School Board Work Session

Amit Hickmanby voiceOkay, the recording is on.

Speaker 2Christina's here. Yep, I got... You can hear us, right? Okay, good. Can you only see me or can you see... I think she sees the whole table.

Speaker 9What? Yeah.

Carolyn PitchesOkay, good evening, everyone. it is Monday Monday March 17th of 2025 and this is the work session of the City Fairfax School Board how are you all doing

David Friedmanstaffgood

Carolyn Pitchesokay so we are going to start with presentations to the school board we have mr. Friedman here from Fairfax High School who's gonna and Kylie or who is a former school board student rep and SAT rep that's right

Speaker 9so I'm gonna do a little bit of

Carolyn Pitchesbackground

Speaker 9so we'll do a quick background and then we're gonna kind of dive into the expertise of mr. Freeman so and then also I want to set up both of them to see so mr. Freeman is the this is his first year's leadership teacher and so while he can help us with what's going on he's not gonna be able to help us with like decisions that were made in the leadership class 15 years ago yeah have Ms. Horn here. She, as you know, is a former Fairfax High student. She's currently a fifth grade teacher at Daniel's Run. Kylie was also an SAT rep and a student rep. So I thought that it would be really good for her to have some perspective, not only from both of those places, but then to be honest with us about what she liked, what she, you

know, thought maybe we could improve on, and things like that. So I'm just going to give a quick brief history, and then we will talk about where we are and then where we're going. just for distinguished when I say student rep I need the school board student rep and when I and then SAT kids would be any any kids on the SAT committee so the student rep there is no law that you have to have student rep just so you know the only real rule or law that is with the student rep if you choose to have one is that they're a non-voting member so it is totally up to you to the view when I'm in the district as far as how they are chosen what their responsibilities are there is no law that you have to have one just you know recommendation for

Fairfax County the way that they selected there is a student advisory council and vote for kids that pull from every school and those kids choose their student rep so it is not like a big election or anything like that as far as the city of Fairfax and this is in our policy manual which is important to you have to talk about it the policy manual says that the student rep is a one-year They do July to June. They are Fairfax High students. They can be a city or county resident. Either one is fine. We've had some debate on that for a while, but can be a city or county resident. It is a rising senior. They need to have a 3.0 cumulative GPA, be in good academic and behavioral standing. As far as our policy manual, the responsibilities really is that they come to a regular school board meeting with an update.

it used to be just just Fairfax High School and then it was expanded to now all four schools and so the student rep emails the principals about a week before gets some updates and then creates a meeting for I mean an update for us we have had some challenges in the past with that with they're emailing the principals too late or they're not conveying exactly what the principals were saying you know we'll get a call from this will say like I did not say that so there is a little bit of mentorship with that they then send their report to a meet and to Barbara the goal is to have them sent the week before I think we can safely say that's not always the case but you know right so we'll talk about that also in the policy manual is that they are to do a

project a year-long project where they initialize initiate the project beginning the year and then presented at the end of the year and we will discuss that you rep does not have a project um the reason for that is is the projects have been at various levels of success or failure we just we've we've not done well with the projects and one challenge for that is that this student rep is not really overseen by anyone you know and so it takes as mr freeman takes a lot of mentoring even the best of the best children they are still kids and they need a lot of mentoring and so that's challenging we've had some very challenging projects and some not so challenging projects and so this year we decided that we are not going to have a student rep do a project and so we can

talk we can talk about that if you want to continue with that if you do we do have to take it out of the policy manual though they are to be meeting with the board chair and superintendent regularly also that's in the policy manual we can we can debate that. If we talk about the SAT kids, so the SAT, the history is that came from when Dr. Bajardo became the superintendent. It was a transition council. She then just took out the transition and became superintendent advisory team. It is made up of parents, students, staff members, community members. They meet quarterly. We have had Catherine Johnson students on that committee in the past. I would say, again, various rates of success as far as are they able and mature enough

to really grasp some of the things and have they been able to contribute maybe what others have. Right now, we have three students. We've had anywhere from one to five students on the advisory team. Right now, we have three. How chosen? to do an election where they and this is for Fairfax we used to do an election where they were on the regular spring ballot when they chose the other SGA officers two years ago Fairfax High changed that I know I didn't know that we had it in her policy manual they changed it without letting us know which is fine because the reasoning behind that was that they felt that because there isn't anyone at Fairfax to really oversee it that in there I'm paraphrasing here in their minds it was kind of a popularity contest and they were

concerned that someone could get through that just didn't wasn't a right fit so what they did is they moved it to an application process and those applications that are given to a panel made up of teachers admin and and then from that that student is chosen and then those names are given to us last year so the second year they were doing that miss pitches was part of that that about that about moving forward if that's the best way to do it as far as kind of discussion questions we can talk about what's the best selection process what is the best use of this these students and um and their time and then the question of the project and if we do then who oversees that project um what i would like to do actually is i gave miss horn a little bit

of a heads up as far as asking her like what she felt you know what she liked about being and we can talk to in general you don't have to separate out about being on SAT and a student rep things that she liked about it maybe places where we can improve and so just want to let get your thoughts okay

Kylie Hornsorry I teach fifth grade. So it's a little bit. Short days feel like the longest days. So it really didn't feel like a short day to me, even though it was, um, I think something I like, I enjoyed being in the know, I guess. Um, I think it was nice from a leadership perspective because I had a role in our student government class as well as having this role. So a lot of times the communication flow between like, Hey, we need this done. Hey, can we have this done? Um, which I know is not in particular, like this job, but in terms of how it relates to a Fairfax being successful perspective, I think that that was huge. Um, that I knew like you guys were like a text or an email away when, um, that group of people was there. Um, I also think that it

allowed like transparency. I don't know, like if there were things that we were talking about in go back and share like I always also shared in class um that was an expectation of the teacher who was my father if you don't know yeah but um uh so I always I think I might be wrong you can tell me if I was wrong but I thought that I might have started the reaching out to other schools I think

Speaker 9you did

Kylie Horncasually not as a requirement. Um, just because I felt like I was getting up there talking about Fairfax a lot of the time, but my mom also worked at Daniel's run at the time. So I knew a lot of things going on there. And then I obviously knew that we wanted the pyramid to be involved. Um, so I like encourage that to like, if you're adding anything to the manual, I think that that would be a big piece. I think that the representation from everyone is super important. Um, I think that just worked out for me because I was a city resident so it made it easy for me to know who the principal was where the schools were um I think the when I was on the advisory team I thought that the makeup was very

interesting um there's always when I was there students parents and staff members I thought that having the parent perspective was interesting sometimes we got a little off topic when the parents were involved. But I thought that it was interesting from like a student perspective to see all that because there were just things that I didn't consider or think of or have no parting because I wasn't getting those communications or emails. So I think having students on that was important. I think it was cool. I don't know if middle school students started coming when I was involved, but that idea to me is cool. I know that many years ago they talked about having actually know about that. They have a semester

Carolyn Pitchescourse.

