. So with all this in mind, there's a lot of talk going around about different ideas, and I think we, as a group, need to keep our eyes open and truly think about why we are having a dress code applied to an
educational facility as we go through this. So if you would like to help me out here, Ms. Scanlon, again, thank you. Yes, I would be happy to. Thank you. So I'm sure you have noticed there were significant suggested revisions to the dress code policy. Those revisions were made after some significant consultation with our school-based administrators. I began with a survey that was available to all of our school-based administrators, including our principals, assistant principals, and deans. I received 54 responses
to that survey, which included a mix of elementary, middle, high school, and alternative program administrators, and also a mix of principals, assistant principals, and deans. What those survey results showed is that overall, only 28% of respondents thought that the current policy was, quote, "fine as written," end quote. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the percentage of administrators who were satisfied with
the current policy declined as the grade level increased. So 56% of our elementary school administrators were satisfied with the current policy, but only 15% of our middle school administrators who responded to that survey were satisfied, and only 11% of our high school administrators who responded to the survey were satisfied with the current policy. As part of that initial survey, I asked respondents if they would be willing to serve
in a focus group. Twenty-eight respondents said that they would be, so I invited all 28 to a focus group. Twenty-two were able to come to the focus group. We reviewed primarily the results of the first survey, and then we reviewed and discussed the various recommendations for change that were made by their colleagues. At the end of that focus group, those who participated were asked to complete another survey in which they could respond to the various suggested revisions. Eighty-three percent of those who responded to the second
survey indicated that they believed a top should be defined. What is a top? You see that a definition is offered as in the revised policy. Likewise, 83% of those who responded to the second survey believed that a bottom needed to be defined. So you see a bottom defined in the revised policy. Ninety-two percent believed that we needed to specifically address physical education, and in particular, that the coverage requirements for physical education should meet the definition of a top and a bottom.
And 100% of respondents believed that students should be required to remove jewelry or accessories during PE if they were asked to do so for safety reasons. The issue with hats and hoods resulted in a compromise. There was a contingent of administrators who believed that hats should just not be worn in our buildings. The compromise position was they could live with hats, but they could not live with hoods, that hoods would have to be down. Likewise, the pajamas versus robes versus
blankets was a compromise result. Again, there was the contingent of our administrators who believed that students should not be able to wear pajamas to school. Ultimately, where the principals in that focus group landed was they could live with pajamas, so long as those pajamas met the coverage definitions of a top and a bottom, but that they would have to draw the line on students wearing robes as an item of clothing and wearing blankets as an item of clothing. Those areMuch of the
revisions. I will note that there was also a revision related to the speech components of the dress code, and in particular, I'm speaking of, for example, a T-shirt or a sweatshirt that might carry a logo. There were revisions made to that portion of the policy as well, simply to bring that portion of the policy better into alignment with case law. And one other addition to the policy was to ensure compliance with state
code, and that specifically was to affirm that no LCPS employee can make direct physical contact with students or students' attire as they are addressing a dress code violation. Thank you. I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon. Board members? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. That's wonderful. All right. Ms. Gatlin, would you like to ask a question? Yes, please. Thank you. So I think you will be happy to hear, from what I've noticed at my school, I've noticed that a lot of the students are dressing more formally, like with khakis,
jeans, collared shirts, and that's what you're seeing a lot more now. I think that the pajamas was definitely an issue a year and a half ago, but I feel like right now, the dress code, people are dressing more formally. I think that you might run into problems if you say no pajamas because there's a lot of clothes that students wear that might not be pajamas, that look like pajamas, which that could give you problems, I think. But I think we're turning a good corner
right now in students dressing more formally. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your feedback. Let's see, board members? I mean, I'm the only one. Okay. Ms. Chernow. I was going to read the room, but I guess I'll write the text for us all. Okay. I honestly did not realize how much of a delicate topic this was until we sort of started going down this path. Long ago, on the doors when I was campaigning, this was one that came up quite a bit from parents and from educators. I knew it was on the docket, so I was looking forward to kind of tackling it. I did put it out for feedback through several avenues, and one of the things
that really surprised me, the biggest theme was why are we worrying about this when we have so many other things to worry about? A lot of people brought that up. So I did want to sort of frame this within the context that this policy is up for review, and as part of a review process, we do ask for feedback, and we also ask whether or not we feel like the current policy is serving us or if we need changes. And I think the data from our school administrators and our building leaders is pretty staggering in terms of not feeling like the policy is fully serving our communities in the
learning environment at present. And I think that that has a lot of value, and I'm grateful for the work that was done on focus groups and surveys. All that said, I do now realize that there are a lot of layers, and I too was surprised at how many people want uniforms. I'm not in that camp, so don't worry. I'm not headed there. But generally, I really support the direction of the policy. I think it puts us in a place that really reflects what I think are our values in LCPS. I've really tried to think about why we want to change,
what the end goal of changing this dress code would be, and for me, it's about treating students with dignity and ensuring that there is equitable enforcement, which I think is another conversation, and creating a safe and inclusive learning environment. And I'm going to pull the cheesy card, but I honestly think with a slogan, and I know we're reworking our strategic plan, but making meaningful contributions to the world, we are preparing these kids for their future. And it is a learning environment. It is not a home environment, and it is not a sleeping environment.
