Good evening ladies and gentlemen today is Monday February the 2nd and this is the regular meeting of the City of Fairfax School Board. We will start with the for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. There are no changes to the printed agenda and as far as I know there are no announcements. The first thing is I have some certificates of appreciation to present to school board members. The month of February is Virginia School Board appreciation month. And Virginia School Board's association has provided each board in the Commonwealth with certificates. The certificates read February 2009 honoring school board members for your commitment and service to the children of the Commonwealth as a school board member presented with best wishes and thanks from the Virginia School Board Association and they are signed by Frank Verum and Stewart Gibson who is the president. I'm going to make this presentation right now. I have one for John Bethron. We'll get right after. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. I'll leave the floor, come on here. member of the committee. Thank you, Chair. We have one. I have, and I'm just going to do this from here, I have one additional presentation while February is the school board appreciation month, the month of February 15th to the 21st is Virginia School Board's Association Clerk Recognition Week. And on behalf of the Board, I have a certificate for our clerk Linda Pierce Linda. Thank you very much. Thank you Mrs. Pierce. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mrs. Spierce. We will move on to our regular agenda and the first item is citizen participation. And Mrs. Spierce do we have people who have signed up to address the board? Mr. Gerry O'Dail? Mr. O'Dail? Motion that the chair provide not three but 30 minutes in order to allow Jerry O'Dell to finish reading some excerpts from this booklet, homeschooling in the new Canon code. The three minutes of this general. I'm sorry. Three minutes, Mr. O'Dell. Thank you. Given the restriction on time, I'll just read some excerpts that I found particularly interesting. One is this one. It says, as it is a parent who have given life to their children, children come on them lies the greatest obligation of educating their family. They must therefore be recognized as being primarily and principally responsible for their children's education. The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute. That's another excerpt on that was page 20. Page 21, directly within the code's treatment of Catholic education. That can and we're talking about here states the parents and those who hold their place that is to say adoptive parents or guardians are bound by the obligation and enjoy the right of educating their children. Catholic parents also have the duty and the right of selecting those means and institutes by which in light of local circumstances they can better provide for the Catholic education of their children. Canon 793.1 is a keystone in the rapidly growing complex of Canon supporting the parental decision to homeschool a child. As you know, I said on many occasions at this podium that those listening would be well advised to consider seriously extracting their children from the public. That is to say the pagan schools and placing them where they can gain a better education, religious schools, and still better. Certainly, if you want to measure by the results on this scholastic aptitude test, homeschooling. And the final passage I'd like to bring to your attention is one on page 23. Finally, less the gravity of the parental rights and duties over the education of their children remain in any doubt. We should note a provision taken from the penal code, the penal section of the panel section of the Code of Canaan law. Can in 1366 states, quote, parents are those holding the place of parents who hand over their children to be baptized or educated. Those words are in italics or educated. In a non-catholic religion are to be punished by a censure or other just penalty. Christmastum College is a source of this. 30 seconds. See you in the school. Yeah, your time is up. Thank you, sir. The next item is the reported student representative. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you. A couple of things. The course election fair will be going on tomorrow, during school hours for all rising 10th to 12th graders. They will be able to go to four different AP, honor, pre-AP and selective courses that will interest them for the next school year. Tomorrow night, curriculum night will be held at 6.30pm, and that will be for all parents of rising freshmen through seniors who want to receive more information about the classes their kids are interested in taking next year. More information at Fairfax High School's website. Senior grades will be updated on February 9th and that will include the 1.0 for all AP classes from their past years and their senior year and will be mailed out to colleges next week. Rubble Roundup is on Wednesday, February 18th, and that's a three hour late opening for our students. That will be held from 7.20 till 9.20 in the morning. There will be a junior, parent and student college night on February 11th at 7 p.m. Drama students recently competed in the VHSL One Act plays and received second place at districts, but unfortunately they're not win at regionals. But we congratulate them on a well done job this year. And it's good to know that they did win first place last year, at the state level. The Fairfax Academy and Fairfax Drama just finished their production of seeing in the rain, and it was a tremendous success. This production involved the music theater academy, the fashion academy, who provided all the clothing and in the stage, the TV studio, who