Kylie HornOkay. So I think that having maybe people from that class represent is another cool transition idea.

Speaker 9Can we talk quickly about the pros and minuses? One of the challenges we've had in the past is definitely I see the pros in having a leadership student be part of this. One challenge that we've had in the past is then we get the same kind of kid every year. Does that make sense? Yeah. As far as you know, we get that and it's good for you But then sometimes I feel we can be left out of other kids in the school. Does that make sense? What do you guys feel about that?

Amit Hickmanby voiceI think that's the biggest difference I've seen in the years that I've been that way I've worked with the student rep is the lack of connection this year versus other years, and that it does feel like there's a little bit more of an ability to kind of see what the big picture is. And I'd be curious, Mr. Freeman, I know you're working really hard on having them work on new projects, and I do think having someone who's in the leadership class would give more of an opportunity, or the student, I don't know what the difference is between the two types of classes, but would give more of an opportunity for us to be able to support a project that might already be kind of organically happening in the leadership class as opposed

because that's been our issues it's become like just totally brand new um and if they had the support of the class and then also have the support of the school board it might actually help on both ends yeah um but i i hear what you're saying that it is you know you have the kind of the same kids doing everything all the time all

Speaker 9right so um okay so now if it's okay Mr. Freeman, why don't you kind of start giving us some of your perspective and your thoughts?

David FriedmanstaffSo it's super, I'm coming new to all of this. I knew that there was a rep and I knew that there was a team, but I wasn't really sure like what the goal was or what they were really doing. So I guess let me start here is that we're going to do a little bit of shift coming to leadership here next year. And what we're really trying to do is provide more scaffolding and mentoring within there. So we're going to have all three levels or all four levels in the same class. So we'll have freshmen up to seniors. We'll have level four with level one. The idea within there is sort of this idea of shadowing and mentoring so that those level ones get to learn what those level fours are doing. So when we have a child who's doing the homecoming parade, they also have a freshman or a sophomore who's following them along in order to sort of understand what they're doing and being able to replicate it.

So to me, that seems to be like the role of this as well. is like let's get somebody in here who can do the job but also pass it along like like like pay it forward so to speak and really work with you on a sustained project that can that can make a difference yeah and just i just see like building capacity in students so that they have like a really under a good understanding not only of like what you do and what the school does but like how the two coalesce.

Speaker 9And Kylie, almost it was, I felt it was kind of that way before where it was almost a natural progression. Carolyn, you might agree with me, the SAT, we had about four SAT kids in a row go from SAT to, maybe three, go from SAT to student rep, right? And I felt that they were very prepared, but again, you were all leadership kids.

Kylie HornFrom a mentoring perspective or like the being in the know, I think that's kind of what you were saying, like not to say that students that are not in leadership are not in the know, but they might not be privy to the administration, the information that we were privy to in terms of like what's happening in the school. what like yeah i don't want to exclude other kids but there is this bubble in leadership that if you aren't a part of it a lot of times you don't know a lot of what's going on i think that that could be a struggle to communicate like what's happening which i think is the role of this person

Amit Hickmanby voiceis there a big difference between athletic leadership and yes okay do the kids tend to overlap? Is it?

David FriedmanstaffNo. Not as it exists right now.

Amit Hickmanby voiceOkay. Because I know one of our SAT kids, she's in athletic leadership and very active. I don't know that she. Yeah.

Speaker 9One challenge we have, and again, and you can speak on this with the athletes, is it really is straining on your time. And being able to actually get to the meetings. And then they can't come to the meetings, right? I mean, I feel that that's been a challenge. So we haven't tapped too much into athletic leadership mainly for that reason.

David FriedmanstaffWell, a lot of my leadership kids are athletes as well. Like, It's just the nature of the kid that goes out for this. So we're going to run, the way I understand it right now, is we're going to run two sections of leadership next year. We'll have a fifth and a sixth period so they can get into the school and operate into lunches a little bit more than we're able to this year. And like I said, we'll have that mentoring sort of scaffold in there. And the athletic leadership, I think, is going to operate a little bit separately from that.

Speaker 9Let's talk about selection. Carolyn, tell me about what you're thinking as far as selection process. Do you like the application versus the election? Like tell me. So

Carolyn Pitchesthe only problem I had with the application is the kids all look really great on paper and you don't get a chance to meet them and then it's not necessarily what you think you're getting. Does that mean? Yeah. So if we're going to keep the application process, that's fine. I think there has to be interviews. And I think somebody from the school board needs to be a part of those interviews. Because we can, I mean, I've had 15 or 16 student reps. And I can tell you that meeting them and even if you have like 10 minutes with them, you can kind of get an idea of is this kid going to be a good fit for this board. To be

Speaker 9a public speaker too. Yeah. So the way we do principal selections almost is there's applications and then they narrow it down and then from there, so would you feel comfortable if there are the applications and then still with the panel looking at that and then they get the top two or three? And then from there, do you? Then I think, yeah, that would be. Perhaps the board and Mr. Freeman, just one or two people doing those interviews. It wouldn't have to be a big, right?

David FriedmanstaffWe can work out the specific logistics, but I like the idea of adding the interview and we can figure out who sits on that panel. Like, I do like the multi-tiered process where we have, okay, you have an application. Let's select our top three or four, and let's bring them in, and let's interview, and let's see who these kids really are. And then I can add whatever perspective I might have from there. And I can also sort of canvas the school, and I can get – they can get letters, or they can get recommendations from teachers. And then we can reach out to those teachers or those coaches or whoever it might be in order to figure out, like, what the character of that child might be, like, in some different contexts.

Yeah,

Carolyn Pitchesand the one thing I did not like about it being an election is that we've had a year where we had people running who would basically, I don't want to say bully freshmen into voting for them, but they would advocate strongly.

