Joint COF/FCPS School Board Meeting

Carolyn PitchesOkay, good evening everyone. Tonight is Tuesday, December 16th of 2025 and this is a joint meeting of the City of Fairfax School Board and the Fairfax County School Board. I'd like to welcome everybody, everybody from leadership and our student reps. I thought we would start with introductions. Dr. Reed, would you like to start? I'm Michelle Reed,

Michelle Reedstaffthe Fairfax County Public School Superintendent.

Sandy AndersonThank you. And I'm Sandy Anderson. I'm the Fairfax County School Board Chair.

Robin LadyGood evening. I'm Robin Lady. I'm the Vice Chair and Transport Representative on the Fairfax County School Board.

Amit HickmanCity of School Board members.

Speaker 8I'm Sarah Kelsey, City of Fairfax School Board member. I'm Lauren Bartome, City of Fairfax School Board member.

Michelle ReedstaffChristina Sessori,

Speaker 8City of Fairfax

Carolyn PitchesSchool Board. Carolyn Pitches, Chair of the City of Fairfax School Board.

Dustin WrightstaffGood evening. Dustin Wright, City of Fairfax Superintendent.

Ricardy AndersonCongratulations.

Speaker 1Eliongman, Fairfax County School Board at Large.

Ricardy AndersonRiccardi Anderson, Fairfax County School Board Member, representing the Mason District.

Dustin WrightstaffRyan

Speaker 8McElhin,

Dustin WrightstaffSchool Board Member

Speaker 3at Large. Carl Frisch, School Board Member, representing Fairfax City adjacent Providence District.

Carolyn PitchesMarcia, do you want to?

Michelle ReedstaffMarcia St. Compton, representing Frank Sonia, and congratulations to President of the City of Virginia.

Carolyn PitchesOkay, great. THE FIRST ITEM ON OUR AGENDA IS THE SCHOOL SERVICES AGREEMENT DISCUSSION. AND I'D LIKE TO START BY SAYING THIS IS IN NO WAY A FORMAL REQUEST TO OPEN THE SSA. IT'S PURELY A HIGH-LEVEL DISCUSSION AROUND THE POSSIBILITY OF A BOARD-TO-BOARD AMENDMENT PER THE SSA ARTICLE 5 NUMBER 2. AND THERE'S JUST SOME OUTDATED LANGUAGE and some directives that no longer are relevant or meaningful for either the city or the county school board. And there are some other areas where language is a little vague and might need some clarification. So according to the SSA, there is protocol that we need to follow to do a board-to-board amendment. THE BOARD PROPOSING THE AMENDMENT HAS UNTIL JANUARY 15TH OF ANY GIVEN YEAR TO SEND

THAT PROPOSAL AND THE RECEIVING BOARD HAS UNTIL APRIL 1ST TO EITHER RESPOND EITHER POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY OR TRY TO ENGAGE OR COLLABORATE WITH THE OTHER BOARD TO COME TO SOME SORT CONSENSUS. SO I JUST THOUGHT WE WOULD, LIKE I SAID, VERY HIGH LEVEL. JUST SOME EXAMPLES IN THE SSA, IN ARTICLE 2, IT TALKS ABOUT BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT. THE FIRST THREE ITEMS, IT IS ACTUALLY AN ENTIRE PAGE THAT REFERENCES THE CITY BEING OFFERED THE POSSIBILITY OF PURCHASING LAYTON HALL ELEMENTARY, WESTMORE ELEMENTARY, AND GREEN ACRES ELEMENTARY. LAYTON HALL IS NOW DANIEL'S RUN. WESTMORE WAS TORN DOWN IN 2012, I BELIEVE. AND GREEN ACRES IS NO LONGER A SCHOOL. AND WE HAD THE RIGHT TO PURCHASE THESE, I BELIEVE IT WAS BY JUNE 30TH OF 1980. SO THE DEADLINE ON THAT IS LONG GONE.