filmed them recorded the production. A dance program at Fairfax, who did the choreography, the music academy, and the FHS theater department. As you can see, it took a lot of work and preparation, but it paid through as each performance had audiences laughing and enjoying their time there. Congratulations to Mr. Rupalgo, his students, and his team on a well done job. The next drama is a funny thing happening on the way to the forum, and additions will be held on February 25th and the 26th in the auditorium from 2 to 5pm. The FHS Coral Department will be hosting their first cabaret night in the FHS cafeteria. On Monday, February 9th at 7pm, this event will feature performances by coral students, food and an auction. This will be an enjoyable evening for all ages and all proceeds will go to the music trip at the end of March where they will be going to Orlando, Florida. More information is at fhscores.net. The 2009 Hall of Fame induction ceremony was held on Friday, January 23rd during half time of the varsity boys basketball game. Three new members including Harold's stall maker, namesake of our full-ball stadium and grandfather of current FHS baseball senior John Bricks' milk packed former golf coach and father of FHS staff member Amy Craig and stellar students last athlete Brandon Roycer class of 2000 were inducted. Congrats to indoor track in districts several athletes qualified for region competition including David Ladd, won the 55-meter dash. And spring sports began on February 23rd. Okay, thank you very much, Danny. Our next agenda item is a presentation from Principal Kathy Molenex. Mrs. Molenex is here with us this evening, and she is the principal at Daniel's run at home entry. Thank you very much for coming this evening. Mrs. Mullinx and for having your staff members come out. Thank you very much Mrs. Miller and I want to thank the board for having us this evening to present some of the updates about Daniel's run. It's always wonderful to have an opportunity to share some of the things we're doing in our school for children. I didn't want to introduce some of the things we're doing in our school for children. I did want to introduce some of the audience members. We have three teacher presenters tonight. They are Nancy Nelson, our title one teacher and Ditty Beckner, our reading teacher. They'll be presenting Christie Scherz. We'll be next. She is our math lead teacher. And last but not least is our new advanced academics resource teacher, Erica Berson. And she's here. She did have some knee surgery on Friday. So I just really appreciate her being here tonight because she is the new kid on our block and it's nice to have her here to share some information about what she's doing in school. We have some other staff members, Pam Holmes, our ESPIT. She's going to be assisting with a PowerPoint. Lori Huberman Hayes, a lot of you have already met. She is phenomenal with our science program and Robin Matthews is our media specialist who's here to join us, and we really appreciate that. So I'll try to keep my remarks brief, because I think the presentation is really the substance and part of what's going on at Daniel's run. But I did want to let you know one thing, some of our good news at Daniel's run and probably the most recent and the one that was really made all of us feel terrific was that we were notified that we were one of 45 Fairfax schools to be recognized by the State Board of Education for earning the Governor's Award for Educational Excellence. This is a huge honor knowing how many schools are in the state, and we're really pleased. We feel that the award is earned definitely by the hard work of our students and the commitment of our staff. I also wanted to acknowledge recognition of others who have been instrumental in our accomplishments and in this award. And that would be our parents. Every parent has made a contribution to their child's learning and without them. We would not be as successful as we are. We have a terrific PTA, very supportive of all kinds of programs at school. And I want to acknowledge also the board because your ongoing support and interest in the school from way back when every year has really made a significant impact and it's a positive impact on student learning. So we are most appreciative and consider you part of our winning that award. I also want to recognize and thank our cluster seven assistant superintendent who's here tonight, Linda Burke. She's been very proactive in supporting the staff, Mrs. Turner and I, especially as we fine tune our professional learning communities. Her leadership has really helped all of us strengthen our efforts. We are becoming more diligent in our grade level planning, the vertical grade level planning at Daniel's run, as well as the pyramid planning. That is, I think that's really taken off in the past year. And it is all falls under the umbrella of the division, strategic goals, and then the K through 12 roadmap, just dovetails so beautifully, and it's such a beacon for us to hang on to as far as making sure we are spiraling. I did want to also mention that we feel we are closing the achievement gap. We are looking at all of the subgroups in the various areas. What I have noticed in definitely within the area of reading and science, many of the history, subgroups and all the grade levels and definitely some of the math, not all of the math, but definitely some of them. We have, between last year and this year, we have had a lot of movement of children from past proficient to past advanced. And that has been very reassuring. We feel like we're on the right track and that's what we want to see as all children moving. In addition, we've seen children who had failed last year, failed last year in 