Sure. There you go. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to call this June 4th meeting of the Curriculum Instruction Committee to order. My name is Dr. Samara Rashid, and I am the chair of this committee. We appreciate your presence here today. And the purpose of today's meeting is to go over a couple of things. First, we have to approve the minutes from our previous meeting, and then we have two information items, which is an update on instructional technology in LCPS and an update on Office of Mathematics. Before we proceed, we definitely value public comment, and if there's anyone from
the public who wishes to address the committee, please fill out a speaker card at the registration table, and we will now open the floor to public comment. So if you wish to speak, please come forward, state your name, and limit your comments to two minutes. I am just waiting for that roster, which I'll get in a second. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. All right. So the first speaker is- Morgan Kabuzzi Yes, you got it. Ms. Morgan Kabuzzi, followed by Ms. Laura Thomas. And we will allot each speaker two minutes. Oh, you- Just make sure that on your microphone that the red light goes on. And feel free to have a seat.
My name is Morgan Kabuzzi, and I am a Leesburg parent and former middle and high school English teacher who has a master's in education. I am here in favor of the 2026 to '27 LCPS K through two low-tech pilot. Research increasingly shows screen-based learning methods are not only inferior to traditional methods, but damaging as well. A 2024 study, "Handwriting but Not Typewriting Leads to Widespread Brain Connectivity," states handwriting on paper, unlike typing, swiping, or writing on a screen, develops neural connectivity patterns that prime the brain for optimal learning
conditions. When students learn with self-generated tactile movements on paper, more of the brain gets stimulated and more complex neural networks are created. Students slow down, process each idea, and strengthen their memory and reading skills. A 2024 study, "The Case for Paper," proves comprehension is eight times better with physical books than e-readers. Turning physical pages allows our brain to visually map each page, increasing reading comprehension, information retention, and deep focus. When students swipe for a virtual reward or avatar, they are hindering their
self-control, are prone to distractions on their device, and are more focused on the ed tech game than the learning process. According to NPR, the dopamine children get from computer apps and games leads to addiction, shorter attention spans, and difficulty enjoying everyday tasks like reading a book. Our children deserve the evidence-based education LCPS promises in its mission. Thank you. Thank you. And we will now call forward Laura Thomas, followed by Tiffany Frederick. Good afternoon. My name is Laura Thomas. I'm the parent of a first grader at Sanders Corner Elementary School and a
member of the Balance Project Loudoun County. I'm here in support of the low-tech pilot program for our youngest students. Our children only get one childhood. As we consider how best to educate them, we should ask whether daily one-to-one device use is the most effective approach for kindergarten through second grade. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association for the Education of Young Children both emphasize that young children learn best through relationships, conversation, play, movement, and hands-on experiences.
These interactions build language, attention, problem-solving, skills, and social confidence, the foundations of lifelong learning. This pilot is not about rejecting technology. It is about offering an evidence-based option and studying what works best for young children. Technology will always be there. Childhood will not. I urge you to support this pilot and give our youngest learners the chance to learn the way children were designed to learn. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to now call forward Tiffany Frederick,
followed by Jen Hartman. Hello, my name's Tiffany Frederick. I'm the proud mom of three students at Leesburg Elementary School. I have a fourth grader, a second grader, and a kindergartner. I'm also the spouse of an LCPS teacher at the high school level and a substitute in your system this year. I have spent time in classrooms from autism exclusive classrooms to kinder through fifth grade, and I can tell you that the reliance on devices is really upsetting. They sit in front of them for one-to-one education with headphones on, living in educational bubbles, and not interacting with their teachers or not interacting with one another.
And it's heartbreaking to walk through hallways that are silent, not listening to a teacher at the front of the room, but silent because they're staring at screens. They were given as an opportunity to provide equity during COVID, and that was fantastic to put devices in homes that often don't have them. However, they've become a crutch, a hindrance, and a distraction, not just in the classroom, but at home as well. We are battling a screen addiction as a society, and we're raising up our kids spending more times on screens than I do as an adult, and it's really difficult to see what kind of future we may have. So I'm supporting this low tech or no tech for our K through
two, and I also want to applaud programs like Propel that put hands-on learning into our kids' opportunities because my child, who might have been struggling earlier on, excelled and found footing when they were given the chance to learn hands-on straight from teachers with great programs. Thank you for your time Thank you. And I'll call forward Jen Hartman, followed by Amanda Martinez. My name is Jen Hartman. I am here to speak not as a neuroscience expert or a technology expert, but as a teacher. I've been in Loudoun County for 25 years as a teacher,
reading specialist, former ITF, and currently an instructional coach who is heading back into the classroom to teach third grade next year. There is no shortage of evidence and research to support the negative impacts of the overuse of ed tech in our elementary schools, and I could sit up here and quote neuroscientists and cite research about how it disrupts the development of the brain's prefrontal cortex in young children. But I am speaking on experience from the classroom, and I think that holds the most value. Since COVID, I have seen an increase in dysregulated students who struggle to maintain focus.
More students exhibit attention-seeking behaviors and lack critical thinking skills. They seek immediate answers and feedback and have given over their thinking. We cannot achieve the LCPS profile of a graduate or fulfill our instructional framework through a screen. If we want our students to become authentic collaborators, communicators, creators, contributors, and critical thinkers, we must design learning experiences to strengthen executive functioning and interpersonal skills. Technology absolutely has a place in our classrooms.
If we are committed to designing rigorous, authentic student-centered experiences, then we must ensure that ed tech remains a tool in service of learning while protecting the attention, relationships, and brain development that our youngest learners need to survive and thrive. We cannot replace students' thinking. To prepare our kids for the digital future, we must protect them from the damage being done in the digital present. Thank you. Thank you. Amanda Martinez, followed by Andrea Hepner. Hi, my name is Amanda Martinez and I'm an LCPS parent.
I'm here to speak in favor of the K through two low-tech pilot program. As an adult, I find technology very distracting, and I've watched my second grader this year do his Lexia homework nightly while constantly tabbing over between his timer and his homework, clicking on little things in Lexia, trying to get me and his siblings to watch the little animations and the music play. So it's very distracting for him, too. So I believe that decreasing technology in the classroom could lead to improved concentration and less distraction. Thank you. Andrea Hepner, followed by Katie Stone.
Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Andrea Hepner. I'm here today as both an educator and a parent, and I am strongly encouraging you to support the low-tech pilot program for K to two. My professional background includes teaching first, third, and fourth grades, as well as K12 gifted education. Beyond the classroom, I created instructional math videos for ed tech startups, managed Gates Foundation grants for virtual PD, and delivered PD as a consultant for Discovery Education. My master's thesis focused on teaching the internet as a genre.
Most importantly, I am the parent of an LCPS kindergartner. While technology has the potential to be valuable when used intentionally, we are also learning about the negative impacts of overuse. The positives of a low-tech, teacher-guided environment are overwhelming. Read-alouds with real books and teachers modeling phonics and internal comprehension strategies, morning meetings where social interactions are practiced, math lessons with hands-on manipulatives to transform the abstract into concrete
objects, handwriting to support early literacy acquisition, and the nurturing of strong student-teacher and peer relationships. This committee has an opportunity to prioritize student-centered, relationship-based approach to learning to give the gift of an experiential elementary education back to our students and teachers. I respectfully urge you to support the pilot program. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Katie Stone, followed by Hannah Tate. Hi, my name is Katherine Stone, and I'm here to support the K through second
low-tech pilot program for the 2026-2027 school year. As a parent of a current third grader, first grader, and rising kindergartner, this is a proposal I'm very passionate about. I come from a long line of public school teachers who believe in the value of public education, teaching me that nothing else compared. Teachers truly have a gift, and they use it to do what few adults are able to do daily. It really saddens me to see some of that gift being lost with the use of screens as a teaching tool. Those early years of education are crucial, and the interaction between a teacher and a young student is so formative. So much research in early child development has shown that children under eight learn significantly better through hands-on human interaction rather than digital
screens. We are so fortunate in Loudoun County to have some of the best humans to provide this interaction, and I hope we can all acknowledge and continue to prove to the rest of the country why we have one of the best school systems by our approach to our education. Thank you. Hannah Tate, followed by Katherine Contreras. Good afternoon, members of the Loudoun County Public School Board, Superintendent, teachers, and fellow parentsMy name is Hannah Tate. I'm a parent here at Loudoun County Public Schools. I have two sets of twins, age two and four. I want to begin by expressing my appreciation for our teachers and
schools. I also recognize that technology plays an important role in preparing students for the future. Digital literacy matters. But tonight, I'm asking LCPS to thoughtfully reconsider when and how we introduce Chromebooks and screen-centered instruction in the earliest grades. This is not an argument against technology. It's an argument for aligning technology use with child development. Research from organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the OECD highlights concerns about excessive screen exposure and questions whether expanded classroom
technology consistently improves learning outcomes. Young children learn best through direct human connection and hands-on engagement, conversation, handwriting, physical books, creativity, movement, and collaborative problem-solving. These experiences strengthen attention, emotional regulation, memory, and communication skills in ways that screens often cannot replicate. There's also a social dimension we must consider. Children develop empathy by reading facial expressions, by hearing tone of voice, resolving disagreements
face-to-face, and observing how their words affect others. When more learning and interaction shift to screens, opportunities to build these skills can diminish. And beyond academics and social development, there is a deeper question about curiosity itself. Children are naturally driven to touch, to build, explore, and experiment with the physical world. These tactile experiences fuel imagination and innovation. It too- Thank you. I'm afraid we have a two-minute allotment for each speaker. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. Katherine Contreras. Good afternoon, school board. My name is Katherine Contreras.
I am a parent of a rising kindergartner for the '26-27 school year. I am speaking in support of the low-tech pilot program. I am very excited. My son is in the DLI program. I'm excited for him to make friends and have lots of social interactions. And the American Academy of Pediatrics in their January 2026 policy statement said that screen use is most likely to cause harm to children and adolescents when content is designed to increase screen use with features like streaks and rewards that encourage daily
play or contain infinite scrolls and autoplay. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you so much. And we value public input. And thank you so much for sharing all that information. We take everything very seriously. And then also, I think we're going to pause because we have extra chairs right beyond those doors. All right. Okay, now we'll move forward. We need to approve the minutes from May 7th. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes? And are there any additions or corrections from my colleagues? No? Okay. I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from May
7th. So moved. Okay, it's been moved by Ms. Chernov. Do I hear a second? Second. Okay. Seconded by Mr. Svendsen. Okay, great. And then all those in favor of approving the minutes? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, great. Okay, the minutes have been approved. All right, let's move on to our first information item 4.01, the update on instructional technology in LCPS. I'll turn it over to Mr. Slevin. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Rashid. I'm happy to be here tonight with the team to bring back the topic of instructional technology. And I'll ask team members to introduce themselves when they start their first slide. But first, I just want to acknowledge public comment
and appreciate the feedback from the community and assure commenters that we, and I know committee members are hearing that. Instructional technology has been a topic of the Curriculum Instruction Committee over the past year, year and a half. And the support of the board has really helped us move along on some initial steps of addressing some of the concerns that were mentioned tonight, whether it be through our instructional technology guidance, which for the first time gave us real screen time expectations in our classrooms that teachers and principals can work off of, led to the expansion of carts for first grade through the budget
process, thanks to board member action, and gave us some initial feedback on ... thinking about where we're headed with generative AI. And that's all connected to some of the updates that the team is going to give tonight. We want to share about digital citizenship, generative AI, the implementation of those Grade 1 device carts, and the K2 low-tech pilot that's been mentioned, all while being very thoughtful and supportive of our teachers, where they are in the process, as well as being really engaged with our families in terms of decisions that are being made. So, with that, I believe the first slide we're going to kick off with Ms.