We are preparing them for the world, and so I'm not asking them to be uncomfortable and be in full dress suits every day, but I do think that the direction is reflective of those values. And I think there's some really common sense language in here that addresses both females' dress and males'. And so I see that that is a move in the right direction. Additionally, I got a lot of feedback that said there's a lot of concern about bias and body
shaming and all of that, and I really appreciate this last committee meeting where you all addressed some of that and really took a step back to kind of make it more generalized. And I understand. We want to make sure that we are approaching this with care and that the people that are enforcing it, which I believe will mostly now be administrators based off the policy language, have full guidance on what that would look like. So I am generally very supportive of this work. I will say there are two other things that you've seen on board docs that I am contemplating in terms of amendments. It does
concern me that we would allow hats. I know that that was a compromise, but in speaking to our school safety staff, I did reach out, and the response was, really for me, it's about safety. It's not necessarily about you can't wear hats. And the response was that while banning hats and hoods would rank low on the list of security priorities, they do offer the ability to conceal contraband and/or identity. Concealing one's identity, especially during morning arrivals, is always a concern. So that's from our LCPS security staff, and I
think that is enough for me to think that hats are a concern. And then I'm glad you brought up pajamas. II think we can define pajamas versus athleisure wear and loungewear, which I have attempted to do in my amendments, and I will ask that you all take a look at them over the next couple of weeks as we contemplate them. But again, for me, it's about being prepared and showing that you're ready for the learning environment. And to me, I think we know what pajamas are, and I think we can enforce that, and I would prefer
that kids do not wear pajamas to school, so I will be proposing that as well. I will end it there. Maybe no one else wants to join in. Ms. Ricardi. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ms. Chernoff, for that. And I just want to say, because I'm dealing with this on the back end with new employees and new hires in the workplace. And so I'll tell you one of the number one workshops that I do with new hires is how to dress appropriately in the workplace. And I think that starts in our schools. I'm not suggesting that they need to be wearing business attire at schools, but there's something to be
said about self-confidence and presence when you're wearing clothes that make you feel just a little bit more put together than pajama pants. Man, I am all about the pajama pants and the hoodies. I get it. But I wear them at home. You're not going to see me rolling into a conference call or a Zoom call with that with any of my clients. So I think that part of this too, again, to your point, is really trying to help set up our young adults and our students for long-term success by understanding, like we had when we were kids, you had your home clothes and your school clothes
and your church clothes and whatever. I think we need to make sure that we're just trying to create a little bit more alignment with our values and making sure that our kids can do that. And again, I'm also balancing that statement with the understanding that we have a lot of schools where our kids struggle for just basic clothing to begin with. So please note that I am, in my head, I've got those things balanced out. We've seen with all of my schools have clothing spots where kids can pick up clothing.
So I think that I'm balancing the weight of stepping up the dress and the clothing requirements with the fact that not all of our students have that ability to do that, and our families have the ability to do that. So I think there's something to be said for that too. But I do really appreciate all the work you all have done with this because I think we're heading in the right direction. Thanks. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for their comments. It's interesting to see how we all kind of land in somewhat different places on the dress code, and I see the dress code probably every day because I work in a high school. And I'm actually going to disagree with our
student representative and don't take this in the wrong way because your experience at Loudoun County High School might be different than my experience at the school I work at. And so I don't necessarily see as much formality, but fashion trends come and fashion trends go, and right now we seem to be living in kind of a fashion trend that existed when I was a high school student, way back when. We're not going to say when, but it was the '90s. And so as I go through this policy kind of piece by piece, I see that I get the idea that when you dress better, you feel better about yourself. I get it. But a school isn't a workplace.
If I want to go to a job and a job says, "You got to wear X, Y, Z," it's my choice to remain employed or not. It's not a student's choice really to remain in school. And so let them learn in the environment where they feel they belong, let them learn in the environment where they feel they're comfortable. That being said, as I kind of work through this policy piece by piece, I do have a few thoughts. First, when it comes to the definition of tops and bottoms, I really like the definition of a bottom. I think it's pretty straightforward, full coverage of the lower torso and buttocks, or the one-piece garment thing. The top I'm a little bit torn on because
I do feel it singles out our female students, particularly with the extension to the waist. I know the midriff is controversial, but I don't want to be body shaming students in any way, shape, or form. And so, I have a little bit of concern with that. When it comes to the PE requirements, man, I wish we could go back to the days of PE uniforms. Just keep it easy, put everyone in the same color shorts and the same T-shirt and take off the jewelry so they don't get it hurt in any way and call it a day with sneakers and so forth. As far as hats and hoods, I actually am in agreement with the compromise. I don't see a major issue with the hats.
We do have the ability to distinguish who is who, although I do get the safety concerns. As far as pajamas go, a lot of teams in our schools have pre-printed pajamas with school logos on them. They're comfortable, and as long as they meet the coverage requirements, I say let the students be comfortable. Let them go to school in a way that shows both school spirit, and who they are. But the one I do have an issue with, and it's not really in this policy, and I'm kind of thinking about it, is footwear. Big, fluffy slippers. For me, it's a safety issue, right? Students running in the hall, students going up and down stairs.
In my world, students in a chemistry laboratory. I have issue with slippers. That's kind of where I draw the line. I've seen some crazy ones. And blankets, I get that climate control might not be the easiest thing to do in a giant building, but I don't see the need for a student to ensconce themselves in a blanket during the school day. And finally, the other thing that I would love to see put in this policy is some sort of exception for a spirit week, knowing that one of the spirit week things we have are often dress-up days.So, a pajama day is a very common dress-up day. Maybe that is a day you get to bring your blanket or your
slippers or even your stuffy to school, and it's that one special day of the year. So maybe just a line somewhere in here where we talk about special events for students would be really helpful. But I'm intrigued to see how this all falls out. No pun intended. I also would like to hear what my colleagues have to say about this as we go forward. Mrs. Griffiths. I just wanted to add one thing. This is great conversation, and thank you, Ms. Chernov, and thank you, Ms. Ricardi. I don't think it's body shaming if you dress appropriately. So, there's more chance of you being body shamed if you're not. So I just wanted to make that point.
And not to get away from this or anything, but I just emailed Mr. Allen to see if there's a dress code for teachers, too, because I've seen some issues there as well. But I want to thank everybody for the conversation. Thanks. Thank you. Ms. LaBelle? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair, and yes. Oh, yes, please. Samara. We've got two mics now. No, you can't reach the other one. You could've reached this one. Thank you, Ms. Mitchell, for nodding your head. I have received several people asking to please have a dress code for teachers. So maybe what we need to do is just kind of make suggestions.
I don't know. But, I do have a problem. I'd like to add the fact that slippers should be prohibited, thank you, Mr. Pepper. And the other thing that I would like to address is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about, and that is the word, and here I'll say it, cleavage. Okay? Cleavage is defined as the space between two breasts, and as I notice, everyone in this room has two breasts, and they are all covered, which is a good thing, I think, but it has nothing to do with male or female.