Amit Hickmanby voiceAre there any elections left at all?

Carolyn PitchesNo, we didn't

Amit Hickmanby voicedo it. No, no, no, for leadership in general?

David FriedmanstaffSo, yes and no. There's the SGA. the actual leadership within there. And then what we are doing is we're doing a combination of the kid has to apply and then they're interviewed to get into leadership. I have a fairly low bar when it comes to that. But there are some kids who I might say, hey, I don't think you're a good fit for this particular team at this time. But

Amit Hickmanby voicethey can be voted on to SGA but not be in the leadership class.

David FriedmanstaffSo we had some scheduling snafus this year. We had a new director of student services come in, and so some of the recommendations that Mr. Shapiro had made for how the classes should be leveled didn't make their way through. So I think all the SGA kids are actually in leadership this year, but none of the student advisory council for the county

Speaker 2ended

David Friedmanstaffup in there. And I don't have any juniors. Juniors who are SGA nor the sophomores that I can

Kylie Hornpreviously that was a requirement of those positions to be on the school board like these County school board advisory and to be an SGA officer you needed to be in SGA So

Amit Hickmanby voiceI would almost say that this might be similar because that does give them the outlet of a place to work on it because we've talked about like the time and like to me and I'm running the class but a student rep to the city school board or an SAT member if they're working on these projects that aligns with the that opportunity would be important. I just don't know if it's like chicken and egg because I guess if they don't know if they're in the class, like I don't know how that works in terms of

David Friedmanstafftime. But I think what you're saying there is like the aspect of time because more or less if a student is on the school board, we're assigning them another class where they have a, if they're running a project, like that's how I was just thinking about it when you're doing this. And so if they can have that support, mentorship, and scaffolding within the leadership class, then it's not a kid who is in three sports or taking seven APs whatever they like because we or some combination of the two so

Amit Hickmanby voicethey do have some class time to work on it

David Friedmanstaffthat's what they need is they need the time and they need someone to ask questions to and they need the access because I'll tell you right now that I think that the leadership kids are the only people emailing this door seat right now I want to do all the things in the world please please please

Speaker 9it's

David Friedmanstaffabout that access and about me knowing you and having that comfortability and like if if I was more if they were more involved they were saying, hey, listen, we want to do something with the city. We want to do something in the summer. We want to do, we want to be more involved because the way that we're thinking about it last year, next year, excuse me, is that we'll have like the leadership one kids are going to deal primarily with the class and the class community. Leadership two and three are going to have a combination of the school and the school community. Leadership three and four are going to have like the wider Fairfax community, our homecoming, our tailgates, our parents night out, things of that nature.

So we would

Amit Hickmanby voicefit into that.

David FriedmanstaffAnd that's exactly where it would be. It would give me the opportunity to every once in a while be like, hey, I'm going to send a sophomore with you to come to the meeting and attend. They will not say a word, but they are going to shadow you because that's your shadow for the month. And they're going to learn a little bit about what's going on here because nothing here is a secret. Unless it is, let me know. They're all solidized. And it's that idea of let's build some capacity. Let's get them comfortable. Let's give them a couple minutes where that freshman, sophomore, junior can speak

Carolyn Pitchesand

David Friedmanstaffsay what they're going on. it's an SGA kid or maybe it's an SAC kid or maybe it's just a kid.

Speaker 9Yeah. How do you guys feel about the stricter rule in planning consumption as far as it has to be a senior? I agree. I will say one challenge at least on my end or on our end is that so they are pretty much out of commission in November I mean in October they're just really really busy and then they are studying for their APs and then they're gone right and so sometimes I feel if it's a nine to ten month position we get them for about seven six or seven so if if if there is a great junior candidate I don't know I mean I'm just saying that has been a challenge for us I don't

David FriedmanstaffI almost think it needs to be a junior senior

Speaker 9where

David Friedmanstaffwe have like the senior who's the primary rep and the junior who is the shadow and the idea is that when the senior graduate the junior moves in and then we're electing really the person who is the the vice the code the one who's learning in there and that gives them a year

Carolyn Pitchesthe only year we did it was Kylie's

Amit Hickmanby voiceI did it the vice chair to someone else I was Kate's yeah

Kylie Hornyeah

Carolyn Pitcheswhat did you think about her study

Kylie Hornyeah but I thought that it like I was comfortable with everybody on the board at that point so So then it was kind of like a Kylie needs to get the role next year, which was fine because I was set up to have that. But I felt like as a senior, especially being in leadership as a senior, I had like the confidence to public speak. I had the maturity. I had the knowledge. I felt like that's the senior idea. I liked that it was Kate and I. It also like we did share the work sometimes. If it had to happen and like she couldn't come, then I gave the report or.

David Friedmanstaffmiddle school rep as well if like maybe not right away but like maybe that's something we yeah we think about working they don't have to come every meeting but

Speaker 9and then and so then if the junior they don't have to give the report from the diet they can just give it from that they don't have to sit up there so I

Carolyn Pitchesdon't know if an automatic succession would necessarily I think it has to be automatic but fair because I think you went through it. You still Yeah, no, I still had to be elected. Yeah, she still had to be elected. I still had to be elected. Well, they

Amit Hickmanby voicestill have to go through an application process. I mean, if they as a junior aren't showing up to things and aren't putting in

David Friedmanstaffthe effort,

Amit Hickmanby voicethen it would not make sense.

David FriedmanstaffI didn't mean to say if somebody wasn't doing what they were supposed to do. No, I'm

Carolyn Pitchesnot either. I'm just saying that that makes us sort of like we only look at it every couple of years. And we have to have a junior and the senior would already be in place, but... Or we could have multiple juniors.

David FriedmanstaffWell, and I was also sort of thinking about, like, when that senior gets into their testing season or whatever, you have the junior sort of stepping up. So you do get the junior for 12 months, but it's three in junior year and nine in senior year.

Amit Hickmanby voiceDoes it need to be by school year? Does it need to be the June 1st? Could it be, like, January? So again, remember, there's literally no rules.

Speaker 9It's our decision, but this is what's in our policy manual.

