School Board Regular Meeting

Carolyn PitchesGood evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight is Monday, December 2nd of 2024. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of

Stacy Hallthe United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands one

Speaker 9nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all

Carolyn Pitchesokay there are no changes to our agenda this evening and we do not have any other announcements so I will ask for a motion for the adoption of the agenda

Sarah Kelseymadam chair

Carolyn Pitchesms.

Sarah KelseyKelsey I move that the city of Fairfax school board adopt the agenda as written and distributed

Carolyn Pitchessecond okay Ms. Kelsey moved and Ms. Hickman seconded all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye none opposed adoption of the agenda passes unanimously the next item on this evening is the approval of the school board resolution requesting an independent agency review of Hayfield secondary schools football program may I have a motion please madam

Stacy Hallchair Ms. Hall I move that the city of Fairfax the resolution requesting a transparent independent agency review of the Hayfield secondary school football program as printed and distributed I may have a second

Carolyn Pitchessecond okay Ms. Hall moved Ms. McQuillan seconded the City of Fairfax School Board approved the resolution requesting a transparent independent agency review of the Hayfield secondary school football program as well as to implement any future recommendations resulting from the independent review next item on the agenda is to discontinue general legal services with John Kafferke may I have a motion please

Amit HickmanMadam Chair

Carolyn PitchesMs. Hickman I

Amit Hickmanmove that the City of Fairfax School Board discontinue legal services provided by John Kafferke may

Carolyn PitchesI have a second second okay Ms. Hickman moved and Ms. Kelsey seconded the City of Fairfax School Board discontinued general legal services with John Kaverke next we will move on to our student recognition so I'm gonna ask the school board to come down in front of the dais and I'm gonna turn it over to miss Dorsey who's going to manage the recognition this evening

DorseystaffThank You Chair Pitches and welcome everybody we are excited for everyone to be here to the City of Fairfax schools we would like to thank we have two student representatives up here they are our superintendent advisor team committee members they are at Fairfax High School and they work with Superintendent Plattenberg this is Michaela Green and Tyler Rickman so thank you for them they're gonna help us out in just a moment we're gonna call the names of students we're gonna start with our middle school students and then we'll go to high school students we do know especially at our high school level that there were some athletes and some other club members that are just getting their state recognitions within the last couple of days we will recognize those

team members athletes and academic students in a meeting in the future if you hear any challenges or problems with any of the certificates please let us know after and we will be sure to straighten that out if you have a friend or someone that's not here we will be giving all of these certificates to administrators and then they'll be giving them to school the next day so the first group that we are going to recognize is our Arbor Day Poetry Day contest winners will please Vivian Lee, Arna Damley, Christina Bobas and Mickey Johnson please come up This was an Arbor Day poetry contest sponsored by the City of Fairfax each one of these students submitted a poem for Arbor Day and they are receiving a

certificate and a gift card to Amazon We're gonna have our staff photographer take a picture these pictures will be on Facebook in the next couple of days and then after if any parents want to come and take a quick picture we're happy to do that too Next we're going to recognize our middle school international academic competition winners and we're going to bring them all up at the same time Soren Quatra, Lila Gearheart and Krithi Manchala These students are part of their middle school international academic competition They have just found out that they have Sorin gets two uh-huh Sorin was the top point score at the Georgetown competition Georgetown Day competition and the team won third place Lila won the

Amit Hickmanhistory

DorseystaffWashington D history B and Bowl championship and qualified for the national championship Kreeti and Soren also were winners these students will be on their way to Chicago and Orlando for the national competitions Thank you. Is Adi Salthora here?

Jeff PlatenbergstaffOh,

Stacy Hallcome on.

Jeff PlatenbergstaffCome on. Adi Salthora.

DorseystaffThe study is being recognized for his work with Model UN. And for the Katherine Johnson Virginia Naturally School well Jonathan Kuh and Carlos Diaz please come up

Speaker 9One, two, three, three.

DorseystaffAnd we'd like to recognize Kaylee Zeng and Patrick Thomas. Haley was named a concert master in the district middle school honors orchestra and for our district also district middle school honors orchestra Lila Tawaji Rachel Shin Andrew Zhao Ethan Tang Claire Ahn Min Kim Agnes Kim Arya Pandaya Krithi Manchala Benicio Parkins Olivia Lee Leigh Leighan Kadura Esther Kim Luis Santiago Ataliano and Samuel Doe

Carolyn PitchesThank you.

Speaker 9All right.

DorseystaffNow we're going to call up the Katherine Johnson Girls Basketball League Championships for the Western Fairfax Middle School Basketball. Mina, Daniela, Rhea, Kaylee, Olivia, Makai, Noor, Eloise, Chloe, Lily, Kenzie, and Raina.

Michael MalloystaffThank you.

Speaker 9one two three three

Dorseystaffand now we actually are going to recognize the Katherine Johnson boys for being

Sarah Kelseythe

DorseystaffWestern Fairfax Middle School Championship well Emilio Charles Marcus Andrew I'm in Gabriel Ryan Maxwell Kyle Benicio Boas Ryan Drew Sammy Cheyenne and Connor Thank you.

Speaker 9Thank you.

DorseystaffWe are now going to recognize our Katherine Johnson in the inaugural cross-country championship and exhibition race these students ran against 26 other middle school teams the girls finished in 17th place in the boys in 10th overall will Graham, Mike, Colton, Leo, Brandon, Kaylee, Julia, Lila Vivian, Juliana, Arik, Maxwell, Marco, Bryce, Akash, Hazel, Evelyn, Kylie, Mia, and Cadence please come on up

Speaker 9Thank you.

StudentThank you.

DorseystaffBryce Kelsey can you come back Bryce Kelsey can you come back Bryce Kelsey can you come the county now we're gonna move on to our high school is Kendall Barry here Kendall Berry? Okay. Can Ainsley Bice please come up? Ainsley was recognized for the VMA Senior Honor Choir. The choir is considered one of the most elite honors choirs in Virginia. the audition and choir experience is considered the most challenging we are now going to recognize the National Merit Commended Scholars Commended Scholars is for a student who scored in the top 3% of all test takers in the PSAT Yusuf, Sia, Ainsley, Kyle, William, Thomas, Soham, Benjamin, Kaden, Jeremiah, Zane, Ethan, Fatima, Rayhan, Johan, Erin, Alicia, Joshua, Asha, Gari, Oliver, Catherine, Ellie, Shrehan,

Kai, Christopher, and Vi.

Speaker 9Thank you. Thank you. One, two, three, two, three. Thank you.

DorseystaffAnd now we'd like to recognize our National Merit Semi-Finalists. These National Merit Semi-Finalists rank in the top 1% of all test takers on the PSAT. Ethan, Shupa, and Ellie. Congratulations. And that actually concludes our recognition. Thank you everyone for coming. We're going to take a five-minute break. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Carolyn PitchesThank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. to the school board we do not have anybody signed up for citizen participation so we will move on to the superintendent's advisory team update we have Miss Michaela Greene and Mr. Tyler Rickman here this evening

Studenthello my name is Michaela Greene and we are gonna get started on our meeting overviews and our team bios. To start off my name is Michaela Green I am a senior at Fairfax High School I am part of the senior planning team I was varsity cheer captain this year and I do a lot of stuff for the school and the community as well my hobbies are gardening and painting.