2007. We've seen greater numbers passing. They've gone from the fail to the past. So that's a kind of movement we're always working on trying to improve. The gap is closing, I believe, because teachers are more taking the time to really analyze the data, the formative and summative assessments, having lots of conversations about that, pinpointing needs, and implementing lessons with appropriate follow-ups. So we are trying to work on that consistency, K-6, and then within the grade level. We do provide opportunities for direct instruction. There's some co-teaching going on, black screw thing, and of course the use of technology is incredible for everybody at every grade level. I don't think there's one person that doesn't see the gain and benefit in that. I don't think there's one person that doesn't see the gain and benefit in that. We are using E-CART, and I know you've heard about E-CART from various people, and I have to tell you, we're excited about it. It's always a little scary when new things come on the horizon, but this is a system that really does pull together a lot of resources and information. Teachers are accessing new pacing guides that we believe are aligned very well to SOL's objectives and the program of study objectives. You can really see where they're meshing and where we're stretching kids. Lots of information about essential knowledge, essential vocabulary. It has the curriculum maps are gone and E-CART is taking over that piece. So there's so many tools, lessons, lesson ideas, interactive resources, and more links than I think we can count on how to use this system. And I think right now what we're dealing with is, we're still on a learning curve with it. But I'm so pleased that the staff at all grade levels, it was something big, something new to take on, and they really did jump in and are taking it seriously. And they do want to start with, because they know that if we don't all start at the same time, that spiraling effect and the benefit is just not going to happen. So we want our kinders to be getting certain concepts and skills that will build into first and so on. Part of E-Cart, and I'm sure you've heard about this, is the aspire. That's the assessment component. And it replaces the old part, which there were some issues with BART and we're so happy that the county now has its own assessment tool. And that has been very interesting. We had our first assessment, the end of first quarter, early second, grading quarter, and that is our baseline data. So we're anxious. We'll be doing the second aspire and that's going to be hopefully good results. So we're anxious to get that data and as that comes forward, you know, I'm certainly happy to let you know how we're doing. Navigating the E-Card does take training in time. And the, as I said before, I think the teacher really recognizes potential, especially with building on prior knowledge, helping kids to make those learning connections. And while we don't have every content area set up for a pacing guide for all four quarters, hopefully that's going to come. But math is nice. We're really happy about what we're seeing in the math. The other thing that we're noticing too is that I think this comes from just learning more about the practice of good teaching, effective teaching, is helping our students become more invested in their own learning. We know the research that tells us how children learn best and actually using those strategies to help them make those gains. In many of the areas, particularly math, we are trying to focus on not just the right answer, but talking about how did you get that answer. Show me in the steps what steps you took. And oh, if you had to solve it in other way, show me those steps. So they are having to, it's not just about right answers, it's explaining your thinking. We see that in all content areas, but it's very useful in math. And I think that's what is gonna make the biggest difference to the learning and preparing them for middle and high. We do have some good news. We have two groups of compacted math for sixth. We have 45 children taking compacted math. We have seen gains in children taking the seventh grade and eighth grade SOL and more children qualifying for algebra. So bit by bit we are seeing that growth and we're really pleased and they did phenomenally well on their SOLs. Pass advanced. I think there was like one pass proficient but everybody else was pass advanced. So that was exciting. Having said all of this, we're always thrilled when we meet a YPA, that's our biggie, and the recipient of the Governor's Award just really makes all of us feel pleased that we are on the right track. But we do know there's still areas that we want to work on and one is math and to keep pushing, pressing, focusing on our children who are at risk or in some of our subgroups that second language learners making sure that they, none of them, fall through the cracks. And I think we're doing a good job. One of the things that happens, I think, with teachers is they do see good progress from September to June. And they see it in some of our summative testing as well as the formative, what they do during the year. But sometimes that progress just doesn't make the cuts for it, but they've had tremendous gains. And that can be a little discouraging when you know how far they come and then you're looking at those state assessments and you're finding well they're not quite where they need to be so we do want to we always want to recognize those students for their gains. This year actually this spring we are facing higher cut scores with the S.O. Wells. That's going to be a little bit of a challenge for us. We're going to 81% in reading from previously being 77 and 79 from 75%. So that is