Amit Hickmanby voiceSo I'm wondering if it would make more sense January so they would be like end of junior year beginning of senior year so and then the new person would start it also gives a chance to do the interviews once they're already in the leadership class right I mean we switch our board in January every other January anyway I like that idea

David Friedmanstaffhaving a student election similarly at the same time that you're switching not every two years but like It's hard if they're

Amit Hickmanby voicehalfway through the school year, if they're doing a project or anything. Or does it give them the chance to plan their project all spring for a fall execution? Because sometimes it's hard. I don't know. There's so much going on in this spring. It's almost harder to execute.

David FriedmanstaffThis is the busiest time of the year by

Speaker 7far. If you had been preparing all spring and were ready to hit the ground in September before things gear up. The

Amit Hickmanby voiceproject. And again, the project can be anything.

Carolyn PitchesI'm just never a fan of the project. I'll just add.

Speaker 9and we can say this too like so we've talked about this the project hasn't worked it just has not worked and so but if they're already doing projects through the leadership class it doesn't have to be a city project that makes sense they can come and update us on I don't think we need to have a project agreed unless there is someone on the board that is willing to absolutely become this child's mentor which means you are meeting with them at the leadership right

Amit Hickmanby voiceI

Speaker 9know

Carolyn Pitchesyou have to get you have to get the kid I mean no no I know

Amit Hickmanby voicebut I like the idea that B it could still be a mentorship I'm working with them but it is a project that they're already working on in class and then there's just a collab like it could be something that has more connection outside right like I'm in the pyramid nights I know it was a rarity you know no I agree I I'm just saying

Speaker 9I we

Carolyn Pitchessaid I

Speaker 9want to see why I say you know mommy And I, because I love working with these kids. It is a ton of work. The pyramid nights are a ton of work. And then I get new kids all the, you know what I mean? And you only get so many Amiras or Kylie's, right? And

Amit Hickmanby voiceso

Speaker 9if you don't, you know, and these kids are great. I love them. It is, as long as you are willing, because we don't have the bandwidth. As long as you're willing to do that, go ahead. I think it's awesome. I'm just telling you, it's a ton of work that you are signing yourself up for.

Amit Hickmanby voiceYes, and could the project be something that they're already doing that they report on? Or could they report on the projects that are being done in the whole leadership? Which is essentially what Grace did,

Speaker 9right? So Grace was just doing stuff with Nico, and then she just said, oh, this is what my project is. And that's fine, right? That is totally fine.

Amit Hickmanby voiceAnd it doesn't have to be, it's not their project. It's here's an update on what the students are working on. You know, we are going into Providence and doing tutoring. Like these are the things that maybe it's a one-time PowerPoint, and they say here are the things that different people are doing. That's

David Friedmanstafffine with me. We're setting it up like monthly projects where the teams will rotate. So my idea is to get different teams into Providence and Daniels Run and KJ here to do some tutoring and maybe work with a leadership class and things like that.

Amit Hickmanby voiceAnd that's the exact thing we would want them to come and report because we want to talk about how does it kind of trickle a fact through the whole pyramid, which is why I personally love the idea of KJ students on SAT, even if they don't say a word the entire time, to just sit there and observe like, So we are really teaching these children really important soft skills that they're going to need to learn later in life And so you know all right, so we are at

Speaker 9630 So why don't if it's okay with you mr. Freeman? Why don't you all think about the January to January or the July to June and then we can talk about it You can maybe get some sense from the board and then we can talk and we know that you are under time coach that we will get you a Decision in two weeks. Yeah,

Carolyn Pitchesand I would say I think we all agree an election is We'll keep it as the application with interviews. We'll just decide on, I guess, two things. When the term will be for this student, and if we do something like you elect a junior, or you hire, whatever we're going to call it, appoint a junior, and that junior stays for junior and senior, and then next year we get another junior, and they do it for junior and senior year. so it would be like every two years we have to go through this instead of every year you still do

Amit Hickmanby voiceit every year but it's just but you would just do it in september instead of let's do that the new junior

Speaker 9every year if that's

Amit Hickmanby voiceokay with you

Speaker 9is there anything that we're missing

Kylie Horni think i was the only one to finish a project which i'm not i'm not trying to i'm not trying to do my own horn i just they always ask them i was i was the first year that Everybody had the same laptops. Yeah. And then we went into COVID, so it actually worked out perfectly that that was my project. But I, like, surveyed all of the schools on their laptop usage and how it was. It was more, like, research

Speaker 9-based versus, you know, does that make sense? But

Kylie Hornat the time, that was the only, like, direction.

David FriedmanstaffI have 110 leadership kids in three classes. I need things for them to do.

Carolyn PitchesOkay.

David FriedmanstaffI've got and partly the scheduling thing but like you know in the class of 40 I've got kids who can hide and I can't get to all of them and a lot of my seniors are checking out so the more things I can give them to do the more things I can do to make them involved and make them feel like they have a purpose the better they want to be active they want to do things and that's why I've moved to more of the project based in like leadership one is like hey I want y'all to do something you

Speaker 9and I can work I've got some stuff

David Friedmanstaffyeah we've got there's like and and I'm happy no I'm happy to come here like if you if you want to make this like more regular and like we can we can collaborate a little bit more like I'm happy to help like I want to make this work I want to build this program and like I really think these kids are great

Speaker 9yeah these

David Friedmanstaffkids are great and they like I said they want to work let's give them something to do

Speaker 9okay so I'll do a quick summary after and we'll okay And then we'll make, so is that okay? Let's give you a decision two weeks, and then. I'm

David Friedmanstaffnot

Speaker 9rushing. Yeah, okay. Okay, all right. Thank you both. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you guys.

David FriedmanstaffIf you can get anything else, don't hesitate.

Speaker 9Okay.

David FriedmanstaffAnd then I will do that. On Wednesday, I haven't got a building, but I'll be back there as soon as I can. I think it's just a good night. I'm worried about pick-up. I see my thing. It's silly. They're not. It'll be fine, right? But like, we can't have a hug in the back. I'm just saying, it's going to be fine. maybe we can put them

Speaker 9all

David Friedmanstaffinto the courtyard and we'll wrap them up in the parachute that I had and just carry them out. We had a senior fun day today and we brought out the old parachute and they played with it. It was a lot of fun until the boys started tackling each other on the basketball court. And then I was like, we got to stop it. Thank you. Have a good night.

Kylie HornBye. Thank you. Appreciate it. Say hi to the family.

Amit Hickmanby voiceHi, love. You can come visit us anytime. I'm upstairs. My mom's downstairs. Maybe somebody else can come put their foot down. Please.