StudentMy name is Tyler Rickman and I'm a junior at Fairfax High School. I was the VP or I am the VP of meetings for the Fairfax High School NHS chapter this year. Currently, I'm the secretary for Young Men's Service League, which is a local service group in our area. I'm also over the summer did leadership initiatives. It was like a summer internship program. the year-long internship program for public health. Last year I worked on Fairfax High School's Honor Code with Honor Code Committee, and currently I like watching football with my dad as well as doing pick-up sports with my friends. Also, Izzy, she couldn't be here with us tonight, but I'll go quickly through what she had. First, she would like to apologize.

to every one of you. She's very sad, but it's okay. So first off, she's the City of Fairfax Commission for Women's Student Representative, Morgan's Message Mental Health Ambassador, Fairfax Athletic Leadership Social Media Team, Fairfax Academy Ambassador, and then some hobbies, skiing, hiking, watching sports and football, as well as playing lacrosse.

StudentOkay. Now we'll go over what happened in our meetings. So for the September 29th meeting, we discussed the bond referendum and we broke into smaller groups to talk about all the things that impact implementations in our community. We went over the new security measures such as getting new cameras in the elementary schools officers and crossing guards to help everything to be more efficient in the community we did an update on facilities including the bathroom renovation at fairfax high school and all the improvement plans with the fairfax orchestra pit the basketball stanchions and then we also put in like individual crest requests we were in our groups about the softball field renovation stadium restroom improvements which did get approved thank you and then the lighting upgrades

Studentschool for our November 12th meeting we celebrating the past the past the passing I guess of the Fairfax Public Schools bonds it was the highest bonds ever there's the highest rate ever passed so congratulations also we recapped history of the school's renovations in the past what the plan looks to be this coming future and potential conflicts that may arise such as expanding Blenheim and then also brainstorming on what changes could make schools more welcoming such as friendly lighting space management and new type of whiteboards we

Studentwould like to say thank you we appreciate being included in these discussions about the future of our school in the city that we live in and we thank you improvements that have happened in our school system and for honoring our contributions to the discussion thank you

Carolyn PitchesThank you

StudentMs.

Carolyn PitchesKelsey do you have any questions No

Sarah Kelseythanks for the

Rachel McQuillenpresentation though Ms. McQuillan I just have one during your last either this last November meeting or during your discussions with other students was there anything that you were surprised by anything that came to

Studentlight that Izzy brought up the softball field needing renovations and I personally don't play softball so I've never gone to that side of the field so I didn't know that it was such like a big problem especially for the athletes there so like hearing her contribution is saying like how much it needs to be renovated and how it would help her and everybody else in the school feel better it was like eye-opening to me because I could see different perspectives

Studentalso something I thought was important was like timing of when each things planned out because Izzy plays or Izzy does lacrosse in the spring and since this stadium is getting renovated they didn't have like the luxury of people announcing their names as they walk out so like not just catering towards football season but also catering towards other sports seasons

Stacy HallMs. Hall I just want to say thank you you guys clearly do a whole lot of things in the community and it's very impressive to see all the other things that you're involved in so thank you for taking the time to do this one as well Thank you

Carolyn PitchesMs. Hickman

Amit HickmanI had the pleasure of attending the meetings with both of you and all of your thoughts and contributions have been so very much well thought out and appreciated so thank you for being a part of that

Carolyn Pitchesyeah and the city of Fairfax schools appreciates the fact that you guys do take time out of your very busy schedules we know that being 11th and 12th graders is you know hard enough with all the work of the workload so we appreciate you spending your time with us at those meetings and contributing

Studentthank you thank

Carolyn Pitchesyou guys okay the next up is mr. Malloy FCPS legislative Mr. Malloy is government relations for FCPS Good evening

Michael MalloystaffAll right, good evening everyone chair pitches Superintendent Plattenberg members of the board. Thanks so much for having me I know it's the Christmas season because you know, it's not the lights go up or anything It's that I have to come over here and and get to spend some time with you. So I appreciate you always inviting us over I'm happy to provide you with some updates talk a little bit kind of three things I want to cover tonight if if I have the time one is a talk a little bit about the legislative program so you know as everyone is aware your legislative program is is very similar and and with the Fairfax County School Board's legislative program there's a lot of a lot of commonalities between

the two talk a little bit about what happened with that we've we've already done our legislative over in the county side. Talk some, give you kind of a preview of coming attractions, talk a little bit about the upcoming 2025 General Assembly session and then kind of to round things out talk a little bit about the situation at the at the federal level and kind of what we expect when when we come for the new administration. So in terms of the legislative program primarily this year was it was very much focused on kind of minor updates the legislative program as a document is fairly comprehensive it covers a lot of topics and in the education world there are a lot of topics that carry on from year to year to year so there are a lot of things in there that already

addressed even some of the new things that are happening at the state level some of the primary changes that the new legislative program that's been adopted by our board has more explicit support for a local sales tax referendum for capital construction was already supported in the program we pulled it out as a separate as a separate line item just to highlight the importance of it that legislation last year got all the way to the finish line only to be vetoed by the governor and missed being overridden by one vote. So it came incredibly close. There is wide and bipartisan support for the idea. That conversation will continue to happen. Don't know what the status of it this year will be, but it'll continue to be an issue.

It's a critical need, not just in Northern Virginia, but even and probably more so in some of our smaller, jurisdictions in terms of having the access to capital facilities funding. Permanent replacement of the grocery tax which was repealed, I think this is going on two years now, there was a dedicated portion of that grocery tax that came back to K-12. That's been backfilled so we didn't actually lose funding in the K-12 world but there's a possibility and last year the governor proposed to kind of pull that funding back saying it was a temporary fix so we're we're trying to push to make sure that that ends up being a permanent fix so we don't lose that that funding pedestrian safety huge huge issue with

with our board it petition safety is a very complicated issue because especially in this area the vast majority of our roads are controlled by the state they're controlled by vdot makes it very complicated and difficult to have conversations about speed limits or speed you know kind of traffic calming issues so we're looking for some additional authority at the local level to be able to handle some of those things on a little bit more autonomously give us a little bit more local flexibility to address some of our most pressing needs even though it's you know it potentially encroaches on the the territory of vdot a couple success stories so a couple positions we were able to remove one is we removed a position dealing with licensure reciprocity so now when a licensure

candidate comes to us from another state the state actually has kind of a crosswalk to help local school divisions figure out well okay if you're coming here from Pennsylvania you're coming here from from from Indiana here's what their licensure process looks like and here's what their licensure process maps onto for our licensure processes so it helps at the local level we don't have to do as much work to be able to bring in these candidates who are coming in from out of state so that that was one thing that was accomplished and the other thing was accomplished is the state removed the the the vcla licensure requirement so it was a prerequisite test it was a literacy assessment which was actually i think unique to virginia

and that was repealed so that's i think helped to the the teacher pipeline a little bit to give a little bit more flexibility and bring some more people in um that's you know for for for the most I had with the legislative program I did want to talk for just a minute about school accreditation and school accountability. Legislative program already has a lot of positions which are which kind of are putting the positive and supporting what a statewide accountability system should look like. The concern of course is that as you're aware the state is moving to a new type of accountability system. It's technically already in place now. Everything that our students are doing, all the tests that our students are taking, this

is the data that will generate the first round of our accountability come next fall. This round of SOL assessments, the classes that students are taking, chronic absenteeism rates, that data will all be accumulated into this new system. to kind of let go of the term accreditation accreditation still exists but accreditation no longer means school academic performance accreditation is now going to be largely a compliance exercise in terms of making sure that local school divisions are following a particular prescribed set of rules you have the right staffing you have the right safety procedures in place you you have the right parent communication things in place so schools will still receive an accreditation rating it's just not going to mean what accreditation

used to the new system is the school performance and support framework the SPSF it is based on student mastery so it is and the majority across elementary middle and high school is mastery based and what mastery is defined as is did students pass their rossol assessments so for all three grade spans mastery is the is the largest component for elementary school and middle school there is a growth component and that growth component is not technically a student x did this at the beginning of the year and did this at the end of the year so they grew this much it's a more complicated system than that it's the um I never remember the acronym off the top of my head, but it's the Virginia Growth System.