a challenge. But I think if all of us stay focused and positive, I know that we're committed to ensuring that each child has access to resources and getting them where they need to be and we're going to do our very best to make that happen. This year, just to highlight some of where we are with our class sizes and staffing. Our class sizes have been relatively low and it was actually a little bit of a surprise and I think we've had people coming and going at all the grade levels but we don't have classes bigger than 26 at any grade level except fourth and at fourth they're running 28 to 29 and then some of the classes actually run between 18 and 22. So I have told everybody just soak it all up, enjoy it because we know there's going to be some changes with the budget and we are going to make it work. We have a lot of great resources in our building. The staff is phenomenal. You're support, the support of the cluster. These are our people. Our teachers really, really do work together. They are very committed to each child. And the nice thing about this staff is they're committed to each child. And the nice thing about this staff is they're committed to each other. It's it's it is a very tight community of teachers who want to help and support each other. And they do that. Our parents are great volunteers. They're participating in lots of aspects of our school life. We've had some nice changes in terms of email, getting PTA, setup for email, and blackboard, and all kinds of things. And as far as our kids go, at Daniel's run, I think, and I know all of the staff and you, they're the best. They're just the best. No matter how old, where they're coming from, what they're doing, we love them all. And I think of ourselves and our extended family. We are the village that is going to help them succeed. And I hope you enjoy the presentation by the teachers. And if you have questions after work, we'll be happy to answer them. So we'll just get on with our program. Thank you. This is long. Thanks. Hi. I am Nancy Nelson, one of the reading teachers at Daniel's Run. I've been there since the beginning of our separated new school. And I'm one of the three reading teachers at Daniel's run. You can put that first slide up. We're, and you can go to the next one actually. In terms of collecting data on our kids and reading in the primary to drive our instruction, we rely on these assessments that you see in front of you. In kindergarten, we use the DRI2 word analysis and then in grades 1 through 6 we rely on the DRA 2 reading test which we use with our primary and upper grade students and of course a spire in the SOLs. But as you can see in the note on the bottom there are many other formative assessments used throughout the year to collect information and to analyze it and to drive our instruction. As I'm sure you already know, at the kindergarten level, all our students are administered the DRA-2 word analysis in the spring and the fall. And we use 11 of the 40 subtests on that test. And it helps us not only identify areas of strength and weakness, but then in the spring, we can use it to measure growth. And this that you're gonna see in front of you now is an example of a class profile that we put together after all our testing is done. At our PLC team meetings, we look at this data not only to inform our instruction and form small flexible groups to support learning, but also to identify overall grade level trends. So if you look at that sample with me really quickly, what you can see and what we've highlighted there are the yellow bars that you see are some of the areas that we see as things that we need to kind of focus on a little more strongly. And the classroom teacher has this in front of her and in our team meetings we'll talk about how her children are looking, how she might be able to group them to support them. And so in some of those areas that you see right there, for example, under the first column rhyming, we noticed that some of our kids at the beginning of the year were not doing as well in rhyming as we wanted them to do. And so we were able to go into E-Cart and use the pacing guides and really identify some lessons and ways that we can support the kids to improve those scores. Then the green sections that you see there are some of our strengths, recognizing the capital letters, understanding basic printed concepts, and initial sounds of pictured words. And so we want to, you know, see who those children are, who are strong, and obviously support them to be able to move a little further along. Then if you look at the next slide, we're going to be able to move a little further along. Then if you look at the next slide, we're going to talk then just for a second about the DRI2 reading. And at, of course, once the students enter first grade, the text reading really enters the assessment picture more formally. We're in the kindergarten level. We're really looking at some of the finimical awareness types of things. Now we're getting into the text reading with children. And despite the fact that the county does not require us to use that test, but at the end of the year, we choose to use it beginning middle end end in first grade because we really think it gives us the kind of picture of our students at the beginning of the year that we really need to have to be able to know where we go from here. So we use it both form it if throughout the year and then summit about the end of the year to see how far that they have gotten. And the next thing you're gonna see there, that is a picture of the continuum. And that's what we generate on every child tested with the DRA. You'll see something that looks similar to this all the way up through the sixth grade level. If you look in the middle