Speaker 7That was

Kylie Hornnot a like

Amit Hickmanby voiceSo real quick, I walked in to drop off their lucky cramps today. The kids with the mascot with me. And one of the kids was hopping over. I'm like, what is he? He has his sweatpants around his feet. He has shorts on underneath it. Just like hopping along. And I just looked at her

Speaker 7and

Amit Hickmanby voiceshe's like, I don't know. It's fifth grade. I don't know either. She was just so go with the flow. That's

Speaker 7so

Amit Hickmanby voicefun.

Carolyn Pitchesthe budget the budget okay why what did I do sorry okay budget reduction exercise discussion I

Speaker 2think

Carolyn PitchesChristina had yeah

Speaker 2okay okay

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voiceSo the prep side of this is that we've we were tasked with an exercise last, I believe it was Thursday, to come up for today by closing business. All of the department heads for the city were asked by the acting city manager to identify 10% cuts in their operating budget and Folks were asked to do that by the close of business today. And I know only from previous conversations it's been very challenging at best for all of us to kind of go about our work. And then the chair went ahead and made the obvious statement that this is absolutely absurd to go ahead and try to do this exercise as with many of the other departments who have boards such as Parks and Rec. and from what I understand from the

Sikkim, that Parks and Rec was struggling with it from the meeting they had the other evening and really to do this, because the city budget is so efficiently developed by the chief financial officer and the team and the challenges with the current trends associated with the tuition bill and the growth in the general operating fund Fairfax County Public Schools, it's challenging, that's the only word you can hear me say, again, at best for us to try and come up with it, especially when they had given us two documents to work off with. One of the documents included items that are included in the tuition bill, and the other was the operating fund for the city of Fairfax schools. Now, approximately, each of those were approximately a million dollars, and commuting those was

put us at a bit of a disadvantage because it amounted to 2 million or approximately $200,000 that we were tasked with identifying. First of all, it didn't take into account the reductions that we had agreed upon in working collaboratively in the past with the city staff. And the reason being, when I inquired about it, was because the other departments were tasked with coming up with 10% of their operating budget, and that was the ask. For context, and we discussed it at chairs today, that we had gone ahead and already contributed from our initial path on the bond program, approximately $7 million of deferment to accomplish really what this objective is, is to reduce the impact on the tax. That's 10%.

In addition, correct, in addition, we had adjusted our capital improvement program to defer some projects that are on our radar, that are very important, that are commitments that have been made in the past to fulfill and the continuation of our artificial turf that we were providing at the high school to the next phase, which is the women's softball field. and also projects associated with HVAC replacement that we went ahead and reduced as well. So when you look at the adopted or the proposed Fairfax City Capital Improvement Program, you can see where those amounts are in the out years from when the board had taken action and approved it and sent it forward to the city for incorporation in their documents.

So that being said, it was imperative, and as the board chair pointed out, that we go ahead and have this discussion as a group because it wasn't similar to the Department of Public Works coming up with 10% of their operating budget as a director of the Department of Public Works. And certainly as the superintendent, I didn't feel comfortable for the sole reason that anything we touch impacts the classroom. Anything we touch. If you take a look at our operating budget, you know, as I said, there are two packages they sent us. One that's directly related to the tuition bill. It's riddled with instructional personnel and the support personnel that were identified in that. And we'll get to some of the questions we had.

Our support personnel for instruction, for community use, for student use, and also reimbursement and revenue generation that we get from people who utilize the high school facility. goes back into the schools used for instruction. In addition, goes into the school's purser, if you will, for the school board to approve and consider authorizing those funds at the request of the high school principal for use for instruction. When you look at the operating budget, other than the one I was just speaking of, it's similar. The largest component item that we have in school instructional funds which directly impact instruction. When we talk about the margins and we try to nitpick here and there and we went through an exercise of trying to pull some of the

information together associated with that and questions about things like what are the fringe benefits? Well the fringe benefits are the FICA, Medicare, the city supplement and retirement program, long-term disability, short-term disability, group life insurance and the like. I don't really see when we start talking about these margins where we can come up with anything near or close to it. Madam Chair, members of the board, it really is a conundrum of major exercise that has some draconian impact and I just wanted to go ahead and set the stage really of what we were tasked with doing it up for conversation

Carolyn PitchesI am not supporting any other than what we agreed to which I in my heart believe is time for we've already pushed off something we've promised this community to help with the city budget. I get it. We have to, we have to, we have a bill. I mean, 90% of what we do is literally like getting your electricity bill. I refuse to take away instructional grants. I refuse to take away staffing that helps our students. and I will say that I do not support personally not as the board pushing off the softball because we did the baseball fields it's only fair we do the same for the girls Priscilla since I know you have to catch a plane I want to give you the first opportunity to speak about this i

Speaker 6appreciate that chair can you be okay

Carolyn Pitchesyes um i i it's um i

Speaker 6do not um and i also want to try to i'm sure no other people never want to do i think we've seen the impact of the money we give to school in our state of school presentations received from principals. And I invite anyone listening to come to those meetings, come to those, to those presentations. But if we're gonna go down this road, considering that we need more time, on the evening I've seen a series of questions from staff. When I first learned about the request, I know my request takes time to gather information. There's no way that you guys could turn it around to in the days. And having come into this budget committee here, I just want to make sure that I understand how each budget, the staffing and programming that we've seen directly impacts you

before making any decision. And in my heart,

Speaker 7I

Speaker 6believe

Speaker 7we've made the cuts we can. But

Speaker 6I also want to call the elephant, call out the elephant in the room here. You know, we don't know what the federal funding may look like for our schools next year. Even though a small percentage of federal funding goes to local schools, that still makes a big impact. And while we're waiting on specifics from FCPS, and I appreciate the constant outreach that our city staff is doing with FCPS, as a board member, I know there's federal funding that directly impacts our schools, and IDEA for special education. I worry about our schools if that funding is significantly cut or reduced. I wanna make sure that any funding that goes, that we look at, we're always keeping students in mind there. I just wanna move back and reiterate,

please just wait more time. um if they're gonna if they're gonna push this we definitely need more time I just don't think it's responsible of us but the students in our school community um to make any kind of recommendations at this page without without having that thank you

Carolyn Pitchesthank you necessary um

Amit Hickmanby voiceI want to fully support both Mr. Stranon just said to ask us on Tuesday night at midnight to turn around and get something done by Monday we didn't even have a work session until Monday night is unfair to say the least I think mr. potenberg said well there's other departments that don't have a board that essentially oversees and approves the budget as we do even the other boards are committees more than you know they're not elected boards we are an elected board we're speaking for on behalf of our constituents and to do that and to choose what does or doesn't get cut I is appropriate for us to do in such a short time frame i completely agree and if this is something the city needs us to do then we need more we need more time um honestly we need to have public input

when it comes to the budget so i'm not even sure that we can go back and adjust a budget that we have already voted on you know we would have to reopen it and it would be an entire process so i think that's the difference between our budget and the other budgets and i would like that you go back to the council and remind them of that. It's not the same process. And we would need to go and look into all the rules and see what would we even need to do in order to re-look at a budget that's ready to be approved.