It's measuring the expectation of where a student should be. Based on all of a student's characteristics and their past performance, here's what we would have expected them to do. Then at the end of the year, that student is judged against what they were expected to have done and if they've met that then they've met the growth measure that growth measure is going to be applied to elementary and middle school but not to high school there's no growth measure at high school instead of a growth measure at high school there is a graduation measure the graduation measure is different than we're used to we're used to it's called the graduation and completion index which is a six-year look at students who have graduated within that time

period it includes standard diploma it includes advanced diploma it includes ged's it includes applied studies diplomas and it includes what they refer to as sliders which are students who are still allowed to be in school so special education students older english language learners who can actually stay longer than the four-year graduation rate that's the old graduation rate the new graduation rate is a very straightforward and strict four-year graduation cohort and you have to have received a standard diploma or an advanced diploma to count as an on-time graduate so that's that's going to be a new measure and a much more stringent measure than I think we're used to it's the same measure that's used at the federal level and for federal

accountability so it's something we've been we've been reporting it's a it's been available but it's never been dovetailed into the state's accountability system so that's a big change and then across all three grade spans there's a third measure of they're calling it readiness at the elementary level it's based on chronic absenteeism at the middle school level absenteeism and advanced coursework. So in the first year of the system, it's going to measure students having taken algebra during their middle school career. So there's going to be a metric for that, and that's going to be part of the readiness measure at the middle school level. In future years, they're going to add other advanced classes,

but they're going to start with math. That's something that we already collect for federal reporting. So it's something that's already available. At the high school level, if you are familiar with the current system, the CCCRI, College Career Readiness Index, that's being replaced by what's known as the three E's, which is employment enlistment and it's the academic side and I never remember this E because they kind of shorned it in so they could have a cool acronym with three E's but it's it's basically academic it's basically academic achievement so those those measures whereas right now the measure of readiness is whether or not a student has taken say for instance an AP course or a dual enrollment course or has taken

a sequence of career and technical education courses or has you know done work through ROTC or done something for enlistment, the measures that they're using are very different. At the academic side, it's not just a matter of having taken a course, it's a matter of having not only taken multiple courses, but you also have to have gotten what they refer to as a college-ready score on the assessment that's attached to that course. So instead of saying I've taken an AP course, now you have to say I've taken three AP courses and gotten three or better on three different AP exams. For career and technical education, you focus on whether or not a student has taken not only a career and technical education sequence,

but has completed the associated assessment that goes with that, so the career assessment. BUT ALSO TO GET FULL CREDIT ON THAT METRIC, THAT ACADEMIC AREA OR THAT STUDENT LEARNING AREA HAS TO BE WHAT'S REFERRED TO AS A HIGH-WAGE, HIGH-DEMAND OCCUPATION. SO IT'S NOT SIMPLY TAKING A CTE COURSE OR SIMPLY TAKING A CTE PROCESS. It's you have to have taken the right courses that are on a list that the state is maintaining as part of their workforce development work. On enlistment, the difference there is it's no longer based on ROTC or anything else. It's actually based on a military readiness exam referred to as the ASVAB. So students will have to have taken and gotten a military enlistment-ready score on that assessment to get points on this.

The biggest difference between the current accountability system and the new accountability system, beyond kind of those technical details, is the old accountability system, there were a series of thresholds that schools had to get over. So if you got over a certain percentage of your students that were not chronically absent, then you made the benchmark for that. And you were done. You were kind of in the green, is what they referred to it, because it was green, yellow, red. IF YOU FELL BELOW THAT, THAT'S WHERE YOUR ACCREDITATION RATING COULD BE AT RISK. SO IT WAS KIND OF AN ALL, NOT AN ALL OR NOTHING, BUT IT WAS VERY MUCH A THRESHOLD BASED SYSTEM WHERE YOU HAD TO GET OVER A CERTAIN THRESHOLD.

AND ONCE YOU WERE OVER THAT, THE SCHOOL WAS FULLY ACCREDITED. THE NEW SYSTEM IS AN ACCUMULATION OF POINTS ACROSS EVERY SINGLE THING THAT I JUST DESCRIBED TO YOU. so everything that a school does is going to be measured and calculated and is going to it's a scale of 100 is going to be rated you know from 100 on down and that's how the schools accredited or not accreditation but their their school performance their school performance rating will be calculated so every single thing that a school does it's not a matter of getting over and then moving on and focusing on the things. It's maximizing across everything. So it's even if you're at 95% of your students who are not chronically absent, now you need to go to 96 or 97.

There's always the incentive to improve on the system. It's a very different way of measuring accountability. It's a big mind shift and a big mindset change. I don't want to belabor the point too much. I just wanted to make sure that I laid that out a little bit TO BE A VERY LONG CONVERSATION. CHAIRMAN PITCHES, YOU ARE VERY WELL AWARE BECAUSE YOU SIGNED A LETTER THAT WAS SENT TO THE STATE ABOUT SOME CONCERNS WITH THE SYSTEM AND ASKING FOR IT TO BE DELAYED. THERE WAS A DISCUSSION AT THE STATE BOARD TODAY AND THEY ACKNOWLEDGED THE LETTER AND THAT WAS ABOUT IT. AND IT WAS KIND OF A BACK HANDED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BE FRANK. SO THIS IS SOMETHING THAT IS GOING TO BE AN ONGOING CONVERSATION. It's likely to come up during the next General Assembly session.

It's likely to come up as part of the next gubernatorial race. It's likely to come up as part of the next General Assembly races. And it's going to be something that we're going to be discussing at the state level and at the local level for a long time. We've got a lot more information that we can share. I think we've sent some stuff over to you already. But if there's any information that we can give to you on the accountability system and kind of how it's playing out and everything. Another thing that's very challenging is that I told you that we're already in the accountability system right now. We're already accumulating points. We're already doing all the things that the data will be used for.

All of those rules haven't been finalized yet. They are still talking at the state level and we're still getting details literally on a week to week basis of how exactly some of the fine details of this system work and And what counts where and what is in the numerator of a calculation and what's in a denominator of a calculation. So it's very much a matter of we are literally in the plane and people are building the plane out as we're flying it. But as I said, it's going to be an important conversation, General Assembly session and otherwise. So I wanted to make sure that I covered that for you. For the 2025 General Assembly session, that obviously is going to be a big conversation. On the fiscal side, the good news is that the state is in a fairly strong fiscal position.

They've identified surpluses not only in the outgoing year, so in fiscal year 2024, but they've also identified that there are likely to be surpluses in FY25 and FY26, which is the budget biennium that we're in right now. We're in the second year of a budget biennium, and something to remember about that is that that historically the amount of new money that is put into public education in the second year of the biennium is typically far less than it is in the first year. The first year is that's when they capture re-benchmarking and catching up on all the data. The second year is more technical updates and then policy initiatives that they may have at the state level. So you kind of walk into a second year of a biennium not expecting a ton of new resources.