SO THESE ARE JUST SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WE HOPE TO SORT OF STRENGTHEN IT, STRENGTHEN THE SSA BY MODERNIZING, TAKING OUT SOME UNNECESSARY COMPONENTS. ADDITIONALLY, AT THE TIME WHEN THE AGREEMENT WAS WRITTEN, THEY DON'T REFER TO THE FOUR PARTIES IN THE CONTRACT, WHICH IS BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD, CITY OF FAIRFAC SCHOOL and they talk about the city as a municipal government. But it's actually, we have a city council now. So again, just some language that needs clarifying. Let me see. Additionally, in Article 3, it talks about programmatic costs. and we were hoping within this amendment to clarify some of that language and look at the classroom rental for language and changes in programming that didn't exist in 1978.

A lot has changed since 1978. And finally, the article that discusses the termination of the contract, which is, I believe, Article 4. Yeah, Article 4, it also talks about the purchasing of the schools, which have been purchased. They were purchased prior to any of this 1978. AND, AGAIN, THOSE SCHOOLS DON'T NECESSARILY EXIST ANYMORE. SO I THOUGHT WE COULD JUST, IF THERE'S ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SSA, EITHER BOARD. YES, DR. ANDERSON.

Ricardy AndersonTHANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR THE BRIEF OVERVIEW. I THINK WE HAD SOME BRIEF QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS, BUT I WOULD LOVE TO GET YOUR UNDERSTANDING ON WHAT ARE THE WHAT IS THE MECHANISM TO OPEN THE AGREEMENT FOR DISCUSSION?

Carolyn PitchesOKAY. IF YOU WERE TO OPEN UP THE SSA, MEANING WE ARE OPENING UP THE CONTRACT WHICH IS EITHER PARTY YOU CAN ASK FOR THE WORLD. TO DO THAT TAKES TWO PARTIES TO OPEN UP THE CONTRACT. SO IF WE THE CITY SCHOOL BOARD WANTED TO OPEN UP WE WOULD HAVE TO GET THE COUNCIL TO ALSO AGREE TO THAT. IF YOU ALL, YOU WOULD NEED THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS. THANK YOU. SAME WITH TERMINATING THE CONTRACT. BECAUSE ESSENTIALLY YOU ARE KIND OF, WHEN YOU OPEN IT, YOU ARE TRYING TO TERMINATE THE CONTRACT THAT IS ALREADY IN PLACE IN A WAY. SO ALL THAT SAID.

Ricardy AndersonSO WOULD A REVIEW AND AN UPDATE OF THE POINTS THAT YOU HAVE JUST OUTLINED, PARTICULARLY THE OUTDATED PROVISIONS, WOULD THAT BE CONSIDERED OPENING THE AGREEMENT?

Carolyn PitchesAMENDMENT. SO WE CAN REQUEST THINGS THROUGH AN AMENDMENT PROCESS. AND THAT'S WHAT I SPOKE ABOUT THAT HAS TO BE PRESENTED TO YOU ALL IN WRITING BY JANUARY 15TH OF ANY GIVEN YEAR. AND THEN YOU ALL HAVE UNTIL APRIL 1ST TO RESPOND. AND WE WERE HOPING, DR. WRIGHT AND I WERE TALKING, WE WERE HOPING THAT MAYBE WE COULD COME TOGETHER, EITHER CHAIRS AND VICE CHAIRS AND SUPERINTENDENTS AND MAYBE FINANCE TO TALK ABOUT JUST TO HAVE A CONVERSATION BEFORE A DECISION, A FINAL DECISION WAS MADE BY APRIL 1. SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE APPETITE IS FOR THAT, BUT THAT WOULD, YOU KNOW, WE THINK THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL.

Ricardy AndersonAND THAT WOULD JUST BE AN ADDENDUM THAT IS ATTACHED

Carolyn PitchesTO THIS

Ricardy AndersonPRETTY OLD CONTRACT. YES,

Carolyn PitchesVERY OLD CONTRACT. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? MR. FRESH.

Speaker 3Excuse me. No questions. But I mean, generally speaking, I'm never opposed to removing outdated language from one of these documents. We've got outdated language in our governance manual that is ripe for being removed. It still references our previous strategic plan for crying out loud.