Ogoni. All right. Good afternoon. I'm Nicole Ogoni. I am our Director of Professional Growth and Innovation, and I'm excited to be here to speak with you about all the hard work that's happened within teaching and learning and instructional technology. I wanted to start by highlighting the significant work that we've done with our digital citizenship curriculum, especially with how we've embedded our AI literacy to prepare our students for this rapidly changing world that we are in. The project has been done collaboratively with our Library Media Services office and Instructional Technology office, and will be supported by our librarians and instructional technology facilitators in our schools, as well
as our leaders in schools. Previously, LCPS operated with flexibility in how they implemented the Common Sense Media curriculum. While this autonomy allowed for creativity, it ultimately led to inconsistent experiences and implementation gaps across LCPS. So to solve this, our team has developed a suggested scope and sequence by grade level. This framework does two things. First, it reduces the independent planning on our teachers, and second, it ensures that the important concepts, like AI literacy, are in our curriculum year by year without any gaps.
To ensure success, we aren't just handing over our curriculum to our teachers. We are providing schools with implementation teams with detailed planning guides and quarterly meetings. These quarterly meetings will allow us to stay connected with our schools, see how this is going for them, track our success, and troubleshoot in real time. So we're truly excited about this proactive approach to digital citizenship and the changes that we've made for next year. I'm also very excited to announce that 100% of our LCPS schools achieved Common Sense Media recognition this past school year.
This recognition is earned by providing dedicated training to the staff, teaching targeted digital citizenship lessons to our students, and sharing digital citizenship resources with our families. Good afternoon, board members. My name is Mike Henriksen. I'm the Instructional Technology Supervisor working in the division of Professional Growth and Innovation with Ms. Ogoni. And we're here to share a little bit about some of the work we're doing around generative artificial intelligence. And before we get into some of those updates around the work that we're doing, I wanted to share a little bit of context. Just as we're thinking about the world that we're living in, as Nicole
mentioned, generative AI is an increasingly omnipresent element of our lives. We're interacting with it in more and more ways. So to ground the conversation a bit, I just wanted to share a few highlights for you. Up on the slide, you can see a chart that shows adoption rates of major technology platforms over the past 10 years or so. And you can see from that chart that the time for ChatGPT, when it was launched, to go from zero users to a million users, and then from one million users to
150 million users, was faster than any technology platform that we've seen so far. Faster than Netflix, faster than Snapchat. Far faster than many of these platforms that are so integrated into the world we live in every day. So it's amazing how quickly this technology is being adopted, and how it's moving beyond just simply ChatGPT and those core platforms. We also want to ground the conversation in the recognition that we know that our students are interacting with generative AI. This data comes from a College Board survey.
They have done a series of surveys, and in that survey, they ask students the question, "How frequently are you interacting with generative AI, and for what purposes?" We can see that a significant percentage of students nationwide are reporting that they are interacting with generative AI on a regular basis, and that applies to Loudoun County Public School students as well. We know that our students are encountering these tools on their phones, in the tools they're using at home, and in targeted ways now in some of the tools they're using at school. And so what we are trying to do is find the right
balance of allowing our students to learn and to learn how to use these tools in safe and appropriate and effective ways while also keeping them safe as they're exploring this new technology. So, as we're thinking about preparing our students for their next steps beyond Loudoun County Public Schools, we're increasingly seeing conversations around generative AI as, or AI literacy as a workplace readiness skill. So, as we're thinking about how we prepare our students for their future, having some thought towards how we're preparing them to
use generative AI and develop that skill set and develop that AI literacy is going to be an important piece of preparing them for their next steps. So, a little bit of context around some of the work that we have been doing so far. We've shared with the committee, over the past year or so, this progression that we've been on with trying to identify ways toBring generative artificial intelligence into our work in thoughtful, systematic ways, where we're thinking about our students, placing our students at the center of the decisions that we're making. So we've done things like develop a risk
matrix to evaluate generative AI tools, and using that risk matrix, thinking about how we start to deploy generative AI features in certain places, when those tools test out and demonstrate that they're safe for our students. We are incorporating generative AI literacy lessons into our digital citizenship curriculum. We're providing resources to schools to have those conversations with students. We heard some reference to that in conversations around our digital citizenship curriculum and where we're embedding generative AI literacy into that
curriculum and that framework. So we are, again, as we've talked about with the committee in previous meetings, we're thinking about how we then begin to expand access for our students in ways that allows them to deepen their generative AI literacy, while also creating an environment that keeps them safe, and guardrailed, and protected as they're doing that learning. So, you're going to hear a little bit about some plans for a potential pilot of expanding some generative AI tools for our secondary students.
So we are happy and excited to share with you our idea for our generative AI expansion pilot for our secondary schools during the '26, '27 school year. So up until now, our students have interacted with generative AI only in our existing approved educational platforms, and of course, in their own use at home as well. This pilot is making a step towards allowing our secondary schools to opt in to dedicated, secure AI tools. We're going to start with our pilot with Google's NotebookLM. What makes NotebookLM so powerful
and safe for the classroom is that it is source grounded AI assistant. Unlike open internet chatbots, it operates in a controlled environment. Students upload specific class notes, Google Slides, their transcripts of lectures, assigned PDFs, and then AI acts as a tutor based on those materials. It allows students to summarize their texts, generate practice quizzes or practice problems, create study guides for assessments, and even listen to podcast-style summaries of the lesson that they were learning about, or the topics they were learning about.