There are some very, I mentioned that there were surpluses. Unfortunately, those surpluses are by and large already spoken for. The FY24 surplus in particular, but the 25 and 26, and particularly with Medicaid, Medicaid is about $630 million that it needs over both 25 and 26. THERE'S A HUGE CLAIM FROM ANOTHER POLICY AREA ON SOME OF THE SURPLUS FUNDS. SO THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE AND SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE JUST COMPLETED THEIR RETREAT. AND WHILE THEY WERE LAWDING THE FISCAL SITUATION, IN ADDITION TO AN ISSUE THAT I WILL GET TO AT THE END OF THIS, THEY REALLY WERE KIND OF TRYING TO FOCUS IN ON ONE-TIME EXPENDITURES and really preaching not putting things into the budget base for the state so

that they create the possibility that when we get to fiscal year 27 that we have created a problem at the state level that we're at in a budget that's out of balance so we have to kind of temper our expectations not to say that we're not going to push for permanent funding in a lot of different ways but the the the message that lawmakers are getting from their own staff is to really ONE TIME EXPENDITURES. SOMETHING THAT'S DECIDEDLY NOT A ONE TIME EXPENDITURE THAT WE'RE VERY MUCH FOCUSED ON IS THE CONTINUING DIALOGUE AT THE STATE LEVEL FOR THE JOINT LEGISLATIVE AUDIT AND REVIEW COMMISSIONS 2023 NOW SO WE'RE ALMOST TWO YEARS OUT. THE BIG STUDY WHICH CONFIRMED WHAT WE ALL DO ABOUT PUBLIC EDUCATION

FUNDING IN VIRGINIA THAT THE STATE PRETTY SEVERELY UNDERFUNDS PUBLIC EDUCATION AND THE LOCALITIES ARE REALLY KIND OF TO PICK UP THE TAB ON SOME OF THAT. THERE'S A JOINT SUBCOMMITTEE THAT'S MEETING AT THE STATE LEVEL, FIVE SENATORS, FIVE DELEGATES. I BELIEVE ONE OF YOUR DELEGATES IS ON THE SUBCOMMITTEE, DELEGATE DAVID BULOVA. THEY'VE MET TWICE THIS OFF-SESSION, GETTING KIND OF SOME INFORMATION ABOUT BEST PRACTICES FROM OTHER STATES, INFORMATION ABOUT THE JLARC RECOMMENDATIONS THEMSELVES. THAT COMMITTEE MEETS AGAIN ON DECEMBER 9TH. What we're likely to see out of that December 9th meeting is some short term recommendations. So the things that they've talked the most about, and if you remember with JLARC, there

was a set of short term recommendations and then a set of long term recommendations that would take a lot longer to kind of fundamentally change how we do public education funding. But the short term recommendations were things that could be picked up and done relatively quickly and relatively easily. They're likely to focus in on a couple of those. the ones that I heard I've heard the most about are the support cap which is the cap on support funding that the state imposed back in 2009 as a temporary measure to deal with the Great Recession and apparently we're still in the Great Recession now so that's one to repeal that which would provide more flexible funding to school divisions and then additional resources for special

education students is the other area that they've talked fairly extensively AS POSSIBLE AREAS. WE'LL KNOW MORE ON DECEMBER 9th. WE ALSO ARE EXPECTED TO GET AN UPDATE ON THE DATA THAT JLARC USED FOR ITS 2023 REPORT. THAT DATA WAS BASED ON FISCAL YEAR 23 FUNDING. IT'S BEEN A LOT THAT'S HAPPENED SINCE THEN. YOU'VE EVER BEENCHMARKING. YOU'VE HAD TEACHER SALARY INCREASES OVER TIME. SO THERE'S GOING TO BE SOME UPDATED DATA ON HOW FAR BEHIND THE COMMONWEALTH IS IN TERMS HAVE A BETTER IDEA OF MAGNITUDE OF IMPACT OF WHAT SOME OF THOSE THINGS COULD MEAN FOR US. AND THEN LAST THING ABOUT JLARC IS AS I MENTIONED THERE ARE LONG-TERM CONSIDERATIONS. THERE'S STILL KIND OF AN ONGOING DEBATE AND I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THE

DEBATE IS GOING TO GO AS TO WHETHER OR NOT THE APPROACH THE STATE WANTS TO TAKE IS TO FIX THE EXISTING SYSTEM OR TO SCRAP THE EXISTING SYSTEM AND GO TO WHAT'S REFERRED TO AS A PUPIL-BASED FUNDING SYSTEM. A LOT OF OTHER STATES DO THIS. Virginia is very much a staffing-based formula. So the funding that comes back to school divisions are largely based on the number of teachers you have and the number of teachers you're required to have and the number of counselors and everything else. Other states, they kind of create a baseline of funding per student. They say, what does it cost to educate the average student? And then they calculate some additional add-ons above and beyond WHAT IT COSTS TO EDUCATE THE AVERAGE STUDENT FOR WHETHER IT'S A STUDENT WITH A STUDENT WITH

A STUDENT WITH AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNER, WHETHER IT'S A STUDENT IN POVERTY, HOMELESS, THERE'S A LOT OF DIFFERENT METRICS THAT THEY USE THAT ARE ADD ONS TO THAT PER PUPIL AMOUNT. AND THEN THAT PER PUPIL AMOUNT GETS ACCUMULATED AND THAT'S WHAT GETS SENT TO LOCALITIES. GREAT NEWS IN TERMS OF FLEXIBILITY FOR SCHOOL DIVISIONS BECAUSE THE EXPECTATION IS THAT WE'VE GIVEN YOU THE MONEY AT THE STATE LEVEL, NOW YOU FIGURE OUT THE BEST WAY TO DEPLOY IT. THAT COULD GIVE SOME FLEXIBILITY FOR STAFFING, COULD ALLOW FOR SOME CREATIVITY, BUT IT ALSO DIRECTLY TIES THE FUNDING TO THE STUDENT AND THAT HAS ITS OWN SET OF PITFALLS. So it would be a huge lift for the state to go to something like that. It would take them multiple years if they did, but they haven't even decided if that's the direction that they want to head in.

So that's the fiscal side. Policy side, as I mentioned, accreditation. A lot of other things are likely to come up. Assessment reform is front and center. We're actually, our Pearson contract, I think, technically is up at the end of this year. I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE EXTENDED FOR A YEAR, BUT THEY'RE NOW LOOKING AT A LONGER-TERM CONTRACT WITH A TESTING VENDOR, POSSIBLY THE ONE WE HAVE NOW, POSSIBLY A DIFFERENT ONE. AND AS PART OF THAT CONVERSATION, THEY'RE HAVING CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE STRUCTURE OF SOL TESTS AND WHETHER OR NOT THEY NEED TO BE REFORMED, IS IT THE RIGHT NUMBER, IS IT THE RIGHT MIX? SO THAT'S GOING TO BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION FOR SURE. TEACHER TRAINING, EVERY YEAR THERE'S NEW REQUIREMENTS FOR TEACHERS TO LEARN NEW THINGS.

And there are some legislators that are trying to get a little bit of a handle on that in terms of ramping back or limiting the amount of training that teachers have to go through. There's a possibility we're going to see some comprehensive math legislation, very similar to what we've seen with the Virginia Literacy Act. So it's possible that we get some issue with curriculum. I've heard things about cardiac care teams. I've heard things about diabetes care. THERE WILL BE A LOT OF ISSUES THAT WILL COME UP EVEN THOUGH IT'S THE SECOND YEAR OF THE BIENNIUM. IT'S ALSO A REELECTION YEAR FOR THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. SO YOU GET A LOT OF WHAT YOU REFER TO AS BROCHURE BILLS. SO A LOT OF PEOPLE PUT IN BILLS WHETHER OR NOT THEY THINK THEY CAN

PASS FOR THE PURPOSE OF BEING ABLE TO RUN FOR REELECTION IN THE NEXT GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION. FINAL TOPIC. OKAY, NOW TAKE A DEEP BREATH. THE FEDERAL LEVEL. level I can I could give you an extremely short presentation and use one word uncertainty I was talking with Superintendent Plattenberg as I was walking up here and I said that you know everything that you've learned in all of your textbooks in every single one of your government and political science classes ignore that because we don't know what's coming we've heard some outlandish things we've heard some wild speculation there are all kinds of possibilities all we can really do on the policy side of the world is try to be paying attention and try to kind of map out what we think the implications of

the of some of the potential changes are on the fiscal side of the of the ledger you've got kind of both direct and indirect possible impacts you've heard chatter that you know some of the some of the title programs so title one title two title three you know they they they may have their funding their funding levels may be in jeopardy indirect impacts if they're you know if any of the news media is correct in any of the prognostication about moving agencies out of Washington DC or moving you know moving employees at a federal you know THAT COULD HAVE AN IMPACT ON THE NORTHERN VIRGINIA ECONOMY. SO IT WOULDN'T EVEN NEED TO BE JUST A DIRECT IMPACT ON DIRECT FUNDING THAT WE GET FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