Dustin WrightstaffSo

Speaker 3I'm in favor of having those conversations. Obviously, I think there's probably a want about other things too. And I think if that's part of the conversation, that's fine. I don't think that should stop us from if there's not the ability to reach consensus on things that are more consequential than removing something that's outdated.

Carolyn PitchesThat

Speaker 3doesn't mean we can't move forward with fixing things. You don't have to agree, yes. You don't have to fix everything to make progress. Right. And different people are going to have different views of what fixing is. But generally speaking, the outdated language and having a forum to talk I think the timing is awful this should be something that is done after the budget is done and perhaps over summer you

Carolyn Pitchescan have an amendment

Speaker 3so you know if we're going to do that I think you

Carolyn Pitcheshave until January that'd

Speaker 3be one thing to maybe think about to plunk this right in the middle of budget season, especially now, is not optimal. And

Carolyn PitchesI apologize for that, unfortunately. How

Speaker 3dare you write this contract? The SSA,

Carolyn Pitchesthis is how it is written.

Speaker 3Thank you.

Carolyn PitchesAnybody else? Anybody on our board? Have any questions, comments? Okay. Dr. Wright, do you want to say anything? Are you good?

Dustin WrightstaffI WILL JUST BRIEFLY SHARE THE I THINK THE WILLINGNESS TO CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN THIS PARTNERSHIP AND TO LOOK AT ANYTHING THAT CAN SUPPORT OUR STUDENTS AND SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITY AND KEEP THE STRENGTH OF THIS PARTNERSHIP WHERE IT NEEDS TO BE. SO WE'RE DEFINITELY IN FAVOR OF A CONVERSATION AND WHATEVER that looks like and whatever works for both sides I think is a great next step.

Carolyn PitchesThank you. Okay, and I am going to turn it over to Ms. Anderson who's going to talk about the boundary review process for the city and

Sandy Andersonthe county. So as everybody may probably already knows is that we're in the middle of a fairly wide county or that we're actually at the end of a fairly long county-wide boundary process. And through that, we've had a lot of conversations with members of your board related to the way that our two populations work together. And so what I am advocating for here is the alignment of our two boundary review processes to make sure that when we look, that we kind of set it on the same cyclical pattern because we do understand that there are certain triggers that reach your schools that do impact the population of Fairfax County kids that can come to the schools. And we are worried, or I am personally worried,

about creating more disruption for our families. So I'm really hoping that if we align the two processes together that we can have that opportunity to kind of make sure. And so that would just be, I guess, your board committing to the same timeline as we move forward the policy right now has that it's every five years we are not we have not been clear as a board yet as to when that five year is going to start for the next iteration of the cycles but we do what we do know that there's a fair amount of development going on in the city we know that there's a fair amount of development going on outside the city and so we want to make sure that we are aligned so that when we're talking about population how

the two are impacting school capacity that we're in alignment on that.

Carolyn PitchesAnd if the review process is every five years for you all, would you propose that we would meet prior to like within that

Sandy Andersonfour to five year time frame? I think that if I understand correctly the superintendent's intention and I don't mean to speak for you is to have some sort of process go on in between the five-year cycle so it's not so basically it will it will keep this fresh in the minds of what's going on and I imagine the same way we've included city members in that process up to this point that we would continue to do so or I assume that it would be the board's direction to encourage that so I think that we can continue the conversation and I think it will be very clear where we're going but I do think that that joint conversation of being able to understand what the population I mean I know that we're tracking those things too but having that conversation between

going in terms of boundaries or where we're going in terms of capacity at a particular school. I think it will take kind of the temperature out of all of the different things because we know what's coming. So that's the intention behind this item.

Carolyn PitchesOkay. Does anybody have any comments or questions? Ms. Hickman? I was trying to find it in here, but then I said it's

Amit Hickmancovered up in your head. Can you think from our timeline in terms of it's one of the city school's capacity, right? How many? Three years?

Carolyn PitchesThree years.

Amit HickmanThat capacity for three

Carolyn Pitchesyears. That three years, then.

Amit HickmanThen we begin the conversation. It does seem like it would line up. Yeah.