But to satisfy all those people that worry about body shaming, I'm going to go back to a suggestion by MSAC that I think was good. On line 80 of the red line, I believe it's the red line copy, they want to have it changed to say that clothing must cover the student's chest, and leave it at that. Or if you want something else, we can also make some reference to your sternum, that
your shirt should not come down any lower than midway to your sternum. I know that Mr. Svenson had recommended something that they were using, I believe you said down in Roanoke, about an imaginary line that ran from one armpit to the other, and that your collar shouldn't come down from. I think that that might be a problem with some people's imagination. I don't know. I think it's just a little easier to say, your chest must be covered, or, your neckline should not go below the midway below your
sternum. I actually took one of my necklaces and I put it on and I found the sternum. If you run your hand down from your throat, midway down to here, you can feel where a bump kind of goes down. That's the midpoint of your sternum and anybody can find that. So maybe that's the way we need to phrase it. I don't know. But, I'll be looking forward to our next chat when we bring this forward with amendments and everything else. So I'd like to thank everybody, and on that, I'll stop. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle. M-Mrs. Griffiths.
I just wanted to add, Mr. Allen sent me the policy for teachers. It's 7564. Thank you. Thank you. Board members, are there any other comments? Anyone online? Mr. Svenson? Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask Ms. Scanlon if she could shed a little bit more light on the rationale for the decision to keep hats and pajamas in the policy based on the feedback from the focus group, because I know that does represent a compromise among the folks in that group, and was
wondering what concerns motivated that ultimate compromise, if it was related to the administrability of enforcing that, or if there are other concerns. And I do appreciate the amount of time and effort that went into getting the feedback from our school administrators. I think that's really, really helpful. So if Ms. Scanlon could talk a little bit about how we landed on hats and pajamas, that would be helpful. Yes. I'll start with hats versus hoods. There was a spirited debate
amongst our school administrators with the hats issue. What it really came down to was the contingent that believed students shouldn't wear hats at school really just believed it was inappropriate. A sense of propriety should prevail in polite society. We are taught, or many of us are taught, that you don't wear a hat indoors and therefore students shouldn't wear hats indoors. There was also, however, a sense that we have to choose our battles in some way. So often in education we hear about the pendulum
swinging back and forth almost wildly. And certainly, when this dress code policy was changed in 2021, it was a big pendulum swing from a 2017 policy or 2016 policy that was somewhat strict to the policy that we currently have, which is much less strict. And there was a sense among the administrators that we don't necessarily want too much of a pendulum swing back, that we would like to find a middle ground,
that we would like to choose our battles and focus on the things that are most important, which appeared to be coverage issues primarily, and also some safety issues. The discussion surrounding safety and hats, because that did come up, was that at least among the administrators in the room, they didn't experience hats as something that was making it difficult for them to identify a student on a camera. So that wasn't so much an issue for them. Now, I will say our middle school administrators experienced hats very
differently from our high school administrators. Where they spoke of hats was students grabbing each other's hats and running down the hallway with them, and then students chasing after the one who had taken their hat, and that for them, that could be a disruption and a safety issue. But ultimately, what they decided was we can live with hats, but we have to draw the line at hoods. With hoods, there was a bit more of a concern about an ability to conceal underneath a hood. So the safety issue that it would be perhaps more difficult to
identify a student on camera if that hood was up and over the face. But the concerns even surrounding hoods were more directly related to the ability of students to more easily disengage in class. That they could just put their hoods up and maybe their heads down, and there was this sense of it was somehow easier to disengage. There was also a concern with hoods that hoods conceal the personal electronic device, particularly the earbuds, and it made it more difficult to enforce that policy. With pajamas, again, I would say that there was a contingent that just felt it's inappropriate to
wear pajamas in a school, or really outside of your house at all. The sense of that propriety should prevail. Others, I think, again, in looking for the choose your battle moment, said, "If you have pajamas that are meeting the coverage requirement of the top or the bottom, why would we single out pajamas?" Some administrators said that "We allow the sweatpants, we allow the yoga pants, we allow the athleisure. So why would we single out pajamas?" And then they got to the compromise of
as long as the pajamas meet the coverage requirements, that is okay, but the robes and the blankets have to go. Related to slippers, I would add that the middle school, again, experienced slippers very differently than our high school folks experienced slippers. There was, at the middle school level, this idea, again, the big slippers, that they are huge, and they're an impediment, and they're a safety concern. That was that and the discussion at the middle school about hats, which is what led to another provision that was
added to the dress code policy that I neglected to mention, which is giving some flexibility at the building level following appropriate notice to families and appropriate concurrence from the level director, that a school principal could go beyond this dress code and prohibit something like those large slippers if it was really a concern in their school. The sense of the group was they wanted that flexibility but didn't want to necessarily prohibit
slippers at all schools because some schools were not experiencing those items as problematic. Could I also just comment on the MSAC suggestion for replacing cleavage with chest? That was something that I did look into and considered, and I just want to offer this for the board's consideration. If the top was defined as something that had to fully cover the chest, then my concern there would be that the chest includes the upper chest, and so what we would be
looking at is a requirement that students wear crew neck T-shirts or turtlenecks. And again, in trying to find a middle ground, that was not where the administrators necessarily wanted to land. Thank you. Dr. Rashid. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon, for that clarification. I know you mentioned that in 2021, that's when things changed regarding dress code. I was just wondering, once all the dress code was done away with, was there a specific reason why that was done
away with completely and everybody currently can actually wear whatever they want? I really can't speak to that as I was not only not here in 2021, but I wasn't doing this work in 2021. I know that there were some changes to the Code of VirginiaThat required school divisions to look at and revise their dress codes in certain ways, but certainly those changes to the Code of Virginia wouldn't have required the large swing that was experienced not only here, but in other divisions, not only in Virginia, but
frankly, across the country. I have just a follow-up question also. Thank you. So with a dress code, and again, it's just something for us to simmer an idea with. When it comes to, for example, special needs kids, and let's say, for example, there's a child or an LCPS student that wears a hood just for the sake of decreasing anxiety. Would we refer to IEP? I'm just looking to see if there's a problem that could happen down the line if we do away with something and have a strict dress code, would we look at IEP or something like that? How would that fit into that?
And also, when it comes to the delineation or the difference between chest and cleavage, so with the males that are out there or those that are not born with such a thing, I could see a problem in the future if someone says, "Oh, well, technically this person has cleavage. She should cover or he should cover, but this other person does not because they don't have cleavage, they just have a chest." It makes me wonder that maybe that could be a problem later on. Again, just my thoughts.