All with verifiable inline citations pointing back to their actual instructional resources that were provided by their teachers. It avoids the risk of AI hallucination and just using OpenAI for this. We are also looking into turning on Google Gemini with a few of our pilot high schools. To ensure a highly successful rollout, we're really in the beginning stages of thinking about that, and we're actively connecting with our neighboring school divisions across Virginia that have already enabled this tool for their students in secondary
schools. And that will help us to learn about their deployment strategies, best practices, and things that they're running into as well. The opt-in for this pilot is intentionally designed to ensure success. We really want participating schools to be on board and excited to learn. They're going to identify a leadership team who will join us for four half-day professional learning sessions, and these teams will then turn around and train their building staff. And that way, we can ensure that our staff and our students, through the digital citizenship lessons, are prepared before we
launch, and our plan is to launch in quarter two. By launching this as a pilot, we can learn from our schools before considering turning them on for all of our secondary students. Good evening. I'm Aaron Smith, the chief technology officer here with Loudoun County Public Schools. As we've talked about generative AI, we're transitioning into the negative impact generative AI is having on us. So as we begin this conversation about low tech, shifting our deployment models, we really want to ground that in just the overall device costs and how much they're increasing. So you can see here in the chart, we're seeing between 50% and 80% device cost increase over the last two years, over the last year, and then what we're
projecting into 2027. And market is probably thinking through 2030, 2031, that these device cost increases will be there. And they're really there because generative AI is consuming so much of the memory and chipsets that are available, that it's creating a huge demand when there's not enough supply, and it's really driving up prices. And it's not just LCPS. This is a national issue. It's at big box stores, everything that has a chipset, video game consoles, anything is increasing in price. So while we're having this conversation about shifting this, it's really going to be about some cost avoidance that we want to do
as we do some less devices. There's really not going to be a lot of funding to shift around to level set. We spend about $15 million a year on our entire refresh. That's staff, student, shared devices, and a 50% increase is about $7.5 million increase, so significant funding there. On the next slide, we get into the Grade 1 carts. So this past year, the school board directed us. We had previously provided carts to kindergarten classrooms so that those devices would stay. The goal of those devices not going home and staying in the classroom. So this year, we are deploying Grade 1 carts. They're already procured.
They should be here in about a week and a half. And so schools will be ready to go for the start of next school year. And that's every single elementary school with the exception of Hovatter, because they do not have a kindergarten or Grade 1. So all the other elementary schools will be getting them. So we just wanted to highlight that. It's 59 schools, and then you can see on this slide about the cost of doing. It's about between $270,000 and $300,000 to do carts per grade level. So I know we've had conversations about moving forward what this looks like for Grade 2, Grade 3, and so on. That's a rough estimate. To do the remaining four grades would be roughly a million-dollar
initiative to get those carts out there. With that, I'll hand it over to Mr. Slovin. Thank you. In LCPS, instructional technology must serve as a purposeful support for learning. This is why we're partnering with elementary schools, starting with principals, to evaluate our current K2 device models. Based on recent data regarding screen time and application usage, the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Digital Innovation are working with elementary schools to rethink the traditional one-to-one device deployment models in grades K through two. Instead of assigning an individual device to
every student, participating schools will explore alternative models this upcoming school year. This includes potentially shared mobile carts accessible across classrooms, and a focus on station rotation models where a small number of high-quality devices are placed intentionally within classroom learning stations. The goal is to promote purposeful engagement, designing active learning experiences that emphasize tactile learning and peer-to-peer interaction, while making very intentional choices about when technology meaningfully enhances and supports instruction. This pilot is being fully co-created between schools
and central office teams. I would note that, much like our public, our principals are really attuned to this, as well as many of our teachers. So we're really leaning into, much like the Gen AI expansion, teacher and principal readiness for this work. We want to work alongside these K2 teacher teams to gather honest, reflective feedback on how reduced devices impact instruction, assessment, intervention, and learning outcomes, as well as teacher workload before we make decisions that may impact schools outside of the pilot. Along with the low-tech pilot, we're working in parallel with-- That's really about device access
and how students or when they're accessing those devices. We're also working to refocus what they're accessing. So, we've been shrinking that list of things that students have access to, specifically K through five, with implementation reduction of educational games, really trying to refine that experience. And this summer, we'll be taking another step towards that. So when they are using a device, the low-tech pilot will facilitate some of those device allocation deployments strategies. But we're also going to be working for all elementary schools to really
focus what students are doing. So when they are using a device in screen time, it really is learning time and not other things that they're doing. So speaking of screen time, in April, we gained access to a tool through our Lightspeed content filter. So a content filter agent sits on every single student's device, so that's the natural way where it's going to collect data on everything a student's doing and really measuring screen time. So in April, this tool began collecting data in January, and then we were able to access it in April and begin to really run some reports about what screen time usage. There was a lot of anecdotal. We had built a dashboard ourselves, but it wasn't
as full-featured set as having a dedicated agent on a device that's running those. So in the early review of this data, this is just to level set what we've seen from January to, I think this was to May 20th when we pulled the report. In kindergarten, we're seeing about average daily use of about 25, 26 minutes per day. Now, that's average daily use across the division. Some schools are higher, some schools are lower. First grade is 43 minutes, and second grade is 52 minutes. So the key part about this is that now we're working, we provided all these low-tech pilot schools have access to
reports that show them what their actual uses are, and then what applications those students are using, so they can begin to have those conversations. And we're working to build visibility. Schools have different teams. It might be an ITF, it might be an assistant principal, really getting them access so they have the ability to really review this on the fly, so they can self-measure as they're working through the low-tech pilot about what their actual screen time use, what it is now, and then how that's going to be different moving into next year. So this slide here is another example of the kind of data that will be available to our schools out of
Lightspeed insights. And this list here is the top apps currently measured by engagements. I believe that's measuring based on how many clicks students are making in those different platforms in our K through two classrooms. The first bar that goes way across the top there, that's ClassLink, that's our LCPS Go dashboard. So that's the launch pad students are using to get into the app. So that's why you're seeing so much interaction there. And then we can get a little bit of a picture of-- Looking down that list, we can get a picture of the kinds of things that our students might be doing in classrooms based on the apps they're using.
It might not always be a perfect picture, but we get a little bit of insight, and we're excited to have our schools have access to this kind of data, so that they can really get an understanding of what's happening and think about how they can use that data and that information to make intentional decisions about shifting their practices. So, this is that same chart, just broken down by grade. So that first one was lumped together grades K through two, and here's that list of top 10 apps by grade. We pulled out those utility things like ClassLink, so we're really just looking at the instructional tools there.