Carolyn PitchesRight. All

Amit Hickmanthat conversation was in the fourth year, which winds up in the fifth year.

Sandy AndersonYeah. Yeah, I think it works quite well. I think as long as we're starting it at the five-year mark or when they're voted in and then and then that That's when your three-year mark. So I think that this is one of those things that we can define As we're moving forward just to make sure that I don't know if you guys have a policy I I'm I should have looked it up, but I don't know if you have a policy specific to Boundaries, but just making sure that the two kind of work together. I think might be helpful.

Carolyn PitchesYeah, I believe we have an MOU so MS. SESSORY.

Speaker 8QUESTION MAYBE FOR DR. RIGHTS OR STAFF PERHAPS. WOULD THIS BE SOMETHING THAT COULD BE AN ADDENDUM TO THE SCHOOL SERVICES AGREEMENTS, KIND OF MOVING IT FROM AN MOU TO MORE OF A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THAT PROCESS MAY LOOK LIKE?

Carolyn PitchesMS. ANDERSON, YOUR BOARD COULD IN FACT THAT COULD BE AN AMENDMENT TO ADD AN ARTICLE It doesn't have to be a whole page, but just sort of a

Sandy Andersontimeline. It's an interesting idea and the benefit of doing that would mean that we could reference the policy number that we have in place. So that way, as I imagine our policy will evolve over time, then it would be able to live on. And that way we can kind of put that portion of the agreement together. Do you have a follow-up?

Speaker 8I do have a follow-up. event that that policy does shift in any way perhaps I would like to see language in our school services agreement to revisit that particular section of the SSA just to make sure that our priorities align.

Sandy AndersonYeah, I don't think that there's any circumstance that we wouldn't want. The whole intention behind this is to ensure that our policies or practices are in alignment. So yeah.

Carolyn PitchesMr. Frisch.

Speaker 3I would actually advocate against putting it in the SSA because of the likelihood that it could change and what happens if, you know, it isn't aligned on that three-year cycle with one year. So I think perhaps we just know that there's an agreement that maybe we update our policy to work with that indicates that we will partner with the city school board as one of the line you all have something in your boundary policy that says that you'll work with the county I would hate to have to get two entities to agree to change something that is in our policy if we wanted to change our policy down the road

Carolyn Pitchesagree I think I think doing it through our separate policies would be but

Speaker 3but I do think that generally speaking this is a great idea given what we went through at the beginning of this process with you know a little bit of process was, how the city was engaged, how the city would be engaged. I think having those earlier conversations and knowing that you all have a policy is great to know about what the expectations are. And I think we can, you know, head that off at the pass this next time.

Carolyn PitchesCan I just ask what policy are you referring to?

Speaker 3Well,

Carolyn Pitcheswe

Speaker 3have our boundary policy.

Carolyn PitchesI mean, in the city, like, we don't... I don't know. Okay. Okay. So you're saying that we would all know what to expect.

Speaker 3Okay.

Carolyn PitchesI didn't know if you...

Speaker 3I've not done any...

Carolyn PitchesKnew something

Speaker 3I didn't know. Look into the city's policies now. But, you know, knowing that there's a commitment to the partnership, I think, is a good thing.

Carolyn PitchesYeah. And I think, you know, that's part of this meeting, is to just reassure both parties that, you know, we're in this together and that we're here to support your students and you supporting our students. So is

Michelle Reedstaffthere any other? Oh, yes,

Carolyn PitchesMr. Moon.

Speaker 1You know, whatever the necessary changes are beneficial to both school districts. I fully support, you know, adopting changes or adjustments to the existing contract, existing service agreement. However, when we talk about this legal document, we generally involve our legal counselors. And at least from our side, I don't see our legal counselor present in the room. So my suggestion is this. I know that we're not changing anything tonight. We're not making any decisions tonight. My suggestion is if the city of the school board can work with own counselor and suggest any changes in the language in the service agreement, make that proposal through whether you can send it to our chairman or our legal counselor so that we can have an internal discussion

in the closed session for just the Fairfax County School Board and then we can report back to your board in that fashion.