Thanks. Thank you. Ms. Scanlon, did you want to speak to the terminology around cleavage? Normally, I would say I would be happy to, but I'm a little hesitant to say that this evening. Okay. I understand the perception among many in the community at both the student level and the family level, that only girls have cleavage. That is just not true. Biologically, men and women have cleavage. Root word cleave, which means to separate.
And so we all do, regardless of our sex, have an area on our chest where it cleaves, and that's where the cleavage is. So I think that's very much a perception and perhaps an understandable perception in our society that that word applies uniquely or perhaps more to our girls than it does to our boys, but biologically, it does not. And I would say that whether you go with the imaginary line, you
go with the word cleavage, you go with some other concept or terminology, the policy would prohibit a boy from wearing a muscle shirt because that would display the boy's cleavage. The policy would prohibit a boy from wearing a button-down shirt, buttoned down, displaying the cleavage a la the 1970s. That would not be prohibited. I think that right now, that is not currently the fashion, which is why perhaps that term is associated more with our girls than our boys.
But we don't know what the future may bring. Although we can all hope that it won't be a throwback to 1970s fashion. At least as far as our boys, our men are concerned. Yes, Dr. Rashid. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon, I appreciate that. And then with the IEPs, if there's a lot of students that come forward that say, "My child wears a hood because it says in their IEP they suffer from anxiety, and this is the only way," for example, I'm just throwing it out there, that this decreases their anxiety or this is a behavioral issue that helps them, how would we handle that? I hope that won't become a big thing later on down the line. Thank you.
Would anyone on staff like to speak to that? Ms. Richardson? Certainly, happy to take that question. That would be based on the student's educational planning team, whether they're eligible under the IDEA for special education or the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act for Section 504. And so that information would need to be discussed and considered by the team, documented within the plans, and documented as an accommodation, and then we need to make sure that all relevant educational stakeholders would be
aware of this student's ability to access a hood. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Ms. Gallin. Thank you. So as a student, I believe that a dress code is very important for students, but I also think that if you are going to enforce stricter dress code rules, it's also important to enforce a stricter dress code rule for the teachers. I notice a lot at my school, a lot of the teachers are very relaxed in the way that they dress, and I think that right now in this age, students are
very impressionable, and they're looking at teachers to be their role models. And so I think when you see a teacher who is in a workplace, while school is not a workplace, that you see your teacher in a workplace, and I think if they're not dressing appropriately, not that they're not dressing appropriately, but if they're dressing too casually, I think that it gives the students a wrong impression of how you're supposed to dress in the workplace. Thank you. All right. So, I haven't said anything yet, so I'm going to jump in. II have lots of
feelings about this, and they're very mixed. My feelings are very mixed. I hear that staff, especially school leadership, has made a request. I understand that there are different perspectives. I'm worried about whether or not these changes are enforceable or if it's worth the effort. That said, I'm grateful that the Virginia Code exists to limit direct physical contact with students or students' attire. That does give me a little bit of peace of mind. Ultimately, I personally would hate to see any students miss time in class as a result of a dress code violation, and like Ms.
Ricardi said, I would also hate if students were shamed because their parents might not be able to afford multiple sets of certain types of clothes. And I would also really hate it if a child had a growth spurt and their parents didn't have adequate time or money in that moment to address buying new clothes. I'll admit, I'm one of the people that struggles with the idea of cleavage, and I understand from a biological perspective that both men and women have cleavage, but I don't think that it's fair. And I think one of
the reasons why I would not like to see it included in policy is that it's important that policy be accessible and readable and easy to understand, and I think there's still a perception that cleavage is only women. But beyond that, I think there still remains a perception that girls were more policed in the past. And for me, it would be incredibly important that if we were to take this route, that all students be treated the same way, because we shouldn't be
denying access, especially or allowing girls to miss a disproportionate amount of class time over a dress code. I also struggle with the idea of whether or not to focus on coverage or the expectation of professionalism. For me personally, flannel pants, there's a lot of coverage there. I don't really see the problem. I have come a little bit around on the blankets and the slippers because, okay, safety, I can go there. But I'd hate to get into an area where we have so much nuance in what's allowable and what's not allowable,
and I think that distinction around athleisure wear could get to a point where it's hard to differentiate. I do appreciate the clarification around hoodies because I could see even maybe some students that don't have IEPs looking for that as a way to manage their anxiety or sensory overload. Although, I appreciate the fact that we certainly would see students who would also use it to hide contraband that they're not supposed to have in class. So it's just really, really complex, and I'm always happy to admit that. And it's something that I'll be struggling with until it comes time for the
vote. And one of the things that I will really be struggling with is whether or not it's appropriate for us to limit the rights of parents to decide what their kids can wear to school. Ms. Donahue? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to throw out there a thought of a question of if my colleagues would have an interest in having this item also come back for information again, as we discussed with the other policy earlier.
What I'm hearing is that there is still a lot being considered and worked through and potentially more changes coming. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you, Vice Chair Donahue. Vice Chair Donahue has made a suggestion that we bring this item back for information at the next school board meeting. I see Ms. LaBelle, would you like to speak to her suggestion? Or... Not the suggestion particularly, but if this gets moved, how many policies will we be bringing up in action on our last board meeting? This one, because
parents go out over the summer and they purchase school clothes for next year, we really need to have all our ducks in a row in this. Just a timely reminder that because of the time over the summer that they have to go school shopping, as my parents used to call it, we need to be respectful of that. We need to have the parents and the students have time to look over whatever goes into this policy so that they can figure it out, ask questions if they want to know, "What do you mean by this?" They'll have the time to do it. So that's just something that we have to think
about when we keep saying, "Oh, we can do this and push it further down the road." Well, I appreciate your question, and to your point, this was something that I was thinking about, too, in terms of planning out for what comes before recess. And we actually sat down at agenda planning and looked, and it's my belief, and based on what we've seen and what we see coming down the pipe, that the first meeting in June will actually be busier and a heavier lift than the last meeting in June. Okay. Thank you. Yes, Ms. Shurnoff. Thank you, Madam Chair. I certainly would be disappointed if we push it because the first meeting I'll ever
miss is the last meeting in June due to a family conflict. So, I would prefer that we get it done, but if it's the will of the board, I guess I will yield my vote to the dress code. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi? Thank you, Madam Chair. I would also say too, I would like us to vote on this at the next meeting so that principals and faculty at school can have the conversation with families or start communicating out as quickly, and the school division can communicate this out as quickly as possible while people are still in the school buildings in the June-ish timeframe.