But that gives us a little bit of a window into the kinds of things that our students might be doing. So, we're seeing things there that might be personalized activities where there are skills practice that are targeted at their specific learning needs. We're looking at collaborative tools or creative tools there. We're looking at content where students are accessing rich learning materials through their device. So we see a range there, and if we think about some of the instructional technology guidance we've put out, we've talked about that in
previous meetings and about how we really think about technology across three levels of usage, really what is that access and then that personalization and then deeper learning and authentic learning. So we can see really a mix of each through this little window that we get by looking at the tools that our students are using on their devices.So, going back to that technology guidance, we published that last, I guess maybe just about this time last year. And we wanted to provide a few highlights about where we've been with that work
and what's coming next. So we've been able to use that guidance as a foundation for some professional learning that we provided to a range of stakeholder groups. We've done sessions for school leaders. We've done sessions and work with our instructional technology facilitators, and with our teachers, helping them understand and giving them some common language around what is the technology or how is the technology being used and how might we classify it and really begin to sort and organize what our students are doing.
And we've also, through a number of requests from schools, we've shared this document publicly on our LCPS website. A number of schools and school leaders came back to us and said, "This is a really helpful resource. Can we share this with parents and families?" "Absolutely. Please share it." And we posted it on our website to make sure that was a resource that was available to our entire school community. And, so thinking about what's coming next, really, I think we have an opportunity with that data that we were just looking at, to help our schools begin to look at the usage data, begin to think of that
usage data in the context of that guidance so they are deepening their understanding, and having more clarity around what's happening with technology in their classrooms and use it to make informed decisions. All right. Well, thank you so much. Quite a loaded presentation are the least words I could offer about that. But thank you so much for that. And it pairs perfectly with our public comment. I had a question. Would budgeting be adjusted if we were to start leaning towards textbooks and workbooks? Would it be more pricier than what we are dealing with right now?
Again, I'm just thinking out loud with this one. So our current approach to textbooks is that we still buy physical copies as well as getting digital licenses. We may, however, depending on the grade level or the subject, just purchase a class set, as opposed to books to assign to each individual. So if we did move away from digital licensing, it may have an increased cost in physical copies. But consistent feedback from our textbooks committee said they want access to both. And so we haven't gone, with the exception of some of our
science resources, completely digital, because of that feedback. So we have options. So if we were to completely cut off digital, the cost would shift to paper. And just to piggyback on that, from talking to other school divisions who have kind of started down this road, one of the things that they've seen an increase of is printing supplies and costs as teachers are creating a lot of this content and then printing them out for students to use. So that's something that we're actually discussing as part of our low-tech pilot is what are the other things schools need that aren't there or maybe aren't resourced high enough for the things that they're going to be doing that'll be different.
So, that's one of the reasons we're trying to be really thoughtful with our low-tech pilot. We don't want to take something away and then not have a resource to provide them for them to deliver the things that they need. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. All right, and I appreciate the text messages I get from Lightspeed, and also the emails I get for what my kids are doing. But I will now turn it over to my colleagues. I don't want to hog up the table. Any questions anybody would like to give? Okay. Yes, Mr. Svenson. Thank you, Chair. Thank you very much for the presentation and the intentional way you all are approaching the technology use. It's something I hear about all the
time, when I was running for school board and now that I'm on school board and visiting our schools. So I appreciate you all working on this. So I know that some of our elementary schools in the Broad Run District are participating in the pilot program and are enthusiastic about doing so. Do you all have a list of schools that are participating that you all could share? So we are meeting with the principals that have indicated interest next week, for the final commitment. We have about 11 schools that we think are going to launch, and so we plan on sending out community information,
once they make their final commitment. And we'll be sure to work with the communications office as well as provide the board information about where these pilots are taking place. But we're not ready to announce it publicly. Thank you. And then on the budgeting piece, if we do move to carts, for more grade levels, obviously there's the upfront investment in the carts. But would we be saving money based on less wear and tear on devices? Are there ways that this is generating long-term savings for us? So yes, we're trying to dub it cost avoidance because it's going to
increase the cost no matter what we do. So it's just less we're going to spend on whatever we do. So the more carts we have, the less devices are touched, moved, maneuvered, dropped, the less repairs we're going to have. But we will have to have some conversations about what our warranty and what the device actual usability is. Just because it can power on doesn't mean that our vendors and licensing and warranties are going to support that. So that's also part of our conversation. Over the next year, we'll be having not only student device deployment, but teacher device deployment, staff device deployment. We're re-envisioning the whole because of the price increase.
We can't keep doing business as we have done business. But yes, having carts, devices not going home. Actually having carts, because a lot of schools are keeping devices, and they're just stacking them in the corner. So if we actually have someplace safe to put them, that would also be helpful too. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes, Ms. Shurnov. Thank you, Madam Chair. I so appreciate this conversation. I think I've said a lot in the past to get us to this point, and I am so grateful for the responsiveness. And I see that we have a plan in place, and that makes me really excited. I think something tangible like the pilot, obviously, the public wants to see action.
I'm not a young parent anymore, but I was once one. But I think as parents, we do struggle with this new generation. It's something we didn't experience growing up, and something I've been really struggling with is to narrow in on what the focus should be. And it shouldn't be surprising. This really isn't a conversation about devices. It has to be a conversation about kids. And it's amazing to me that it took me that long to get to that
point and that in my thinking, but we've got to think of the technology, in my mind, in terms of what are we doing in our learning environments that are keeping our kids safe, which is always something we're thinking about in their physical environment. It's definitely something we're thinking about in their virtual environment, making sure it's developmentally appropriate, aligned with the mission that we have here and the values we have here, which digital literacy is part of that. We do live in a technological world, and they do need to be equipped. But also thinking about how are we really ensuring that students thrive, and
what pieces are building into a classroom environment that really promote that the most. And I think for me, and I echo a lot of what the speakers were saying, I do feel like some of that childhood innocence and imagination and playtime and fine motor skills and dialogue and all those things, I do think we are losing some of that to devices. And for me, it's bigger than just the one-to-one devices because when you look at the data, the data doesn't really shout that we're on them all day or most of the day even. It feels, I think even within the ranges from our digital
guidance for screen time by grade level, we're falling within that from what we've pulled. So for me, it's bigger than that. I have a couple of questions about the pilot, and it sounds like you're building it with the schools, which I love. My question is how will that then be shared out not only just to us as a school board, but to other schools? Are schools going to be made aware of what provisions these schools are putting in place? I would imagine there are other teachers that maybe their school didn't want to sign up for the full pilot, but they might like to go that route.