IT COULD HAVE THAT INDIRECT IMPACT ON THE LOCAL ECONOMY, WHICH OBVIOUSLY WOULD REBOUND THROUGH THE ENTIRE SYSTEM. AGAIN, WILD SPECULATION. NOBODY KNOWS. IT'S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT WILL REALLY HAPPEN, WHAT IS, YOU KNOW, AND WHAT IS JUST KIND OF CAMPAIGN BLUSTER the latest thing that came out of the news media. On the policy side, Title IX, I think that's one area that you can be fairly certain that things will change. The Biden administration had put a new Title IX set of rules into place. This administration has already said that they're going to completely scrap that, likely go back to the system that was put into place during the first administration, the first administration for Trump.

BUT THERE'S SOME UNCERTAINTY EVEN THERE IN TERMS OF WHAT THAT MIGHT LOOK LIKE. OTHER TITLE PROGRAMS MAY BE AFFECTED. THERE'S BEEN CHATTER THAT IT COULD TURN TITLE ONE GRANTS INTO EITHER BLOCK GRANTS. SO ACTUALLY JUST SEND THAT MONEY AS A LUMPSUM TO THE STATE AND LET THE STATE SORT IT OUT, HOW IT GETS DISTRIBUTED TO LOCALITIES, OR POSSIBLY KIND OF CREATING A VOUCHER OR SOME SORT OF A VOUCHERIZED SYSTEM WHERE THE MONEY GOES DIRECTLY TO A STUDENT THE CHOICE OF WHERE THEY ATTEND SCHOOL. IDEA, PROBABLY LESS LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED. THAT TENDS TO HAVE MUCH MORE BROADLY BIPARTISAN SUPPORT. SCHOOL NUTRITION, WE'RE NOT SURE IN TERMS OF, YOU KNOW, ONE OF OUR BOARD'S PRIORITIES IS EXPANDING FREE MEAL PROGRAMS. IT'S NOT CLEAR WHERE THAT WILL STAND.

AND THEN ONE FINAL ONE I WANTED TO MENTION WAS THE TECHNOLOGY E-RATE PROGRAM. The E-rate program is funded by I think it's Universal Service Fund which is a fee that's paid to the to the the federal communications administration but there have been some court cases saying that that's kind of an it's an unconstitutional tax and so there's a possibility that the funding stream that goes into E-rate which helps to provide technology for schools broadband THERE'S A CHANCE THAT THAT FUNDING SOURCE COULD BE RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL. IF SO, THAT WOULD PUT THAT PROGRAM IN JEOPARDY. UNLESS IT WAS BACKFILLED BY GENERAL TAX REVENUE, THAT WOULD PUT THAT ONE. THAT'S WHEN WE HAVE MORE CONCRETE INFORMATION ABOUT.

I KNOW I THREW A LOT AT YOU. I APOLOGIZE. THERE'S A LOT GOING ON. I LIKE TO MAKE SURE THAT I COVER ALL MY BASES. MORE THAN HAPPY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS.

Carolyn PitchesTHANK YOU, MR. MALLOY.

Sarah KelseyOn the accreditation and accountability, I guess I should say more. On the accountability, you said for the high school grad measure it's four years. What are they going to do about the kids that are already juniors? And this is the new system. Do they go back and look at past things?

Michael MalloystaffIt's based on a four-year cohort. So it's based on where you're expected to have graduated. So if you're a junior and you started three years ago, then your expected graduation date would be this fourth year. they don't have to go back and reset it they can just look at the cohort as it moves through so there's will

Sarah Kelseybe a different measure probably than the ones okay I'm sure I have more but I'll email you more than happy

Carolyn PitchesMs. McQuillan okay Ms. Hall I

Stacy Halljust have one question sure and I'm probably gonna mess up the name of it but the new school school performance system

Michael Malloystaffschool performance framework yes

Stacy Hallthank

Michael Malloystaffyou so think of think of putting sunscreen on okay it's one way i keep it in my head i like to share with everybody how my head works and that's you know that's how i keep it straight thank

Stacy Hallyou um are there any other states that do this program currently

Michael Malloystaffum there are a lot of states that have similar programs i think you would be hard pressed to find two states that had exactly the same accountability system there are always quirks differences between how different states do things. I'll give you an example. One of the big points of contention with the new accountability system is right now a student who is learning English, their test scores are not counted towards a school's accountability rating or their accreditation rating, which is the way it was, until they have received 11 semesters of instruction in English. If they did well on the assessment that would count towards the school but the school wouldn't receive the negative if the student didn't pass the SOL.

That's changing from 11 semesters to 3 semesters in Virginia. So now a student after 270 days of English language instruction, their SOL assessments will count towards the schools where English language learners are receiving their education after three semesters. That is very similar to what a lot of other states do. However, a lot of other states that do that either measure the growth of those students differently than Virginia's measuring them or have a lot of other types of testing accommodations than Virginia has. The vast majority of states do native language assessment. They allow a native Spanish speaker or a student who is fluent in Spanish to take their equivalent their state exams in that native language.

Virginia does not allow that. So while that's common, so now Virginia can say, well, we're doing three semesters like everybody else. The fact is that we're not doing three semesters like everybody else because other states have different types of accommodations in place that Virginia doesn't have. Now, there has been some talk about moving in that direction, but that won't happen for this first year of the accountability system. This accountability system is being counted on the test now. You're not going to get SOL assessments in Spanish or Arabic or any other native languages. So it's hard to draw comparisons. I think our system becomes more similar to a lot of other states, but it also becomes more dissimilar than other states.

It's just hard to pin down kind of a one accountability system. The only real commonality across is that we all have to follow the federal. There is a set of federal guidelines in terms of what we have to do. But even there, there is a wide degree of latitude in how states address the things that the federal government asks us to do.

Stacy HallSo it sounds like we're comparing apples and oranges and bananas and chocolate and peanut butter all at the same time.

Michael MalloystaffYes, it's not even the entire produce aisle. probably the entire outside perimeter of a grocery store is thank you very much I

Amit Hickmanappreciate that

Carolyn Pitchesof course about

Amit Hickmana thousand questions that are speculative that I'm not gonna ask you about because I know we don't we're all kind of waiting that are holding our breaths to see what's gonna happen but I do have one question I want to go back to the letter that was sent from the the regions in the area okay and the superintendents that you said was kind of broad or I guess the chairs the school boards just kind of brought up today and passed on is there conversation of how that is going to be represented is that going to be a continued conversation or do you think that was like a one and done oh we saw their letter and let's move on

Michael Malloystaffum it depends on whose perspective you're asking about i think from the state board's perspective and virginia department of education's perspective the administration's perspective that's thank you for your letter um i don't think that the that the conversation is over though because obviously we have a general There's a lot of speculation that there may be bills dealing with that. Now obviously this is the administration's program and you can do the math and again the one part of your civics education you can remember is a bill has to not only pass the General Assembly but also has to be signed by the governor in order to go into law or has to be overwritten by two-thirds of each of the chambers.