at that red cut line, what you're seeing there is sort of the separation between on the left hand side, the stronger, the students who score more strongly, and on the right hand side, those who might need support in some of those areas. So that independent instructional area, and then we have the intervention and instructional areas on the right. And again, we look at the children, if you look at the descriptors on the left-hand side, those are each of the components of that test that we give. And again, one of these, this sheet is generated for every student, one through in first grade and second grade. I'm just going to talk about the primary right now. And we can look at not only the individual children's performance, but we can look at trends across the grade level and see what we need to work on as a team and what we need to do to support individual children. Again, that yellow and the green that you see there, those green areas, we feel our areas that we've really worked hard on and our kids are getting really good at. Retelling stories and that literal comprehension. And we want to really work hard on more of the reflective thinking, more of the deeper thinking, critical thinking skills in that interpretation and reflection section that you see there. And that's why we put those in our school plan, and that's why we work together as teams talking about the types of things that teachers can do to promote that, whether it's shared reading or in their guided reading lessons. And then obviously the yellow rate up at the top, you'll see the rate. And I think more at the primary than the upper, we've noticed that we want our kids to be a little bit better at that quicker problem solving and getting that fluency underway. So again, we go into the, to e-card to look for lessons and things that will support the children becoming a little bit more fluent in their reading. So if you go to the next one, I think Pam, this last slide here that I'm gonna talk about, this is something that's just ours at Daniel's run. And we put together this, I believe two years ago, it's become more electronic over the years, it used to be a little bit more rustic than this, but now we've got it on our server and what this is is just sort of a it captures a picture of what our first grade and our second grades look like the beginning of the year. We'll do it several times throughout the year, but the sample that I brought for you here tonight is a picture of first grade, an example of first grade at the beginning of the year, and then first grade into the end of second quarter. And what you'll see there, it's color coded, so each teacher's classroom is a particular color. And then the outlines of the boxes are a color that identifies their reading level at the beginning of the year. And we can see as the year goes on, it's really a quick visual for us to see how is the grade level looking. Again, it's a pretty narrow picture of reading because it's really just identifying either their DRA level or their guided reading level. But it's a really nice visual for us at our team PLC meetings to talk about students, how we can work together, how is our grade level looking. And I think it has our teachers thinking more in terms of all of our kids being ours and how can we problem self together to get those kids maybe better at that the struggling end to move along a little bit better what are some strategies we can share for getting them moving and then at the you know the other end obviously you know how can we get those kids in which so that they get exactly what they need and then of course what are we providing for the bulk of our students that are in that center area there? So, what we really want to see for you to see tonight is that we take teaching even our littleest ones very seriously that I think teaching today, myself having been in teaching for as long as I have, I think it's such a different animal than it was so many years ago. And that we are very much dead and driven even at the, you know, the very earliest levels that Daniel's run. So thank you for letting us share that information. Thank you so much. Next we're going to do the back. Hi, I'm Deedy Beckner. I'm another reading teacher at Daniel's run. And tonight I'll be briefing slides on our upper grade reading and as you can see on the next slide We also use the DRI to Reading assessment with our upper grades for grades three through six It's a formative assessment and even though it's also it's not a county requirement We believe in giving this assessment to our upper grades because it also identifies their areas of strength and weakness and it really helps us in terms of formative assessment drives our instruction. And next slide. This is also another sample of the continuum, but this is an upper grade continuum. It's very similar to the primary and you can see that red line again that divides down the middle with the yellow highlighted areas showing our needs improvement areas and then the green highlighted areas showing our strengths. We noted that one of our strengths in the upper grades is literal comprehension and summary retelling with a weakness being fluency similar to our lower grades and metacognitive awareness. Those higher level thinking skills we noted that we tend to be a little bit weak in that area. And if you'll go to the next slide, we also took the continuum and sort of made it our own in a way that it's a very visual snapshot of what a typical classroom might look like. You can see in this slide, and we took these continuums and put them into this snapshot in our PLC group so that we could talk about not only individual students but how do they look in a classroom and a team. And you can see the green areas, again, indicate