It really will probably only be about a week, or maybe less, but I think that will benefit us a bit, I think, as well. Thanks. When is the next meeting? 12th? Right. Our next school board meeting is June 12th. June 9th. June 9th. Oh, no. You're right, because I'm looking at May. Our next school board meeting is June 9th, so technically it's a week. Yes, Ms. LaBelle? If I may, what I'd like us to do is go forward to action, and we can have the robust discussion as we add amendments and then vote on it as we've done on many other items that we've brought forward.
I think that Ms. Accardi's point is very well taken, that if this comes out before school's out, then the principals have time to bring it up with families and students, and that's a very important point. Thank you. Any further comments on... Let's take a temperature check. For June 9th. So Vice Chair Donahue made a suggestion that we bring this item back for information. Oh, Ross, did you want to speak to the suggestion? Oh, Mr. Svendsen? No, I'm not sure if we're making it through. Oh, it sounds like Vice Chair Donahue and Mr. Svendsen have lost audio,
so we'll look into that now. We'll pause for just a minute. Audio check. One, two, three. Oh, good. Oh, nice. Okay, that was quick. Thank you for that. Okay, so to go back, we'll take a temperature check on Vice Chair's suggestion that we bring this item back as an information item at the next meeting, which as we resolved, is June 9th. That's an action item. Information? If it goes to info, then it will be actioned at the last. So I will miss the vote. Okay. So if you're interested in having additional time
to work, the thumbs up is to have it be on information at the next meeting. So, yeah. Okay. All right. It will come back for action at the next meeting. All right. So thank you everyone. We will now move on to board member comments and committee reports. Let's see. This evening, we'll start with Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. Last week, we had our Student Behavior and Accountability Committee meeting and wrapped up the discussions on Policy 8210, 8265, and 8270, as you've noticed today, and sent it to us as a full
information item this evening. The next SBAC meeting will be on June 22nd. The other committee that I'm on, the Special Education Advisory Committee awards ceremony is next Wednesday, June 3rd, and it is spectacular and lots of fun. So please do everything you can to get there. It will be held out at Lightridge, correct? Thank you. I'm getting the nod from Ms. Kahn. Erin Dunbar and I had the pleasure of attending Lincoln Elementary School for their talent show last
Tuesday. Very impressive. There was dancing, piano. Oh, the one pianist, she was wonderful. My goodness. Poetry, singing, and even Principal Mitchner got up on the stage and played his guitar for us. He played a Beatles song. Also, Ms. Chandler and I went out to Purcellville and visited Better A Life. It's out in Western Loudoun. It's an after-school organization that provides needs and care for our less well-endowed students. I guess that's the best way to put it.
The Purcellville Police were there, and they were serving food and interacting with the children, and everybody was having a great time. And the last thing I want to say, as we are coming up on graduation season, I want to remind parents and students alike Please don't drive recklessly, don't drink, don't end your life before it's just about to start. While this chapter of your lives is coming to a close, it's just the beginning of your journey, and I hope you take with you the lessons you've learned and the friendships you've made along the way.
Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Rasheed? Thank you, Chair. The Minority Student Achievement Advisory Committee, MSAAC, held its last meeting of the school year last week. We reflected on the work and the fun of this year, including the recent EquiTea Award celebration. Outgoing chair, Erin Kunkel, let us know that 120 people RSVP'd for the event, but 150 people attended. So we were able to welcome all of that extra joy, adjusting seating, and making space for everyone who wanted to join the celebration. Woo-hoo. I also provided some updates at this
meeting, reminding delegates and attendees about providing feedback on the calendar options and on any policies that are currently under review. A big congrats to current Vice Chair Jasmine Tyler, who was elected chair, she's sitting right here in the audience, there you are. Who was elected chair for next year, and to Cherise Hunter, who has volunteered for membership outreach. So transition work will happen over the summer. As the new school year approaches, delegates will be able to reach out to Chair Tyler to express interest in other volunteer roles.
Outgoing chair Kunkel wrapped up the meeting with gratitude for the hard work and advocacy of the committee members, encouraging all of us to continue to lift each other up. And as the school year comes to a close, I just want to thank everyone who supported MSAAC this year in advocacy and allyship for our students. And this work is really important because when minority students are given opportunities and access, then that means the doors are open for everyone. Thanks, Chair. Thank you. Mr. Pepper. Thank you, Madam Chair. So last week we had our student services committee
meeting, and we went through policy 8250 on bullying prevention education to send to the full board, as well as had a discussion on policy 8160 with a little bit of a time change to school assignment due to attendance zone change, as well as 5340, which came out of our work sessions, which were so phenomenal on the safe and supportive mobile students. And also talked about the timeline for revised policy 8155, which will be on out-of-zone transfers. We're hoping to have that to the full board in the early fall so we have time to
implement that. So just be on the lookout for those things. It's a pretty quick-moving but very hefty student services meeting. Last week, or was it last week? Two weeks ago, I guess. The weeks are blending together as the school year comes to the end. I had the opportunity to visit three elementary schools in the Dulles District. I got to read to a wonderful bunch of kindergartners, who weirdly happen to be my son's friends, even though he doesn't go to the school, at Little River. Got to see a whole bunch of really cool stuff. I read to a first-grade class at Hutchison Farm and got to visit our inclusion
preschool and hang out with a PE class, even though it was a little bit wet on the field, at Liberty. So just had a really nice time connecting with students and teachers in the buildings in the Dulles district. We also had our town hall, where we talked about curriculum instruction, how to differentiate for learners with different needs, and a little bit of feedback on the calendar. I am really excited tomorrow to do the Green Team event here at the school board. I know Dr. Spez mentioned it, but the gallery walk is super exciting. I heard mention there possibly could be ice cream.