You can do the math in terms of where that lands. however the conversation isn't going to go away you know we have some speculative data in terms of how our schools would have done with last year's data but it's not it's not a perfect one-to-one comparison there are a lot of new metrics that the state doesn't really even have data collections for so we're gonna see come next fall a completely different way to measure our schools but yeah so that's the conversation's not over but I think for for the purposes of that letter it's been received

Carolyn Pitchesokay so a lot of these metrics like triple E seem to exclude exclude or at the very least overlook special ed and English language learner populations so do you know is fcps doing anything to prepare for these metrics for these groups so

Michael Malloystaffi'm i i can't speak to it directly but you know obviously we we in in fairfax and in northern virginia in general have a lot more i think just objectively speaking we have a lot more supports for these students than a lot of other jurisdictions do will there be a

Carolyn Pitchesstate funding then for

Michael Malloystaffum that is a that is an excellent and open question and it's something that i think people are working on um one thing that they that didn't come along with this accountability system of course is new funding um in fairness it's not really the job of the state board of education to you know they don't they don't appropriate funds um they could be out there saying we need a lot of additional funding and they could be lobbying for it. But that's really going to be more of a conversation with the governor and with the general assembly in terms of okay we now have this new system we have to work towards these new metrics we need help in all of these different areas in order to be able to do these things.

We need the resources to be able to do that and it's not just a matter of redirecting resources it's a matter of this needs to be new resources and new teachers and new programs or greatly enhanced programs. Again, in Northern Virginia, I think we're in a better position to weather some of this and to be able to adjust to it, but it's going to be challenging for everybody.

Carolyn PitchesSo the employment, the CTE piece of the… what courses are approved?

Michael MalloystaffThere is a list that apparently is going to be released

Carolyn Pitchestomorrow. Did you say it was did I misunderstand it's tied to like how the how the salary

Michael MalloystaffIt's high wage and high demand,

Carolyn Pitchesbut okay, can it be one or the it just seems

Michael Malloystaffto

Carolyn Pitchesme

Michael MalloystaffFull credit so for each one of the measures at the high school level There is a full credit level so you can get a one point There is a point seven five level and then there's a point five level To get the full one point on that particular measure, it has to be both high wage and high demand. To get partial credit, it can be either high demand or high wage, but to get the full credit, it has to be both. There's going to be a state approved list. Again, we don't have it. So they haven't

Carolyn Pitchesdetermined what these?

Michael MalloystaffSo the state has done a lot of work in the workforce development arena. Right. It's a matter of translating some of that into the academic courses and the programs that we provide at the school level. There's a lot of work based learning and there's a lot of workforce development that's done outside of the schools. So the kind of the existing system puts together K-12 and higher ed and work kind of the private sector trainings. This is trying to parse out the things that are specific to K-12, which is I think why we don't have the list yet. But I'm told that we may see a list as early as tomorrow.

Carolyn PitchesI would say that to me, even if they come up with a list, some of those jobs pay very HERE THAN THEY DO IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA OR CENTRAL VIRGINIA.

Michael MalloystaffIT IS BASED ON STATEWIDE METRICS. WE WILL PROBABLY BE SURPRISED IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA TO SEE WHAT THEY DEFINE AS HIGH WAGE. IT WILL PROBABLY NOT BE HIGH WAGE IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA SPEAK. IT'S HIGH WAGE. WHAT'S HIGH DEMAND HERE

Carolyn PitchesIS NOT NECESSARILY HIGH

Michael MalloystaffDEMAND. Yeah, and I think high demand is, they're trying, I don't know if they're going to do it on a regional basis, but they are looking at regional demand as a way to gauge what high demand actually means. A great example that was brought up today at the state board meeting was early childhood. Early childhood is a critical need everywhere. High demand,

Carolyn Pitchesbut not high pay.

Michael MalloystaffBut it is not a high wage, and I don't know if you can come up with a metric that would make it a high wage. a high wage job so those conversations are still

Carolyn Pitchesonly become high wage if they start getting some funding from the the state for those people who provide child care services yeah no um do you know the one percent local uh use and sales tax that didn't pass was vetoed and and was not able to pass are there no singular jurisdictions at all that have been approved for that

Michael Malloystaffthere are at least a dozen jurisdictions that have been approved individually individually right so it's a matter of they had they had to come and bring a bill a specific bill and they refer to it as a Christmas tree and there's there's a list in the code of you know these particular jurisdictions are allowed to do this in order if you're not trying to do it statewide if you're just trying to do it for a single jurisdiction you'd have to go in and change the code to add that single jurisdiction to the list of approved localities

Carolyn Pitchescan you speak to the timing is that february time frame like to be able to

Michael Malloystaffuh unfortunately the time frame was it december

Carolyn Pitchesthe end for

Michael Malloystafffinancial so the so the pre so the legislative pre-filing deadlines so there's two different deadlines that legislators have to deal with one is legislative pre-filing where they have more bills and more flexibility in terms of what they can introduce um and that that deadline's already passed that was november 25th right however legislators do have a small number of bills that they can introduce at the beginning of session it's typically reserved for for kind of last minute or special requests but members do have the ability to put in legislation specific you know three or four or five bills each legislator so there still is the opportunity to talk to legislators about trying to get within that five now that five becomes very crowded very fast so

you know it's sometimes a heavy list to get somebody to do that but it is still there is still a possibility I'd say that should be done no later than the beginning of session which is the second Wednesday in January which is the 8th I believe

Carolyn Pitchesokay okay one last thing the pedestrian safety you said you all were trying to get more authority I know that they're in the city we have school board members who have advocated loudly about and not in a bad way um about pedestrian safety especially for our students because you know it's this is the city and there's a lot of roads around here that are V dot roads also so how what What are you guys doing or what's being done to sort of get more authority?

Michael MalloystaffTwo points. One is cities are typically treated differently than counties in terms of road control. In fact, I believe that cities pay for their own road maintenance and everything. So while you are likely to have VDOT roads in Fairfax City, you're likely to have far fewer VDOT-controlled roads in Fairfax City than a county would. In terms of ours, the vast majority of our roadways are VDOT-maintained and controlled. But that's a quirk of the city-county difference. So the cities are in a little bit different position. However, for the specific roads that are controlled by VDOT, it's really a matter of trying to get VDOT's priority list in terms of what they look at when they look at roads. It's not to say the safety isn't high on the list, but it is.

We're typically talking about relatively high volume arteries and the considerations that they have to go through in terms of determining whether or not to drop the speed limit on it. implications for traffic in general for a lot of those roads which makes the conversation a lot more complicated right and you know you may not think about our schools and and facilities being on some of these main roads but if they're one road over or two roads over and our children are going and having to cross those roads and having to you know get get to different places that's when you know we're trying to get the attention of VDOT and get a flexibility or a little bit more acknowledgement in terms of how we deal with some things.

Good example is the pilot that we're doing right now on speed cameras. That's something that we're, as far as I'm aware, has been successful. But that's something that we had to talk extensively about to get some of that flexibility. But to be able to use some of those tools to address some of these safety issues because they're definitely real issues.

Carolyn PitchesThank you. Yeah, they are definitely We have some roads around here that need to I guess we should Advocate a little loudly if we have more control over them Okay, does anybody have any go backs?