So are there ways that we are going to be able to communicate that out with the whole division? I would definitely foresee this coming back as a topic. Well, for sure we're going to get an update. If not multiple times at curriculum instruction. Perhaps it would be of interest to the full board at some point to have this conversation in a work session, for example. But principals are definitely watching each other. I think even the day we had the interest meeting was during a principal meeting, and our attendance doubled because our superintendent mentioned this was something we're looking at, and they were all looking at each other, and they're having conversations. Right. Principals and teachers are really curious about what's going on in other schools, and so I could see this being
part of a virtual principal meeting, maybe a forum topic at the elementary school level, particularly if we see some models that are experiencing a high level of success. Yeah. So I could definitely see it being a topic of interest to our principals. Thank you. And something else I'm thinking about is it seems to be a lot of the focus is on the one-to-one device usage for the kids themselves. But there are other technology aspects in the classroom, and I've talked about the Promethean boards before and slide decks and what the appropriateness of that is in terms of what we're putting in our slides, and accessibility is certainly helping
us pare some of that back. Are there some just overall teaching best practices that we as a division believe in? I cannot believe I live in a generation where we have public commenters that say teachers should be reading real books to kids during read-alouds, but that's real. We see it. So are there certain things, recess comes up a lot, indoor recess, that kids are on their devices, or that there's some kind of reward where kids can bring in their devices from home
and have a device day. These are things that happen in LCPS. So is there some kind of addition to the guidance that we could even further solidify on the best practices side that would be appropriate? I think that's something we're absolutely thinking about. That was a big part of the conversation during the information meeting with our principals. A principal shared his approach to screen-free recess time and how much of a culture change that was at their school. Okay. So I see a next iteration of that guidance being, here are the best practices, here are some things we need to be thinking about.
Mentioning things like read-alouds, other alternatives. We've invested a lot in classroom libraries. They have actual books in the classrooms that we want teachers to be using. Cool books. Again, we want to meet teachers where they're at. I also would say the same thing to our content offices. I'm not sure if any of our content supervisors are here, but the conversation needs to be had with them about the curriculum we're putting in our curriculum instruction module. I did a quick dipstick on YouTube, for example, how often we use YouTube in our curriculum slides. That's something we need to evaluate in terms of how often that occurs. Not to say it's never to be used. Right.
But it's not just a conversation the teachers own. We also need to think about the resources we're providing. So across the board, we're thinking about how to expand the support of the guidance as well as the guidance itself. Yeah. And I know we're not alone. You mentioned YouTube. Prince William just blocked YouTube for everybody. Fairfax just did the Wait Until 8 proclamation commitment. And so I know that there's movement on this, and there may even be movement at the state level. My last question, I promise, is just about safety. A big piece of this that has come out from the parents at Balance Project
is sort of this idea of email, and that this kind of ties back to there are parents that don't give their kids cell phones for a reason, but yet they're assigned an email in third grade in LCPS, and they can message each other back and forth. If they're live, it's like a text message. And not only that, they can send photos of themselves. And so for me, in terms of safety and liability, I have some real concerns about what the provisions are and are we looking at that? Can there be some changes? Because that, I think, leaves us open to some things that none of us are
comfortable with. So we were just having conversations about this over the past week, two weeks, about what this looks like and how we need to collect some feedback from our elementary schools, from our ITFs, and from our technology leaders at the building level to say, "Okay, what's going to be the impact of this?" So we are looking at that. So we have some recommendations. I don't necessarily want to say what they are publicly yet because I don't want to overpromise and under-deliver on those things. But one, kind of thinking through how a Google environment works, for example, a student sending an email to another student is very similar to a student putting a photo in a Google Doc and sharing with another student.
They're almost the same thing, just with a different platform. So really, what are we looking at? How are we doing those things? Those are why we have tools like Gaggle in place that help review some of those things. But just turning off a tool may not be the end, the stopgap where we want to be. We probably need to take it a couple steps further than that. So yes, the conversation is happening. I would say expect changes going into next school year, significant changes that we want to communicate out with our schools. But we want to collect the feedback, see what the impact is going to be, make those changes, and then really communicate out to everyone, the principals, community, teachers, just kind of level set what that looks like.
Thank you so much. All right. So we have 10 minutes left, and I know we have a math update, so I just wanted to ask you, Mr. Seven. I don't know how many slides there were. So are we available for a little extra time? Do we have a hard stop at 5:00, or can we go a little longer than that? I asked Dr. Bergen to see if he could check to see if the room is booked. That was another issue I had, to see if the room is booked, but I think we're still waiting on- Dr. Bergen said we're good. Yes. Yeah. I got his message just now. Yeah, we can continue after 5:00. Board members, do you have an appetite to continue? Yeah. Okay. All right. All right, so I will turn it over to, I have
down Mr. Roundley, but- Yes. So while Ms. Kenney comes to sit down- Okay ... I'm just going to look down here and do we want to go through the whole presentation? Thanks for coming, guys. Or do we want to leave the Playful presentation, the Playful one as just information? I think we can do it. Think you got it? Yeah, we'll go quickly. Okay. There is a level of confidence of the presenters that they'll be able to do this. If you thought the last presentation was loaded, you're going to love this one, Dr. Acheam. Yay. Mr. Roundley. I just want to say, while Ms. Kenney is getting set up over here, that we are fortunate to have Ms. Kenney, our supervisor for mathematics K12, here to present tonight. And also our math team, Caroline Jones and Jesse
Ancampera, who are our math specialists, who do an amazing job supporting teachers and students and families with a very big topic of mathematics instruction in LCPS. So I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Kenney to talk a little bit about what our math office is doing, where our data is right now, and plans that we have for the future. Thank you, Mr. Roundley. Hi, everybody. My name is Juliet Kenney, and I'm the K12 math supervisor. It's good to see you guys again. I'm going to try to talk quickly and go through as much as I can. But here's our agenda for today.