where our students are functioning at an instructional and independent level and then the yellow and red areas would indicate intervention or frustration. So we really like this tool, and we think it's great for classroom teachers and teams as well. And then next slide, if we sort of sum up all of our grades and celebrate our successes, we find that most of our students at Daniel's Run really function as readers on or above grade level with their reading accuracy noted at the top. And I have listed comprehension, which may be a little bit confusing, but this is specific to fiction texts. We found that typically our trend remains strong in the area of comprehension with relation to fiction texts. We also feel that one of our successes is using that PLC model to close the gap. And we use it by being able to discuss and analyze our formative assessments and our SOL scores and compare and contrast. And also as a staff, we're very involved in staff development with planning and presenting and attending. So those are some of the successes that I believe we have with reading and Daniel's run. And then the next slide sort of highlights a little bit of our needs and you see that comprehension strategy pops up. And we're dedicated to addressing these needs, especially in the area of nonfiction text. Rate of reading is also something that we're looking at with the fluency. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about our E-CART resources and the pacing guides in the next couple of slides. And then the PLC model that I talked about really allows us to collaborate and talk about our students and use our resources like the guided reading materials. It affords us the opportunity to really differentiate our instruction. So let's go to the next slide and we'll look at how we're using some of that aspire and e-card data. This is a typical example or sample of a third grade language art to aspire assessment. And one of the PLC activities that we conducted in the fall was we took our language art to aspire data from window one. And we looked at it and analyzed it and we found that the data was actually consistent with what our DRA2 data showed us. It showed us that our students were weak and nonfiction comprehension when this window assessment came back. And I have a little red arrow. I know it's a little bit tough to see highlighting SOL 3.6 and it states the student will continue to read and demonstrate comprehension of nonfiction and that was an area that we noticed that a majority of our students need improvement. So we took that data and then the next slide shows how we took the E-CART facing guide and we looked at it in our PLC groups and we went through and we found all the areas in reading that covered that particular SOL that we noted that we were weak on through the Aspire data. And this really changed our thinking and helped us inform our instruction in terms of pacing and where we need to be with our students. And we really found that this Aspire model and then the E-Cart Pacing Guide has helped us in terms of formative assessment. So that sums up pretty much what we have for reading and I'm gonna be followed by Christy Sharks and she'll be talking to you a little bit about mathematics. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dee Dee. Kathy stole a little of my thunder. I'm gonna talk as well about celebrating our successes in math. I think that we have a lot to be proud of as far as this relatively new compacted math system we're trying to get kids prepared for algebra earlier. And we have more and more students getting into seventh grade algebra and our qualifying scores kids are into compacted. We have 45 kids in compacted math this year. It's doubles in flashed year. The SOL scores in fifth and sixth grade, which are usually troublesome years, the kids who are passed advanced over the last year has almost doubled in both grade levels. So we have a lot to be proud of. And I continue to work as a resource with teachers on collaborating to close the Achieve Make-App using formative assessments to plan instruction and plan intervention. So many things are the same. Our subgroups, scores, are making or making gains in those areas as articulated in our school plan, our focus areas of number and number since and pattern, functions and algebra, our subgroups we've showed gains. We definitely admittedly have worked to do. We continue to make these study gains, but I'm convinced that slow and steady might not win the race in this case, and while nationwide we're plagued by week map achievement, I think that we need to look to significant change. So what I'm going to talk about is not the consistent sound instructional strategies we've used over the last several years. I'm talking about things that are specifically different to this year. The provided context of some of the changes happening, the stairway to talk about the new County Pacing Guide in math. This is a new ordering of Virginia State standards and allows for more continuity through the Fairfax County schools not only vertically but from elementary to elementary for kids who would move. But more importantly, it's a new way of looking at curriculum. The major changes in the pace of the curriculum and the order of the topics are meant to strengthen students' number sense, specifically since about rational numbers. Number sense topics are brought up early and revisited throughout the year, so fractions rather than being taught at the end of the year as an isolated subject are taught early and are revisited throughout the year in an application manner and in ways that help students make connections to other concepts to really strengthen those ideas and bring that home. And why this is so important is that