Sarah KelseyMiss Kelsey Sorry, I just have a clarification as I read through my stuff Did I hear you right where you said our contract with our assessment group is coming up and they're gonna extend it for one year and then after that they're going to talk about whether we continue the sol

Michael Malloystaffthere was a request for an rfi so a request for information that was sent to all of the national testing vendors with you know a request for them to come back with pricing for various options for virginia to look at now that they've gone through the rfi process i think they had three four or five vendors that sent back yes we would be capable of doing this and here are all the things that we can offer you now it goes to an RFP so it's the request for a proposal and you know now it now it goes through the whole state procurement process one of the high priority items that was mentioned both by house appropriations and senate finance was 25 million dollars to be able to fund the new assessment system going forward so it's on the money committee's radar which means that hopefully

there will be money allocated to do that but also some of the conversations like what I was mentioned earlier about native language assessment that was part of the state's request for information is asking what would it cost us to have these tests translated into other languages and make them available for students so that hopefully that process will go relatively quickly we'll get into a new five I think five or six year contract is what they run for for assessments but yeah so we're still we're still under the current contract the current contract will run long enough to get us through this set of assessments so this spring and then it that's where the conversation will take off from there

Sarah Kelseyso get us through where they're looking at accountability using these measures and then we change the test it's entirely possible okay just

Carolyn Pitcheschecking thank you Okay does anybody have anything else? Thank you Mr. Molloy it was great having you it was a lot of information but it's always good information so thank you and I think you'll probably get some emails Of

Michael Malloystaffcourse no you have my number you have my email so please feel free to send me anything you need

Carolyn PitchesThank you have a great evening Okay next item on the agenda is public hearing we do not have anybody who wishes to speak so we'll move on to the action items I forgot about the updated proposed five-year capital improvement plan so we'll go back to that Mr. Platenberg Thank

Jeff PlatenbergstaffYou Madam Chair members of the school board this evening we'll be talking about the five-year capital improvement plan the most recent iteration of it and what we've done is when we move to the the the first slide that shows any of the data it really is our opening school report enrollment data and then revised based upon what Fairfax County Public Schools provided for the September 30th data for student enrollment and it's bumped up against our program capacity and in looking at these one of the overarching themes one of the things the board's been really concerned about is that Daniel's run is at 96 percent capacity Providence at 98 percent Catherine Johnson middle school is over 103 percent

capacity based upon their program capacity in their enrollment Fairfax High School is at 99 percent so we are seeing the and this is in contrast to flat growth if you will a flat level from Fairfax County Public Schools but we've had consistent growth at all of our schools this past year and we don't think that trends gonna cease anytime soon so what we've done is on the next page really we've talked about what is included in our CIP this reflects the number of different items that we've had in the past the carpet tile concrete repairs and I'll get to all of those in a minute that are the standard ones that are usually included the HVAC maintenance painting paving roof repair and warranties and other projects and some of the grounds work

that we ended up doing but we do have selected projects in here we do have the it was mentioned earlier about from our student reps really talking about one of the comments that was made about the softball field and we do have what's including here two years for that project to continue we have always had it on our radar but with the transition of the coaching staff and one to make sure that in working with the DSA at Fairfax High School the appropriate time to make sure that they do want to go ahead and have some type of artificial turf field and we've gotten that nod so we've included it in the CIP in addition we have some security enhancements to the tune of about $80,000 and also a hallway lighting at Katherine Johnson Middle School that was brought up by

this board and then finally the last item is the improvements for the restroom the lower restroom renovation at Fairfax High School and as I said the next slide really just talks to the items that I mentioned that are pretty standard in here the carpet and tile replacement we do that every year because there are only so many classrooms that we can get done over the summer because our buildings are constantly in use the concrete repairs are for any cracks or tears or breaks that we see in the concrete some of the and gutters and so forth then the HVAC maintenance is maintaining the mechanical units on our rooftops and so forth painting we do have a constant ongoing issue not only with painting on the exterior as madam chair pointed out

Catherine Johnson middle school that we went ahead and made those improvements on before this beginning this school year and then some of the other items and really Madam Chair that concludes the next slide really just speaks to the timeline that we've been through we did present the proposed CIP on September 16th we then had the public hearings on November 12th and then this evening and then tonight is the request from the superintendent for board action on the proposed CIP which incorporates the desires and wishes that the boards articulated through the process of those previous meetings I aforementioned well that concludes my presentation

Carolyn Pitchesthank you um miss kelsey do you have any questions

Rachel McQuilleni just have one and i'm sure we've

Speaker 12already this has already been addressed but just to remind me i'm noticing on the hvac maintenance it drops off 28 29 30 there's no maintenance at all for hvac is that correct do you know how long that will go for yeah

Jeff Platenbergstaffthat's a good question one thing I failed to mention and I appreciate bringing this up is that the CIP is an annual look at our five-year projections so you may see some other items that would come up the majority of those items that would have been in there are included in the projects that were funded by our voters and so in recognition of that we see some of those dropping off however there other items that do come up at the schools that were not included so thank you for bringing that up

Speaker 12okay so is that do you know if that goes through to 2032 just because I know that that's what the FCA recommendations go through so I was just curious if you happen to know

Jeff PlatenbergstaffI don't know off the top of my head no thank you

Speaker 12Ms.

Carolyn PitchesHall no questions but thank you Ms. Hickman The softball field it needs to include fencing well does that and you mentioned turf is that fencing also part of the yes okay yeah

Jeff PlatenbergstaffI was brought up yeah in fact I believe you brought that up yes yes yes we

Carolyn Pitchesdid the press box there in 2017 I believe but the fencing has been pretty bad since then okay and the the Katherine Johnson hallway lighting when will we start the design like how we're gonna

Jeff Platenbergstaffthat's a good question these the the funding on this beginning in the fiscal year 26 so we should be able if it's approved this evening we should be able to get on started on that relatively quickly it will be something we will have to look at the facing the scheduling of that work to when students aren't in the spaces because it is in the hallways and the school is overcrowded so the work would be getting done at any of the iterative breaks that we would have and so on but we'll definitely keep the board informed as to our progress on that if should it be approved this evening

Carolyn Pitchesokay and we have any updates for the security cameras I know they've been back ordered yeah

Jeff Platenbergstaffthe last exactly initially we had some backorder issues that were on material supply and delivery but the latest information that we have that I believe is in our most recent weekly update but for the public which is I know why you're asking is that the we've been moved up to the close of the front to be started per FCPS they had a queue of the number of different schools that they're doing in projects but we're at the front of the queue and it's important to note that it should take approximately eight to ten weeks to get this work done that's what they forecast for us

Carolyn Pitcheswe

Jeff Platenbergstaffhave an actual date we'll definitely okay

Carolyn Pitchesso we don't have a date for one we

Jeff Platenbergstaffdon't have an actual date as of this time correct

Carolyn Pitchesall right so we're relying on FCPS for install

Jeff Platenbergstaffcorrect

Carolyn Pitchesokay is there a way we can do it without FCPS or is that just there this is I mean are we paying for the cameras or are they paying for the camera

Jeff Platenbergstaffthey are paying a small portion for them there is a proportionate not a proportionate here but there is a portion that they are paying for but because we're already scheduled this far up in the queue I think it's best that maintain this course otherwise okay we are looking in the future at the request of this body when we have projects coming up to see if it would be more advantageous for us to go ahead and have that work done miss Innocente the procurement officer for the city of Fairfax has been extremely assistive and helpful with that in that endeavor and I know I met with her when I first came here at your request and I know that mr. Phillips had met with them most on the same subject

Carolyn Pitchesokay and for the old concession stand restroom renovation are we redesigning that now because I we were gonna put the hallway around the front but did we decide if we were just gonna yes sort of redo it all together this

Jeff Platenbergstaffis gonna be a redesign because of the feedback we got and that's why it's I'm wanted to mention that we did include those comments in price did change

Carolyn Pitchesoh yeah I saw that that's I figured it probably must be a pretty significant design change okay oh did you do you want to I know this is for the anybody who's listening talk about the difference between program capacity and building capacity I'd