My six-year-old is very excited to attend with me, so we are going to have a really good time at that. And I'm really excited to be getting into graduation season. I also want to give a shout-out on Thursday night, I'll be attending Choirpalooza at Lightridge High School with over 300 singers. And I will also take a six-year-old with me to that, too, because it's really fun because all of our Loudoun teams, and I think there were six of them that were state champions at Odyssey, are traveling to Iowa this week. So that includes some of my family. On that lovely note, I am going to send it on to my colleagues.
Thank you. Mrs. Griffiths. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to get back to the committees, the Finance and Operations Committee, we continue to review contracts, and discussed ways to improve how to examine the budget moving forward. We plan to bring forward these suggestions at future meetings. I will shift gears. Since our last meeting, I attended the Stone Bridge High School's Popping Onto Broadway. I want to thank Ms. Turrant and Ms. Marks for your great work in pulling these shows together. They're really amazing. I also had the pleasure of attending a fantastic performance by the Stone
Bridge Orchestra Strings, led by Mr. Patrick Fritz. So that was really exciting. He had them doing-- They were in bands, they were solo acts, they were duo acts. It was just amazing. I look forward to the GLAMIES tomorrow night and upcoming graduations. And I'm tentative for SEAC. It's my husband's birthday, so I'm going to try and get there, but I'll be really sad if I have to miss it this year. But I just wanted to reiterate that to you. I see you sitting out there. So thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The audit committee did not meet in May. The regularly scheduled meeting for May had to be canceled because we were not able to have a quorum of our members present. And you heard directly from the equity council this evening for what's been going on there. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with the community why I have not been able to attend some recent school board meetingsOn the evening of April 21st, I went to the emergency room at Inova Leesburg. I was experiencing a serious medical situation, and I had to
undergo emergency surgery. I'm incredibly grateful to the medical professionals at Inova Leesburg and Inova Fairfax, whose skill and care got me through that period. I've been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love, encouragement, and support from the community, which has meant a huge amount to myself and my family during my recovery. I'm happy to report that now, five weeks after my surgery, my recovery is going great, and I feel really good. I am continuing to heal, and I plan to
continue to participate virtually in board activities for a short period of time. But please know that I do remain actively engaged in board work, fully committed to serving our students, staff, families, and communities throughout my continuing recovery. And I sincerely appreciate everyone's understanding and support. Thank you. Thank you. I will kick off my turn by saying how excited I am to see you, Vice Chair Donahue, even back with us virtually. It is so wonderful to have you back and just really celebrate how well your recovery
is going. We're all rooting for you. And reflecting on, this is absolutely the busiest time of the year, and it also has been a time that's very full of joy. I was so excited as the liaison to the School Business Partnership Executive Council to work on the Together in Remembrance project, and actually joined the committee for assembling the flag packets last week. And then had the opportunity to visit Broad Run with Delegate Reed and Mr. Svendsen and see not only
our student receive a copy of the bill that was passed based on their idea, but also to hear a presentation about a food recovery program that students at Broad Run designed, which was just really great. I also enjoyed celebrating the LCPS annual awards banquet. It was special for two reasons. One, because I got to sit with DDI, and had a great experience getting to know that DDI team, and also because we got to celebrate Ms. Byrne, our very own clerk, who does an amazing job here. So that was really fun.
I also had two wonderful visits at Meadowland and Seneca Ridge Middle School. It was so awesome at Seneca Ridge because I got to tell the teacher who had received the employee of the week award that she was the employee of the week, and that was really wonderful. I also attended the Campus Advisory Council and got to hear directly from educators who are supporting that effort about the wonderful and important work that they're doing. And of course, one of my daughter's besties was there, so that was pretty great too. Really, it is all about the students that we serve.
And it was incredible to go with Ms. LaBelle to Better Life and to hear about the important work that they're doing. We actually visited their homework session and got to see how they're supporting students in our community. And again, Mr. Pepper covered student services, but that was a great experience. And then the best part was being able to go to Newton-Lee on Friday to watch the first grade assemble their flag packets, which is a really meaningful way to honor all of the service members who have given their life for our
community. And also to learn more about the two men who that school are named after, who died on 9/11. So, that's my report. Thank you. And I will go on to Ms. Chernov. Thank you, Madam Chair. Last Wednesday marked my monthly Head Start Policy Council meeting as a liaison, and you guys got a little taste of the work that they do at the full school board meeting. But I just want to take a minute to say that every time I gather and learn more about what Head Start is doing with that small but incredibly mighty team,
I have such a deep appreciation for the tremendous work, the coordination, and the dedication that they are offering to give access to preschool opportunities for our students here in Loudoun. It is truly a deep and wide effort, especially right now as they are trying to get the word out about registration being open. So if you know any little guys that need preschool and fit that criteria, we ask that you spread the word. So just incredibly grateful for that. We also reviewed several important items, including their self-assessment
report and the attendance policy and personnel policies, and all of that will be coming our way soon for school board approval. Additionally, the LEF monthly meeting, Loudoun Education Foundation, which I'm also the liaison on, had a great meeting celebrating the end of the tenure of the current president and passing the torch now to Ms. Kelly Sisson, who will be the new president. We will be also welcoming some new board of trustees members, including Mr. Arben Estrefi, who will be joining that committee as well. So we're looking forward to that, as well as celebrating all the amazing
events that they have put on here at the end of the year, including the gala that Ms. Chandler mentioned, which I too was able to attend and enjoy and hear all about the life of a long-term sub. So I really love that at that event, each table has one of the support services staff that support our schools in not just that our teachers support our schools, but all the different facets of the support. Last week, I was honored to be asked to be the keynote speaker for the Cornerstone Leadership Breakfast at Blue Ridge Middle School that they host each month with students who exemplify strong character and
outstanding leadership qualities that are nominated by their teachers. I say it often, the future is bright. These young people have incredible ideas and were a very wonderful audience. And I too am very much looking forward to the GLAMIE Awards tomorrow night to celebrate our theater students across the county, and as well as graduations and all the fun things that are in the next couple of weeks, SEAC too. So I will be there. Looking forward to it. Thank you. All right. Mr. Svendsen Hi, everyone. I, as you know, in a legislative and policy committee, we worked
on the school building administrative policy as well as the appeals process policy that we discussed earlier. We also discussed Policy 2420, meeting procedures, as an information item, which is the policy that deals with situations like this when we're joining you remotely. And I also enjoyed working with Ms. LaBelle at SBAC, I think last week, on the various policies we've discussed tonight. So it was a busy couple of weeks of policy.