Carolyn PitchesYeah, and that's the idea, that we would propose an amendment asking, detailed, you know, and then you all could take it to whoever, your legal counsel, talk to each other, come back and talk, you know, engage with us, and hopefully, you know, there's nothing, I don't think there's anything that's unappetizing, let's just say, nothing serious. So is there any other? Okay. Dr. Wright? Yeah, nobody has any other boundary questions? Because I know there were questions. Ms. Hickman, I know you have a boundary question. Any questions?

Amit HickmanSo I guess I'm still trying to mull over how to get these timelines to kind of line up with what the MOU we have and what you guys obviously are not making changes right now. So are you saying you will do the review in the sixth year with a plan to implement in the fifth year? We haven't

Sandy Andersondefined all of

Amit Hickmanthat.

Sandy AndersonRight now we just have the policy. We had to get through this first iteration to find out. And I'm not 100% sure if there's going to be some sort of cooling period just this first time. We haven't done this in 40 years, so it's a pretty big undertaking. And it's been disruptive within the community, and we understood that it would be, but it's pain with a purpose. And so we are hoping to have this be part of the process. I am hoping that it's part of the process moving forward. are going to need to define what that looks like, which is why I just want to make sure that we have an open conversation about what that looks like. Because if there's a change in capacity at the school related to development that's happening

in the city, that can disrupt the overall process for those county kids that come in. And so I would hate to have them off cycle of everything else. So that was the only reason that I was trying to figure out how we could align them.

Amit HickmanFully understand. I'm completely on board with that, which is why I was trying to make sure and clarify the timeline of it. think it will be interesting in the next five years as the population is actually declining in schools where that's going to land us in terms of, you know, there is construction, but it doesn't seem to be having huge impacts yet. And so we'll have to see what that looks like.

Sandy AndersonAnd I'm waiting to see what happens. You know, we've had dips in population before, and they've usually come back with force. So I'm waiting. I don't anticipate that it's going to be forever. And so I think that planning these things out is probably a better when we're in that little bit of a decline where maybe it's not as urgent. So I think having that discussion ahead of time is probably helpful.

Amit HickmanOkay. And then I had one question for Dr. Reed. So when before the vote happens, is a last set of maps going to come out with any of the scenario for boundary changes?

Michelle ReedstaffSo the next maps that are going to come out are going to be the maps that are posted for the January 8th board meeting. And then there's a public hearing the board will hold on the 10th. And then the board votes on the final votes, the last meeting in January. So there will be one last map that comes out. Okay. That's what I was wondering. Before, and it'll be posted for the January 8th meeting. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Everybody's pretty excited about that.

Robin LadyDr.

Carolyn PitchesReed, it's less than, it ended up being around 3% actual change for

Michelle Reedstaffstudents. We're not done yet. Okay. But it looks like it's less than 4% of our students division-wide. we have flagged in our last boundary advisory committee meeting we created a flagged list so that each region sort of put things that they would want to start first with at the next process so I think what we wanted to do is not it's not reasonable to fix everything across an entire county after 40 years but we try to normalize the conversation and support incremental shifts

Carolyn Pitchesfive-year Definitely. People will get used to it. Ms. Hickman?

Amit HickmanSorry, I have one more. Related yet unrelated situation. So through the process, I actually feel that we have received many emails that were actually intended

Carolyn Pitchesfor

Amit Hickmanall of you. It happens all the time. And as much as Chair Pitches sends emails back saying, well, this is actually your magisterial district or these are your at-large members or it continues. So I would love to see some sort of a joint effort to advertise, like, here is how you can contact the right person. And I know it just seems, oh, school board at fairfaxva

Dustin Wrightstaff.gov sounds very much like it should go to all of you.

Amit HickmanSo I know you do put it out, but maybe especially during those time frames, we try to always say, hey, here's our email address. but I'm sure you also heard a lot we hear that feedback

Sandy Andersonand we try to also make sure that yes I've received things

Carolyn Pitchesabsolutely anything do you know okay all right well if there's nothing else Before these boards, I am going to adjourn the meeting at 7.01

Speaker 3p.m.