Jeff Platenbergstaffbe happy to madam chair

Carolyn Pitchesyeah

Jeff Platenbergstaffabsolutely every year the principals are asked to submit to the facility planning office in Fairfax County Public Schools what their capacity is and their layout and where classes are in student counts they also take a look at what you we had presented to us in terms of the enrollment at the actual school but the difference really is when you build a school a school is built to have what's called a design capacity to accommodate the program capacity is the difference between what that initial design is and how many additional programs or alternative programs than what was in the initial design for example you may have planned for two early childhood program classes or you may have different category for students with

special needs you may have designed a few of those classrooms but you may have a greater student body requiring those needs and therefore have to have more classrooms to accommodate those programs so the program capacity generally is less than what the design capacity is with a building to reflect those programs that are being at the school what really is going on if you will

Carolyn Pitcheslike the autism them maybe the odd

Jeff Platenbergstaffclasses

Carolyn Pitchespreschool okay Ms. Kelsey did you have a go back

Sarah Kelseyyeah I just had a question about the security enhancements with the cameras is this just for the elementary schools or is it also because I know you said Katherine Johnson had requested some extra ones

Jeff Platenbergstaffno the the what we're talking about with the security enhancements is we've been looking at some kind of a notification system oh that's

Sarah Kelseyfor that one that's not

Jeff PlatenbergstaffOkay

Sarah Kelseyso then going to the cameras is that just the elementary schools or going to

Jeff PlatenbergstaffIt is just the elementary schools because I believe we did have another plan for the middle school

Sarah KelseyYeah I just wanted to make sure when you're saying that the front of the queue is the elementary schools Correct Not the Katherine Johnson as well or if it's both Gotcha Thank

Carolyn Pitchesyou Okay let's move on to action items the approval of the November 12th 2024 meeting minutes of these minutes is there a motion madam chair miss hall I

Stacy Hallmove that the city of Fairfax school board approve the minutes of the November 12th 2024 school board regular meeting as printed and distributed is

Carolyn Pitchesthere a second thank you miss Hickman okay miss Hall has moved miss Hickman seconded the city of Fairfax school board approved the minutes of the November 6 2023 regular board meeting as printed as and as printed and distributed are there any changes modifications additions no okay being none all those in favor signify by saying aye

Stacy Hallaye

Carolyn Pitchesnone opposed the motion passes unanimously the next action item is to retain Stacey Haney to provide general legal services for the city of Fairfax School Board is there a motion I

Stacy Hallmove that the City of Fairfax School Board retain Stacey Haney to provide general legal services I

Carolyn Pitchesmay have a second

Stacy Hallsecond thank

Carolyn Pitchesyou Ms. McClellan Ms. Hall moved Ms. McClellan seconded the City of Fairfax School Board retain general legal services with Stacey Haney our next action item now I guess all those in favor should signify aye aye no members are opposed the motion passes unanimously okay approval of the 2025 legislative program um may have a motion please madam

Sarah Kelseychair ms kelsey i move that the city of fairfax school board approve the 2025 legislative program as printed and distributed

Carolyn Pitchesmay have a second second okay ms kelsey moved ms mcquillen seconded the city of fairfax school board approved the 2025 legislative program is printed and distributed are there any additions corrections modifications okay being none all those in favor signify by saying aye none opposed the motion passes unanimously okay the last action item is approval of the five-year CIP capital improvement program may have a motion please madam chair miss Hickman I

Amit Hickmanmove that the City of Fairfax School Board approved the fiscal year 2026 through 2030 capital improvement plans the IP as were printed and distributed

Carolyn Pitchesokay may have a second second and miss Hickman move miss Kelsey seconded the city of Fairfax School Board approved the FY 2026 2020 2030 capital improvement plan as printed and distributed any additions corrections or modifications okay being none all by saying aye aye none opposed motion is passes unanimously okay moving on to superintendent matters mr. Plottenberg thank

Jeff Platenbergstaffyou madam chair the only thing I'll say is that hopefully everybody had a really nice opportunity to spend time with their loved ones over this past break that we had it seemed like it was much needed and I think from what I've experienced I was able to hear members of the Fairfax High School choir on Sunday my brother's house and it was just such a joy to see the the bright optimism for our future and our children and the talents that they have in the arts and and will really everything as was witnessed here this evening we have so much to give thanks for and I just wanted to just take a minute to say how thankful I am for the opportunities that have been presented to me I'm not only by this board but also

by the citizens of the city of Fairfax and I can't thank them enough and and and family really just you know our family has transitioned some have gone so to speak and and the ones that are around and seeing the young ones growing up is just really you know it's like some of these students here this evening that were towering over us you know when you have your children as I do and you see them grow up like that it's just it's a total blessing and something that I think we all are grateful for and I just wanted to just take a minute to let people know how grateful I am for just being here and having the opportunity so thank you

Carolyn Pitchesthank you Mr. Pottenberg we're gonna move on to board matters Ms. Kelsey

Sarah KelseyI'd like to know what's in the water actually because of how tall these kids are because a lot of them I do remember when they were much shorter than me but no I want to say congratulations to all of the students that were here tonight and those that couldn't be also for all the great things that they have done academic sports the arts everything that we recognize tonight there are definitely a lot of great talents here in Fairfax City I'm looking forward to a bunch of the concerts that are coming up in the next couple weeks as well as the MTA cabaret and the Fairfax players collab-ber-ay I knew I was gonna mix that one up too and then also I just want to season and enjoy the time with your families and that's it thank you

yes

Rachel McQuillenI just want to say congratulations to all of our student recipients this evening it was great to see this room full of parents and students and just want to wish everybody a safe and healthy happy holiday season it's been a pleasure serving with all of you here on the board and I look forward to seeing you guys out and about

Carolyn PitchesThank You Ms. McCollin Ms. Hall

Stacy HallI just want to echo the congrats of my previous school board members here so I won't bore you with them again I want to just say we had a wonderful time at the Virginia School Board Association conference down in Williamsburg there a lot of learning and interacting and we had some real great opportunities to meet with some of the Fairfax County School Board members which was really really helpful and I also want to thank everyone that's up here being part of the first female board here in the City of Fairfax has been truly amazing I know you know people question diversity and all of the things but I think we have done a really great job of trying to recognize and serve every single one of our students in our buildings our teachers our staff and I'm super proud

of what we have accomplished the bond passage amazing you know we were a whole year earlier than our superintendent would have liked us to have been but he made it happen and our city overwhelmingly supported it which is just really great finally just thank you to the parents the families all of our residents here in the city for trusting me and my board up here with me and I look forward to serving you in a new and different capacity but you are certainly not forgotten up your school board we will be your biggest cheerleaders Thank

Carolyn Pitchesyou Ms. Hickman

Amit HickmanI'm always it's always really fun to just see all the students come in and the pride that they get and you know as they stand up there awkwardness of them taking pictures of us as we feel that we're shorter than them but it's just so nice to see and to see the parents that support them it's really incredible so congratulations to everyone tonight and then all the other people who have not yet been recognized who are beginning to receive accommodations and awards that's been coming up thank you to Miss Hall and Miss McClellan for your service on the school board and we appreciate the work that you've done and we wish you the best I wish you the best of luck in your new positions

Carolyn Pitchesso I'd like to thank both of you for stepping up last election you were not supposed to leave before me though and now I am here but thank you very much it was truly wonderful to have five women work together and I would say we worked together pretty well so I appreciate everything that you guys did in terms of you know your visibility in schools and your advocacy work and now you can continue to do that over you know on the same dais as a state council councilwomen and we're counting on you to really push schools and you know the importance of schools in our community so thank you for your service cannot believe this is your last meeting that's just crazy because it's the middle of the school year and this usually doesn't happen but we do appreciate all you've

done so thank you okay mr. Platenberg do you have any final words for miss McQuillan and miss Hall

Jeff Platenbergstaffthank you best of luck and and then anything we can do to support you and be successful you know you have it so thank you very much

Carolyn Pitchesokay if there's nothing else before the board I will adjourn the meeting at 8 821 Thank you.