Speaker 7I agree with everything everyone's been saying. And like in looking through the budget, the only thing that would make that kind of money impact are the instructional grants and the staffing. real impacts. There's not that many positions even. And they're all essential. So I agree, we would need more information. Otherwise, I feel like it's just we'd be randomly picking a position without understanding the

Carolyn Pitchesfull picture. Plus, those people, I mean, that's their livelihood. I'm not going to willy-nilly and just say, oh, let's just cut the avid person or the transitional counselor.

Amit Hickmanby voicewas made by council it was made specifically saying without reducing staffing yeah

Carolyn Pitchesbut then that was given as an option

Amit Hickmanby voicebut I'm right well I'm just saying I think that's something we need to consider because we don't like you said we don't have anything other than like maybe a this much instructional appearance people can't see my fingers but it's really that's not making a major impact on the budget is making an impact on others so

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voicewell I really appreciate this conversation because it touches on all the points when you talk about a body who approves of a bond referendum formally that is part of the parliamentary process part of a legislative process that basically goes to the City Council that we have presented our budget as a part of that process and what we have been hearing from FCPS about some of their programs like their bridge decay programs they've been considering when you find out they are talking about the impact of that they're having meeting I believe it's today the principals had a meeting today to talk about that and the potential impacts that may that we may incur. Um, the only thing that our principals do is

say, hey, how can we go ahead and keep these important programs going? Because they're affecting our residents and their children. So I totally appreciate this conversation. It's very sobering. But to hear the perspective that each one of you miss history as well segment miss barley and also chair pitches it provides me with with a context that I think I could respond back to the city chief financial officer I've tried reaching a few times today I know he's extremely slammed he's been an outstanding porter but I think

Carolyn Pitchesyeah

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voiceAnd the fact that he's sick doesn't help. He's probably sick of this exercise, really, because I'm sure we're not the only ones that are in this position, especially, as you said, Ms. Hickman, when one of the priorities of the city council in their presentation was not to affect staff. So I'll be happy to convey those points and those comments about being an approved budget we've done. that we have looked through this we don't feel comfortable because everything we do will impact the education of the students of our community and hopefully i'll be able to get all of cover all these these bases it

Carolyn Pitcheswould have been helpful if somebody from council had come tonight to to hear this part of the discussion

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voiceWell, thank you for that guidance.

Carolyn PitchesWe didn't really give you anything other than no.

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voiceThat's what I heard.

Carolyn PitchesAll right. A nice no. Two panel questions. Okay.

Speaker 2I should have two there. One's middle school and one's high school.

Carolyn PitchesI very much like the first one.

Speaker 9So Lauren, just the background.

Speaker 7I know a little bit. So

Speaker 9every year in April at our April work session, we invite anywhere from 6 to 7 to 12 with the most middle school students and high school students. We've done a number of different ways. We've done small groups. We've done different ways. Kind of what has rested on what's been the best is having a separate middle school and a separate high school. When we combined them, we found that the middle school kids just weren't talking. And then instead of doing small groups, we used to have small groups where each board member would talk, and then they would report back, and then just felt that we weren't getting enough from everybody. school kids come and they line up and we ask them these questions and then we it's about an hour and

then they leave and then high school kids come and we ask them and most of the time we'll have different themes they've been anywhere from facilities to safety sometimes it is a challenge to keep everyone focused on what we can control and what we can't so if they are talking about curriculum and that kind of stuff if we can't help them and do anything with that it's not super productive but for them we understand that it's that's what they know. So these are the questions that we used last year and then so input would be what do you think of the questions is there any kind of overreaching topic or anything that you guys are hearing in you know so one idea might be school start times you know things like that that would be a hot topic you know something

that people are talking about we've done rolling gradebook in the past we've done safety and we've done facilities, we've done, can you think about it? Recess. Recess, right? So things that have come up.

Carolyn PitchesExtracurricular activities. Like in the middle school, they have a pretty robust.

Speaker 9And almost everything is something that we can touch, right? At least that we can participate. So if it's rolling gradebook, we can certainly advocate. Or if it's recess, we could buy equipment, you know, stuff like that. So unless it's something that we absolutely cannot touch, that's the history and how are the kids selected so we asked the DS yes right yes that's the the director student services and we ask admin to kind of nominate kids and find them for us we asked that it's a wide range of ages ethnicities backgrounds things like that we have had you know almost the discussion with you know the same kid the leadership kids we really want a big diverse group boy versus girl you know that kind of stuff so we do rely heavily on the school

to find us those kids they they send us their names we get their addresses and we send them a letter um and usually we have about a 85 75 85 95 percent acceptance rate of kids that come from that group of 10 or 15.

Carolyn Pitchesokay okay so let's you want to start with the middle school student panel questions looking at the first one I'm in favor of keeping it just because they have they're getting ready to talk about grading like what they're going to do with their grading policy in terms of one system two systems whatever but I'm open if you guys want to get rid of that one and

Speaker 9does the entire middle school they all do

Carolyn Pitchesthey all so

Speaker 9this is their first

Carolyn Pitchesreal this is their only it's rating system that they yeah they've had so it's kind of difficult because they don't have any experience with a nine-week numerical grade like the high school because high school it's not every class so I'm you know that's the only downside of using this question with middle schools they don't have any other experience does anybody have any comments on that on that topic yeah on that one for middle or high school okay facilities I always like to hear about what the kids think of the facilities and what they've seen in other schools because they go to schools all over the county for things like science Olympiad and drawing of theater productions and sports so I typically do like the facilities question what about

I'm sure we should maybe take one.