I'm going to share with you a little bit about where are we now, what do some of the data showing us, what are some of the different programs and resources we have that we are using to support this data, and then what are some next steps for us. So the first thing we have for you, this is a graph of where are we now. This is the math map conditional growth percentiles from this spring, from fall to spring. You can see the breakdown for overall, and then tier one, tier two, and tier three. And so a lot of the different programs and resources we're going to talk about today are going to address how we are supporting tier one instruction, and
then also how we are supporting students in both the tier two and tier three levels. So the first program I want to talk to you about today is the Math Resource Teacher Program. So over this past year, we have had 14 math resource teachers that have been funded by the Department of Teaching and Learning, and several principals also use their differentiated staffing to have their own school-based math resource teachers. We're really excited for next year to be able to add 10 more, so thank you for that. And so our Math Resource Teacher Program continues to grow, both from the Department of Teaching and Learning, and also from our school-based
differentiated staffing. We're really excited to be able to expand these supports to individual schools. A little bit about this program. They are one-to-one at school, so each math resource teacher is supporting one specific school. Half of this position is supporting student intervention, and the other half of the position is coaching and working with teachers. That's very intentional, and if we think back to that data where we see the tier one, two, and three breakdown, this position really focuses on supporting all of those students. So when they're working with teachers and coaching, they're
able to support that tier one core instruction. And then the student-facing part of their job, they're working directly with students, providing student intervention. We do provide professional learning from our office for all math resource teachers throughout the year.So I did want to spotlight a couple schools that have math resource teachers right now. So at the elementary level, Sully Elementary School is one where you can see on this graph on the left side, that's the elementary math conditional growth percentile scores for this year. And then on the right side, you can see Sully's, where they've exceeded all of
the growth percentiles in all of the different aspects there. And just wanted to give a little shout-out to the math resource teacher there, Amy Gauthier, and then all of the teachers for all of the hard work they do to support students. You can really see in that Tier 3, there's been huge growth when it comes to the students who are receiving Tier 3 interventions. And then a school to highlight at the secondary level, Simpson Middle School. Similarly, you can see that they have exceeded the growth percentiles compared to all of the middle school math growth percentiles in the county, and another math resource teacher spotlight for Melinda
Maloney there. And then just, again, a shout-out to all of the math teachers at Simpson who have really worked hard to be able to see these results. So moving on to intervention. If we think back again to that graph in the beginning, that Tier 2 and Tier 3, this is where the intervention resources that we have really support that data. Back in the summer of 2023, we onboarded Bridges through the Office of Special Education to support students with disabilities. And then we saw a lot of success with that, and so in the summer of 2024, we purchased Bridges intervention kits for all elementary and
middle schools to support MTSS intervention. So beyond just supporting students with disabilities, it now can support any student who is receiving intervention. And since then, it has been the primary mode of intervention for both elementary and middle school students. And some students with disabilities may also have goals that use Bridges as well. So the next two slides are just graphs to show you the usage of Bridges, and so you can see that especially at the elementary level, there's a lot of Bridges being used as the intervention. There are alternative resources
used if students are not using Bridges. And so you can just see at the elementary level there, and then also at the middle school level. And then the second slide after that is just, if you want to go to the next one. Just again, Bridges used for students with disabilities, so math goals that use this intervention program. One of the things that you probably saw in those two pie charts is there's a lot more use at the elementary use than there are at the middle school level. And so something that we've noticed throughout this year, looking at that data, is that there is a need to strengthen our intervention resources at the secondary
level. And so we've been collaborating with the MTSS office this year and the Office of Special Education, as well as working with all of our school-based math supports and math resource teachers to see if we can pilot some new intervention programs at that secondary level, specifically for middle and high school. And so starting next year, we are going to be piloting two different intervention programs for secondary. One is called Transitions to Algebra, and the other one is called Transmath Targeted Multisensory Math Intervention. The schools that are eligible to participate in this pilot are schools that have a
math resource teacher or some sort of school-based math support because they will be receiving their professional learning on these resources at our meetings. We'll be tracking the progress of these intervention pilots through their MTSS plans throughout the year. Another big thing that is an update for this year is about our new instructional resources. And so last May, we adopted new instructional resources at the K-12 level, and so we've been rolling those resources out throughout the year. So just a few little updates about that. We've been able to provide vendor professional learning in a variety of methods
throughout the year. We have had some direct school supports and classroom walkthroughs from our math office and the vendors. I think something worth really highlighting is our Mathspace World Tour. Mathspace was a resource adopted at the secondary level, and that vendor went to every single middle and high school and met with every single math department and math team at each of those schools. And so we saw a lot of success with that resource just because of their presence at every single school to be able to personalize their support. We also had secondary collaborative learning teams to support teachers, and then
something I want to highlight is the focus groups that we had to gather teacher representatives across the county to be able to connect directly with our vendors to be able to provide feedback throughout the year. So the next two slides, you guys do have a reference with the instructional resource updates that has all of the feedback from the focus groups, but these are just a few of the highlights. So at the elementary level, the core instructional resource, Kiddom, just some of the highlights from the focus group. They really tried to hear what was working and what was not working for teachers, and then see what changes they could make.
So for instance, they're redesigning the K2 experience for next year to be more developmentally appropriate, and then also to reduce the prep burden. There's additions with scaffolding and differentiation that's along the way. And they built a new thing called Kiddom Assistant to again help teachers and support teachers with that lesson planning. Magma is our digital practice and skill-building tool at the elementary level, and same thing, there's a lot of new features that Magma has rolled out based on the feedback that came directly from the focus groups from teachers.