fractions are huge step for a huge way of opening a door for algebra for kids. Fractions have been shown to give kids access to algebra, success with fractions. So as articulated in the roadmap, we wanna make sure that we have those long-term goals and we're setting our sights on that very early for our second grade. Adopting this document, however, has been no small feat. We definitely have had some ruffled feathers. It's been a lot of hard work for teachers to make such changes in their pacing and curriculum and a lot of reflecting on how we're teaching and why we're teaching things in the order that we teach. The pacing guide has prompted countless discussions ranging from what concepts are particularly troubling to students and why as well as what it really means to have mastered a specific S.O.L. There's a new awareness of the huge impact we have, even at kindergarten first grade level, on students' success later, after they leave our doors. As we work to align day-to-day instruction with the SOLs and these long-term goals, we've collaborated to pull from a wealth of new and effective resources. And I put an example in here that the SOL, that this example, this is an example of the pacing guy. The SOL is a first grade SOL. It's very straightforward, counting from one to 100, concrete objects, very easy to teach. But some of the resources that we're pulling, I highlighted one in red, it's from a book called Groundwork's Algebraic Thinking. And so we're taking a very straightforward S.O.L. and we're pulling all these varied resources that are going to bring in more reasoning and bring in more problem-solving and basically algebraic thinking at a first grade level. So we're hopefully diving into some of those concepts that will provide a strong foundation for later. We also collaborate over this pacing guide to examine our teaching closely. These weekly discussions about the most effective lessons and about diverse techniques that try to reach different students were problem-solving as a group rather than individual teachers trying to go back and retie kids who were struggling. Overall we've changed and improved the resources we're using in the way we intervene for struggling learners, the sharing of ideas and resources. We look at research and mathematics education rather than the next page and index book to decide where we're going to go next. In the next one. Another change is the close alignment with the new county-wide E-Card assessments. I don't want to be redundant, but the new assessments in math are very similar to counties started this across the board. The math reasoning assessment for grades one and two and the aspire quarterly assessments for grades three to six give us a wealth of new information on specific areas of strength and areas of weakness as well as a common format for discussing the student progress. The data allows us to take a whole grade level of students and examine maybe overall tough concepts or we can look at specific small groups or individual students to plan interventions. This is crucial because we now have sort of a bridge that we can to that third grade S.O. well so we can have an intervention that's much earlier rather than waiting until a student is in third grade and failing S.O. Well, and we need to remediate. So hopefully we're planning these interventions for a second grade to kind of alleviate some of that and get rid of that problem. In short, these assessments give us a very specific and common language to discuss student progress. As far as areas of need, here's a sample breakdown of some of the data in first grade. And the first grade team, as a team, we would look at this and look for maybe kindergarten SOLs that weren't mastered, that there's a surprising number of kids who are still struggling with that they should have gotten in for kindergarten. So we, rather than, again, rather than that teacher going back and re-teaching that group of students who still aren't quite there and losing that time, as a team, we sit down and find ways to work in that concept to maybe other units or science or different maybe into different areas across the day that they could strengthen that knowledge in that area. If we have an area maybe that all students have mastered that's a first grade SOL and it's completely done and we can look at ways to take that concept and use it at an application level so it strengthens understanding and yet we can find ways to challenge kids and help them move quickly through their curriculum. There's a whole pooling of our resources and our expertise at these grade level meetings and at these PLC meetings where everybody's involved in all the students at the whole grade level. And next is Eric Verson, our Advanced Academic Resource Specialist. Thank you so much. And thank you for being here even with your bum knee. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Erica Berson, and I'm the advanced academic resource specialist. I want to talk to you tonight a little bit about how enrichment is, has an unfolded, at Daniel's run this year. It's a little bit different than it has been in the past because I am here full time. And one of the things I want to start with is just talking about what enrichment is. Oftentimes when we think of children in some kind of an advanced academic program, we talk about them moving faster through the curriculum, mastering more skills, memorizing more facts, and aiming for that instant gratification when you think of AP classes, so forth. I mean, that's kind of what our thinking is. And the question that we need to ask ourselves is, what does all of this rushing really do? What does just mastering more information or learning more information really do? We need to sort of change