Amit Hickmanby voiceI was going to...

Carolyn PitchesLet's take

Amit Hickmanby voicethe

Carolyn Pitchesturf off.

Amit Hickmanby voiceI was going to actually take both. I think my only concern that asking questions about things we've already done is like, what can we really do about it now? I'd rather leave it more open-ended of like, what else do you think could be improved, right? Because we can say they... We can ask them about the press box and what are we going to do if they're like, it's the worst press box I've ever seen, right? like but I would I do remember for middle school they were really like

Kylie Hornbuilding

Amit Hickmanby voicethat's building itself and that what's in the classrooms in the sea like yeah the exterior because I feel like they want a little

Speaker 9okay so in the past remember we have had our student do that would you like me to ask you to do that or do you want one of us to do it I think okay so then we will work with whoever is the person explaining us or you can we each take a question or something you know yeah

Amit Hickmanby voiceI think just clarify it okay so and

Speaker 2you and usually I send this with the letter so they can think about it They got an answer for you when they

Carolyn Pitchescome. They used to be years ago. They would just come. Wow. Everyone would be like, I need two months to think about this. Right. I think it's better if we mail it. Are we going to

Speaker 9keep recess, or do you want to change that?

Speaker 7Go ahead. I'm wondering, since that was kind of like the new initiative last year, but the kind of big initiative this year has been the cell phone stuff. Yeah, that's great. Exactly. Let's put the cell phone on both. Yeah, both.

Carolyn Pitchestake off recess and

Speaker 7you can just add it to the high

Carolyn Pitchesschool yeah I

Amit Hickmanby voicedid have two of and I don't know if it's too many questions if we add it it would be really curious what the middle schools think about start times

Carolyn Pitcheswell

Amit Hickmanby voicethat said it might be a good point I just saw today that they're not it's no matter what it's not happening for 25 26

Carolyn Pitchesno it's not so and I talked to our one of the our board member over there and they were saying that even when they put in place the first year they're saying it will be a pilot with one region

Amit Hickmanby voicewell the communication today from one of the board members said that it would be tied to boundaries or whatever but i would be curious because the page goal has been such a push with like positive morale fun activities you know i'd be really interested to see the responses let's just stick with this

Speaker 9we're going to keep you want to keep activities and school what makes your school special yes i don't

Carolyn Pitchesknow about school being special i don't want to just let's just take that off

Speaker 9and we'll kind of wrap that into facilities

Carolyn Pitchesyeah i think that would be it so because then we're we have enough with the cell phone yeah yeah I think battle. So

Speaker 9let's now move to high school. Is there anything else? Sorry. You want to go to middle school?

Carolyn PitchesAnybody else want to add something to middle school? Okay.

Speaker 9So high school, rolling grade books, keep? Yeah. Are there a lot of classes using rolling grade

Amit Hickmanby voicebooks?

Speaker 7Yes. Because, like,

Amit Hickmanby voicemy kids have been hasn't.

Carolyn PitchesOh, you're lucky.

Amit Hickmanby voiceWell, okay. That said, I'll take it back. Leadership is. Like, some of the classes, but, like, none of the others. classes.

Speaker 9There's a question right there. I feel it's challenging to have one teacher do it and one teacher not, right? And so should there be consistency? Yeah, just pick a grade. I know, right? We don't care what it is. Do you want to keep

Carolyn Pitchesthis on or no? I think we should keep it on because as the kids, because when they first, I will just tell you, in 2016, Dan will know, they just only did it for ninth grade world history and then it sort of has gone all over the place now I think they I don't know but if

Speaker 9we do they moved it to how many will start how many of you do rolling great book and then we can get

Amit Hickmanby voicea sensitive knowledge or just can just be grading policies in general like how many of you have some of them came from rolling great look at Katherine Johnson to see what

Carolyn Pitchestheir thoughts are

Amit Hickmanby voiceif they have one they might not even and have one, like, yeah, I think just a more general grade book question. Yeah, and

Speaker 9I think if whoever's monitoring this needs to be, one challenge we've had in the past that we've heard about feedback from principals is we do not want these children like tattling on a teacher, right? So in one sense,

Carolyn Pitchesright,

Speaker 9so in one sense we don't want, oh, my teacher doesn't grade my homework at all, and then, you know what I mean, or my teacher says, like, breaks rules, does that make sense? And then we, the board principals, like,

Amit Hickmanby voiceso. And that's what we're gonna hear, is like, there's nothing in CIS, so I don't even know what my grade is like. They

Carolyn Pitchesall need to hear that.

Amit Hickmanby voiceRight.

Carolyn PitchesThat's been going on for nine years. So

Amit Hickmanby voicewhoever's doing that will make notes. Or even questions for them like, do you understand that if it's summative versus formative, do you feel like you have more? Because there's a lot of intricacies on that.

Carolyn PitchesYeah.

Speaker 9So maybe do you just want to personally take that one or Carol, do you want to take that question? You can take it if you want. I mean, if you feel. So do you feel comfortable? I can feel comfortable. Yeah. Okay. and then if you could get your question to Barb so she okay then we'll do the same facilities question do

Carolyn Pitchesyou want to ask

Speaker 9about specifics

Carolyn Pitchesokay in terms of the the beginning of April

Speaker 2I think because I'm gonna make it in

Carolyn Pitchesterms of the gradebook somebody might want to check in with Georgina around like what percentage of teachers are using rolling grade book because if it's only you know five percent i mean it's been a lot in the past like they have gone from no rolling grade book to a little bit to a lot i don't know what it currently is okay um i just so we get an idea yeah she comes

Speaker 9back and says is less than

Carolyn Pitchesyeah there's no point you know and if it's only like elective classes then who really gives you know you know well

Amit Hickmanby voiceI think elective classes often have lend themselves more to that than a yeah

Carolyn Pitchesbut think about it those kids were on rolling grade book in middle school all year for every class oh

Amit Hickmanby voiceI know it's been a shock to my ninth-cater system

Carolyn Pitchesyeah like oh it

Amit Hickmanby voicejust ends starting in yeah confusing

Speaker 9so we'll keep this the same facilities but take out the thing about the turf fields and not as specifics okay activities oh yes

Carolyn Pitchesnecessary sorry all right walking a little

Speaker 6Can we add a question just thinking about grading and classes and such for high school students about the opt out enrollment that they're planning? Oh, the

Carolyn Pitchesopt out. Yeah, that's the opt

Speaker 6out of

Carolyn Pitchesthe AP course.