And then here's some examples, again, at the secondary level. Similarly, you can see that there's been a handful of different things that each of these different vendors have done in response to teacher feedback throughout the year. Not only from the focus groups, but also from those secondary collaborative learning teams where they were able to hear directly from teachers, again, what's working and what's not, and what can we do to make this a better experience for both teachers and students. Something important as we adopt and roll out these instructional resourceResources is to provide a balanced approach
with these instructional resources. So all of the resources that we adopted are approved by VDOE as what they call HQIM, which stands for High Quality Instructional Materials. And so it's important that the resources that we provide to teachers, that we are providing just a balance in the way in which we are supporting teaching and learning of math. So an example, this is a Kiddom lesson example. These are just an example of snapshots from the teacher notes. And so you can see two lesson synthesis from two different
lessons, and the first one on the left gives you an example of a more conceptual way to approach multiplication using the area model. And then a few days later, there's another lesson, and again these are the teacher notes, but the synthesis goes a little bit more into the abstract, and the standard algorithm of teaching multiplication. And so you can see how this resource does support that transition from more concrete and more conceptual to more procedural. I will say that this is an area that as we have gone throughout the year, we have seen that we do need to provide a little more curriculum support for
teachers in this and better understanding how we can use these lesson synthesis areas to support just that explicit piece. And so that's something that our curriculum teams are really going to be working on this year. It's just an area that as we've rolled this resource out, we've learned that this is an area we need to provide more support. And here's an example at the secondary level. So here's our Mathspace resource. You can see on the left there, there's a lot of exploration and tasks that are embedded directly into the resource, but then you can also see how it pairs with-- It brings that learning together into some notes
and some vocabulary and definition of concepts. Okay. Moving quickly along to the next section, we've got our Active Playful Learning, APL. So APL has been a collaboration between LCPS and the University of Virginia, one of their research teams. It's a research project that we work with them on. The main pedagogy of APL is to provide active and engaged and meaningful learning that is collaborative, iterative, and joyful. It's exactly what Active Playful Learning says. So trying to embed more play and learning or, and engagement into student learning.
The practices through APL or the philosophy and pedagogy in APL is very aligned to our LCPS instructional framework. And what the researchers and what this organization does is they work with collaborative learning teams on lesson planning support, they use our LCPS math curriculum, they use our resources, they have access to all of those. But then they provide coaching to teachers, on goals, they do classroom observations and modeling and debriefing. All participating teachers even receive some classroom supplies, which is really great, and they receive access to these monthly lesson
plans. It's been a really great partnership. This is just an example of an APL lesson, and so if you were to zoom in on that, it's actually directly from our LCPS curriculum unit guides and one of our Kiddom lessons. But they've taken that and embedded some APL structures into place to really be intentional about designing, how can we take this lesson and make it more engaging for students? And so the coaches through APL have really worked with our teachers in supporting in that design piece of these different resources we have.
And the next two slides are just some teacher feedback, some quotes that you can read about how they have seen just increased excitement in the classroom, and the work that they do with students based on embedding some of these APL practices into their classroom. So similarly here, another quote from a teacher about the instructional impact. I really loved where this person said, "Now I ask myself, how can I make this into an inquiry?" Or, "What tools can I take out?" And so when I think about our LCPS instructional framework and that design component, teachers are really being intentional with their design as they participate in this
research project. And the final update to share with you today is about Math Summer Boost. We just released information about Math Summer Boost this week, but it is a free and optional and asynchronous self-paced program that students can access directly through Schoology. It provides a review of foundational concepts in preparation for their next math course. Right now it is available for these middle school courses for math six through algebra one, really to support students who get automatically accelerated through that policy that was passed earlier this year. We do plan on holding some optional office hours to support students
throughout the summer. And here's an example of what students might see in Math Summer Boost. You can see that our curriculum team members, teachers around this county did an amazing job of making some real-world connections. The lessons have short little mini lessons, followed by some opportunities to check their understanding and practice, some real-world application. And so we're excited about this program to be able to support students for something over the summer to work on. And this communication, we have all the information available now on our math
website. We just shared all of this information out with families this year. You may have gotten an email about it. And I wanted to give a shout-out to our Summer Boost coordinator, Danielle Bottish, who's been working really hard to be able to put this together. And then really the final thing is what's next. And so we have a lot of work to continue to do. We want to continue to have our focus groups to improve our new resources. We want to continue providing professional learning and school supports on those math resources. We definitely need to monitor impact of that secondary intervention pilot. We plan to conduct math walkthroughs to be able to gather data on
implementation and impact of both resources and instructional practices. We do want to explore some enrichment opportunities at the elementary level, what might that look like? And then we're going to focus our professional learning really on essential mathematics teaching practices and how to best leverage those new resources. I just feel like you need an applause. I need some water. I don't know. You did it so fast. That's great. Fantastic. Yeah, I'm looking forward to where this goes. I'm looking forward to data in the future. My kids are going to hate that Summer Boost program, but I'm going to love it. Me too. But I have no questions. And in the interest of time, I'm going
to ask my colleagues to just be a little bit more brief. If you have any questions, I'm going to turn it over to you guys. Any questions? Yes, Mr. Spencer. I'll be brief. Thank you, Madam Chair. No, hang on. Thank you very much for the presentation. It was very impressive. When I speak with the principals at the Broad Run schools, about for fiscal year 2028, what's something that stands out as would be helpful to have more of? And math resource teacher is often their answer. So looking forward to speaking with you all, teaching and learning about how we can expand that program, and how we can target that.
Obviously, our high-need schools need the support of the math resource teacher, but oftentimes, I'm speaking with principals at well-performing schools in math, and they say, "For us, it would be really helpful, too." We know we need to target our resources, but I would love to work with you all to think about how we can make that resource available to more schools. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Shurnov. Thank you. I'll keep it brief, too. On slide 13, when you talk about the intervention pilot, first of all, just to stay on brand, are they digital, or are they in-person, hands-on lessons? They're in-person, hands-on. There's workbooks that go with them.
The first one, Transitions to Algebra, is all completely hands-on. TransMath does have a digital component, mostly for that progress monitoring piece, though. Okay. So my question is, you're piloting it. I know I'm going to also bring up Lexia because we do Lexia for all in middle school. So it's basically intervention for all, whether you need it or not. So can we keep that in mind as we go forward with math as well? Because they already have a big commitment in middle school to finishing Lexia. So adding another
intervention daily or otherwise would probably be a lot. So that would be my ask. And then, I'm very excited for Math Boost. My kids will be doing that. So same as Dr. Rashid, appreciate that. And I think that's it for me. Okay. Great. All right. And that concludes our meeting. But our next meeting is August 5th. Just note that it's Wednesdays. And I hope you all have a great summer. Any new business? No. All right. So the meeting is adjourned.
Thank you.