I had a great time with the LEAF community at our meeting on Monday the 18th. Unsurprisingly, the decision to discuss calendar options in Policy Corner was met with enthusiasm, and it was great to hear feedback from parents in the community about what elements of a school calendar are most important to them, and we discussed the various options that are on the table at the moment. And they also really enjoyed the presentation from
Dr. Blalock on the dashboard that's being built to present data about LCPS. And I know that they're interested to have a presentation in the fall that kind of gives an update on where that stands. So they really enjoyed that. I had a great time joining Chair Chandler and Dr. Spence at Broad Run to celebrate one of our seniors, Saniya's, work getting a bill passed through the General Assembly in Virginia to make the SAT more accessible to students.
It was really exciting to see her achievement get celebrated with her classmates there and by Delegate Reed. And we had a great presentation by Hansa and Neela, two sophomores who are doing great work to reduce food waste at Broad Run High School and are interested in expanding that to other schools in LCPS. And it's just a reminder of the amazing work that students are doing in our schools all across Loudoun every day. So with that, I will turn it over to Ms. Ricardi. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi?
Maybe that's what we should start doing is just passing it each way. Put it on. Yeah, there you go. Well, thanks for-- I'm actually really happy to be going last this week. So I'm really excited about a lot of the things that are going on. Again, this is celebration time for all of our students at the end of this school year, so we've had the LEF and the LCPS award ceremonies, which were really fantastic. We've got a lot of things coming up this week as well. I'm going to be going to the Sterling Rortan Annual Awards and Scholarship Night, which is tomorrow night, so I'll see Ms. Chandler there for sure. We have our Rolling Ridge Elementary School Golden
Jubilee on Friday, and a really awesome rally for reading at the Sterling Community Center coming up this weekend, so I'm excited about that. I think I'm going to just end my discussion tonight with a little bit of a celebration about Memorial Day. So I wanted to take a time to share some thoughts about that in our 250th anniversary of our absolutely amazing country. So while I was sorry that I couldn't make the event last Thursday, the Board of Supervisors Chairman Phyllis Randall delivered her State of the County Address, and by all accounts, I hear it was an absolutely fantastic event.
I'm sorry that I couldn't be there. And it's just a really great reminder of just how fantastic Loudoun County is and this country. And in recognition of America's 250th anniversary, I know she asked you all to wear red, white, and blue, which is a really fun thing, so I'm excited. I'm really sorry that I missed that. But I wanted to take a moment tonight, not really as a board member, but just on a personal note to speak about what this anniversary really means to me and my family in particular. It's really fun to go back in my family history. One of my grandmothers, who I knew when I was young, was a Bronze Star decorated
Army nurse, and she served General Patton's Army during the invasion of Normandy during World War II. And she had some pretty incredible stories and a lot of really great things to share about that. But I also happen to be a wife of a disabled veteran, and I'm a stepmother to a newly commissioned Army Reserve officer who could not be more proud to wear his uniform. In addition, I employ a veteran in my office. And these are not talking points. They're really truly the people that I love. People who raised their right hand and said that they're willing to put themselves between harm and
do whatever they need to do to protect our country. They didn't do it for political reasons. They didn't do it for the comfort. They really did it for the idea that even though this country, in some cases, can be imperfect, it's evolving and extraordinary, and it is our home. There's a quote that I return to attributed to Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, and it says, "It's the soldier, not the politician, who has given us freedom of speech. It's the soldier, not the activist, who has given us the right to protest. And it's the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and
whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the rest of us to do with it as we choose." I really do have incredible gratitude for everybody that has served in the armed forces, our family members, our veteran's family, and those that we've lost, and I just want to share with you guys how much I really do appreciate serving our community here in Sterling and being on this board with all of you, and I could not be prouder of this country and where we are at. So thank you so much. Thank you.All right. Thank you
so much. I guess now we can move on to item number 14, new business. Board members, is there any new business? Yes. Ms. Chernov? Thank you, Madam Chair. Tonight, I want to quickly bring up the topic of cell phones. So Dr. Spence and I have had some recent conversations about Policy 8655, Student Personal Device Use, in response to the feedback that both he and I have received when we visit high schools. It seems that by taking away the language about storing cell phones in a container or pouch during instructional time has created some confusion and inconsistencies. I'm not suggesting that we change the
policy from bell to bell, as that is now the state law, and I would never suggest that, but rather we consider adding that specific language that we moved to regulation back into the policy to help protect instructional time and provide more clarity. The policy we had in place, in large part we heard, was working during that instructional time, but now that most devices are stored in backpacks on a student's person, there is more sneaking of them, and it seems we have lapsed in the actual purpose of the original policy by changing our procedures. The hallways and lunch will not change under the bell-to-bell requirements.