Speaker 6Yeah, and since they're doing it in, I mean, I don't know if it makes sense to do it in middle school now or later in the year, by the middle school survey, but definitely for the high school students, this will be their second year doing the A&P seminar opt-out enrollment.

Carolyn PitchesOkay, this

Speaker 7is the second year?

Speaker 6No,

Speaker 7I thought it was the first year. This

Amit Hickmanby voiceyear

Speaker 7was a pilot, and next year is the year they're putting all the test papers in.

Amit Hickmanby voiceSo I don't know that they're going to have, and for me, I don't know that they're going to have feedback because none of them have had to do it yet. Next year we'll have the same, next year we're going to have it twice because we're going to have middle school is automatically enrolling all students in seven honors and opting out of maximum honors is gonna be the opt out. And then high school we have the seminar in 10th grades.

Speaker 9Do we think that maybe that's a better question just for admin to tell us what the things are because we wanna be sensitive to kids if they opt out. Does that make sense? Like what if they don't feel? We could also

Carolyn Pitchesask, I mean, we could also ask for some guidance from the school on what topics would come under the program. I don't know. As

Speaker 9far as grading or AP or just in general. Just,

Carolyn PitchesI was different as teacher support also. I also don't like that part of it because I feel like that's when people were throwing. I was gonna take that out. I was gonna talk more about just the

Amit Hickmanby voicegrading. Exactly, they threw

Carolyn Pitchesa lot of teachers under the bus last year.

Amit Hickmanby voiceNo, no, no, I was gonna talk more the grading policy is coming off water. Well, if we're talking about the opt-out,

Speaker 7could you frame it in a way like, how do you feel about the course, like the course selection process in general? And like, do you feel like you are signed up for the right level of classes? Do you feel like the information was communicated to

Speaker 6you

Speaker 7about what

Speaker 6classes to sign up for? Yeah, I like

Speaker 7that. Do you feel like this year you were in the right level class for you? like you were pushed into too hard in the class or held back and like um so it could be reframed because that covers the odds out but it's like just really in in general so you feel like you're in the right

Amit Hickmanby voicewhich is going to be related a lot to their grades because oftentimes they look their grades to help make a decision for the next year so it's all tied together yeah okay

Speaker 9they would have just finished registration yes okay so the activities i don't know that we i would actually

Amit Hickmanby voicewe need to cut out i would cut that one out yeah i just don't know that there's anything new or different or middle school i think it's important because middle school activities are up for being cut by the board of

Speaker 9supervisors but i'm not sure if it's as relevant sure um do you since and then since the four is similar to two um if we get rid of three and four would is there another um so we have grading cell

Speaker 2phone

Speaker 9cell phone registration facilities you think those four would be enough I think that's... I

Carolyn Pitchesam serious. It's not 20 minutes each. The high school kids tend to talk a lot

Amit Hickmanby voicemore. Yeah, usually we have more of them anyway. Wait, sorry, we kept grading. Cell phones. Cell phones,

Speaker 7facilities. And course and more. Course registration.

Amit Hickmanby voiceOh, we're doing course registration separate from

Speaker 7grading.

Amit Hickmanby voiceYeah, I

Speaker 7think so. I think it's different.

Amit Hickmanby voiceWe can ask

Speaker 7one right after the other.

Amit Hickmanby voiceSo maybe course registration slash options. Like, are there enough options?

Speaker 9But specifically you want to know if they've got the right level of learning. I feel

Carolyn Pitcheslike there's a lot of pressure that kids feel. You can take that one. So you take that one since you're articulating it very well. Yes. And you're degrading. Right.

Amit Hickmanby voiceGood. One of you will do facilities and one will do so.

Speaker 9All right. So Barb,

Speaker 7do you feel good about what we have? So do you want us to formulate what that question is and email it to you?

Speaker 2That would be great. I'll be emailing the DSS's for names, so I'll be getting those back and then getting the letter, and then we'll get this to attach to the letter.

Amit Hickmanby voiceDo we want someone to write the cell phone question?

Speaker 9Do you feel comfortable with the cell phone? You don't have to write it. I mean, essentially, it's like tell us about cell phone. like how do you feel about them how are you

Carolyn Pitchessure we just say cell phone what has been your experience policy

Speaker 7this year

Carolyn Pitchesyeah

Speaker 7what is it you know i can write that i can just write it to the other one okay okay

Amit Hickmanby voiceand the facilities i think is a great question we'll just leave it the same just specify a little more

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voicethe

Speaker 7only um related to the activities i i'm not sure if you need it or not the only that I would wonder about is I do know there are kids and

Carolyn Pitchesthe

Speaker 7question is

Amit Hickmanby voiceright

Speaker 7yes okay so that's the question is but like why are the kids who aren't doing anything not doing anything like that's a question but I think be interesting to know but you

Speaker 9know maybe to get something that we can ask Georgina about it her state of the schools report in April and maybe cover me because I know that a two years ago was that every student had a connection to an adult and whether that was in a club or a class or does that make sense and that they literally had a list and like who is this who is Caroline Pitch's adult and so and they were doing that through clubs so maybe we can ask her for an update on that does that make sense

Carolyn PitchesI do know that some of the kids who don't participate are kids who have to work at their

Speaker 7jobs well I mean that's true but like I do I do kids who like tried out for sports team that didn't make the sports team and then it was like and so it's like it's like they wanted to do something to squat

Speaker 2so

Speaker 7like I do I do know kids who did take steps to be involved that's who are not involved yeah yeah that's a really good question so

Jeff Platenbergstaffby voicewe have a meeting with us yeah but that would be common but would say the schools meeting that we have with her before she comes to present we'll go ahead and bring that up that's something we just ask her to come

Carolyn Pitchesanything else uh does anybody have any since we're here i

Amit Hickmanby voicethink we're i think christine

Carolyn Pitchesand she had to go she She said she's got to jump off because she was in a lounge. Okay. Okay. Anything else you can say, Quinn? No? Okay. Everybody's good? All right. And I'm going to adjourn the meeting.

Speaker 9Carolyn, I have the MOU about committees. Do you want to give people a heads up for what should we do before we say?