I'm just simply suggesting we add back the language to keep them separate from students during class time. This should help give teachers the support that they are also looking for. This would also only be at the high school level, as it seems the bell-to-bell policy is working well in elementary and middle school. So, to that end, I'm just bringing this up as new business to see if I can get support. I'll be asking offline from three colleagues to add this as an info item at our June 9th board meeting. I'm hoping to sort of bypass committee at this time due to the urgency of the timeline to have it in place for school, and to just make this
small adjustment. And with that, I'll ask if Dr. Spence has anything he would like to add about his experience with feedback. Thank you, Ms. Chernov. I've had a lot of opportunities to talk with staff and students over the course of the year. We've hosted town halls, and this issue's come up quite a bit, and then I've talked with teachers. I have a number of thoughts, as I'm sure many of you do, having heard from constituents over the course of the year about how this policy's gotten implemented. We have implemented it the way the state has asked us to implement it, but it has created problems for us. And one of the problems I think that could be remedied fairly quickly and easily would be to provide more clarity that
teachers can and should store the devices as they were doing before. We have said all along that they can do that. But for some reason, having pulled that out of policy has created confusion, and I think a relatively easy solution to that would be to bring forward an amendment to the policy that would allow us to clearly communicate that back to our teachers. So that's the conversation we had, and administration would certainly support that. Thank you. All right, and Ms. LaBelle. Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the things when we're talking about school calendars that I hear all the time is that students forget a lot of
information over the summer. They backslide more or less. And therefore, we have summer school. And I started thinking about it. One of the problems that we have with summer school is it's right after school ends. Kids have shut down. Their friends are going off to the beaches or vacations or camp. I think if we moved summer school from right after school to right before school starts, we could get the kids that tend to backslide into that summer school program and
have them ready to go on the first day of school. So if we could, as a board, give this some thought and possibly discuss it later. It won't be for this summer, that's for sure. But that is something that maybe we could look into. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any new business? Any further new business? All right. With that, we will move on to item number 15, our motion to convene a closed meeting. Ms. Chernov, do you have a motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the Loudoun County School Board recess this public meeting and enter into a closed meeting pursuant to
2.2-3712 of the Code of Virginia for the following. A discussion or consideration of matters that would involve the disclosure of information contained in a scholastic record concerning any LCPS student and consultation with legal counsel and briefings by staff members or consultants pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body, as authorized by sections 2.2-3711 (2) and 2.2-3711 (7) of the Code of
Virginia. Additionally, a discussion or consideration of the acquisition of real property for public purpose or of the disposition of publicly held real property where discussion in an open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body as authorized by Section 2.2-3711 (3) of the Code of Virginia. Also, discussion and consideration of the performance of specific public employees as authorized by Section 2.2-3711 (1) of the Code of
Virginia, and discussion and consideration of the performance of a specific public employee and specific public officer, consultation with legal counsel employed or retained by a public body regarding specific legal matters requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel, and consultation with legal counsel pertaining to actual or probable litigation where such consultation or briefing in open meeting would adversely affect the negotiating or litigating posture of the public body as authorized by sections 2.2-3711 (1) , 2.2-3711 (7) , and
2.2-3711 (8) of the Code of Virginia.That's all. Thank you. Ms. Chernov has made a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Oh, I have a second by Vice Chair Donahue. Let's see. It has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board go into closed session. Is there any discussion? Ms. Chernov. Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like to note that I will be recusing myself from the discussion on the third matter concerning the performance of specific public employees for personal reasons. During that discussion, I will step out of the closed session, but I intend to take part in the discussion on the other topics. Thank you.
Thank you. All right. So, any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Vice Chair Donahue, please state your vote. Abstain. Thank you. Mr. Svendsen, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. The motion passes with eight board members voting yes, including Ms. Ricardi, Mr. Svendsen, Ms. Chernov, myself, Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rashid, and Ms. LaBelle, and Vice Chair Donahue abstaining from the vote. With that, the board is now in closed session.
All right. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. When was
the last time that I checked my messages? Water. Yep, 10 or 15 hours since I had water. Over 15. Well... day because you know it'll go long. Uh-huh. And you come in late tomorrow. I'll work the morning long. That's good. Good. So I set the alarm for 7:45. Needs 15 minutes to get up. It'll take me an hour to come down. At least. Always.
Yeah. No hope for me. Over an hour. Yeah.
The board is now coming out of closed. Ms. Ricardi, do you have a motion? Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the closed meeting be adjourned, that the Loudoun County School Board reconvene its public meeting, and that the minutes of the public meeting reflect that no formal action was taken in the closed meeting. Ms. Ricardi has made a motion to adjourn the closed meeting. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Chernov. It has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board adjourn the closed session. Is there any discussion? All right, seeing no discussion, clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Jonathan, behave yourself.
I'm unable to. Mr. Svenson, please state your vote. Yes. Okay. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with eight school board members present and Vice Chair Donahue absent for the vote. Ms. Ricardi, do you have another motion? Yes, Madam Chair. I move that the following resolution certifying the closed meeting be adopted and reflected in the minutes of this public meeting as Resolution Number 43-25-26. Whereas the Loudoun County School Board has convened a closed meeting on the date pursuant to an affirmative recorded vote and in accordance with the
provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And whereas Code 2.2-3712 subset D of the Code of Virginia requires a certification by the school board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Loudoun County School Board hereby certifies that, to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification applies.
And two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion convening in the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the Loudoun County School Board. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi has made a motion to certify the closed meeting. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. Labelle. It has been properly moved and seconded that the Loudoun County School Board certify the closed meeting. Is there any discussion? Yes, Ms. Chernov. Thank you, Madam Chair. Given that I recused myself from discussion on one of the topics, I will abstain from this vote, but I can confirm that the school board did not depart from the other topics that were discussed, which I was
present in closed session for. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right. Let's move forward with the vote. Clerk, please open the vote. Board members, please record your voteMr. Svendsen, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes with seven school board members voting yes, including Ms. Ricardi, Mr. Svendsen, myself, Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rashid, and Ms. LaBelle, and Ms. Chernov abstaining from the vote, and Vice Chair Donahue absent for the vote. Ms. Ricardi, do you have another motion? Indeed, I do. Following the school board's October 28th, 2025 vote
pertaining to this employee matter brought under Policy 7014, I move that the school board uphold the superintendent's September 30th, 2025, decision pertaining to this employee matter. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi has made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Pepper. It has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? All right. Let's move forward with the vote. Board members, please record your vote. Mr. Svendsen, please state your vote. Yes. Thank you. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes with seven school board members voting yes,
including Ms. Ricardi, Mr. Svendsen, myself, Mrs. Griffiths, Mr. Pepper, Dr. Rashid, and Ms. LaBelle. Ms. Chernov abstains from the vote, and Vice Chair Donahue is absent for the vote. Ms. Ricardi, do you have another motion? Last and final. That the school board direct staff to take the actions as discussed in closed regarding the specific public officer and matter pertaining to litigation and reaffirm the confidentiality and claim of privilege of the matters discussed in closed. Thank you. Ms. Ricardi has made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Ms. LaBelle.
It has been properly moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, let's move forward with the vote. Please record your vote. Mr. Svendsen, please state your vote. Yes. Clerk, please close and display the vote. That motion passes unanimously with all eight school board members present voting yes, and Vice Chair Donahue absent for the vote. With that, we have concluded the business meeting for this evening. The May 26th, 2026 school board meeting is adjourned. Thank you, and please drive home safely.