that philosophy and challenge children to help them find reward in thinking critically and thinking deeply, in thinking flexibly, making connections between their ideas and helping them go beyond the obvious to devise alternative situations and solutions to problems, teaching students to stretch themselves creatively and most important, well almost as important as anything else is persevering. Oftentimes, students in advanced academic programs are used to things being very easy for them. And we need to give them problems that are difficult and keep challenging them and pushing them and have them persever and work through difficult problems. I'd like to add a quote here from the Fairfax County presentation that we had to give to parents. Intelligence is not how much you know or how fast you learn, but the path you take when you don't know the answer. If we want to develop children who think critically, we must present curricular problems, challenges, discrepancies, or dilemmas for which the answers are not easily accessible. And that is the overall goal of enrichment at Daniel's run. Next slide. At Daniel's run, we support the philosophy that every child has the basic right to an education that promotes the development of his or her potential. And we are committed to providing challenging learning experiences for all learners that build upon their individual strengths and optimize their abilities. And it's very important that I stress all learners because enrichment needs to be an opportunity, enrichment opportunities need to be given to all students. As the Advanced Academic Resource Teacher or the Art, part of my job is to regularly collaborate with the grade level teachers, I do that through the PLCs individually, a team meetings. And part of what I do is align instruction, my instruction with the SOLs. I share the strategies that I've learned as a GT or advanced academic resource teacher. I share my strategies for engaging students and higher level thinking in the content areas, most specifically in math and language arts. So everything that Christie and D.D. and Nancy have talked about are things that I'm deeply involved with as well. Also, I stay rest of current issues, concerns related to each grade level. So if there is a difficulty in a particular grade level that an area of need, I can work on those needs as well. It's not just a grade level problem. It's not just for everybody else but the GT child. It's my issue as well. And one of the other things that we try to do at Daniels, we're trying to do this here at Daniels Run, is maintaining a flexible program to give the most students the greatest opportunities to reach their potential. And basically what that means is allowing students that may not be originally identified as GT to partake in some of the GTA experiences or just have kids be moving fluidly in and out of small groups or even have different kinds of opportunities. Just try them in those, push them harder in more difficult challenging situations. Next slide, thanks. Specifically, some of the ways that enrichment is provided is through me, as well as through the classroom teacher, doesn't always have to be just me. Christy definitely alluded to this. All teachers, they have that pacing guy, they have access to those ground works activities, those ways that they can provide enrichment activities. It doesn't necessarily always have to come from the GT teacher. So, but enrichment is provided by me as well as the classroom teachers through higher level thinking lessons, which are the GT lessons that were assigned by the county to give to the students. These higher level thinking lessons are designed to develop critical, creative, higher order thinking skills and all students. They teach various thinking strategies, working backwards, webbing, fluidity, fluency. And it gives them tools to approaching problem solving. These higher level thinking lessons also serve as a useful tool for identifying students with advanced academic potential. Another way that we provide enrichment is through flexible grouping as we mentioned before, and that's done mostly in language arts and math this year, but that's not to say that in future years we might not do it in other subject areas as well. This is my first year doing this, so we're keeping the program fluid and varied and aware of the needs of the students. And of course we do flexible grouping in math as well through our advanced problem solving in the classroom as a whole class, through our compacted math classes, through just deeper math analysis, having the students be more aware of their responses to how they're thinking, how they're solving problems, as Kathy had mentioned, we need to do more of the writing. What am I thinking about? How did I come up with that problem? Is there another solution to solving the same problem? And sharing that information with each other? So we've talked about the higher level thinking lessons, the flexible grouping, and a new thing that we started this year at Daniel's run is our strategies lab, which is very exciting. Strategies, the strategies lab is a room, which is my classroom, which is filled with games. But they're just not any old games. They are strategy games. And some of the games that there could be things that you might be familiar with, chess, checkers, and so forth, blockess, rush hour, tip over. I don't know if you've heard your children come home with these same titles of names. But what the Strategies Lab is, is it's an area where projects and activities centers are process-oriented. Their hands on. And it's an area where projects and activities centers are process oriented, their hands on, and it's a place that fosters creativity and divergent thinking. And it's a challenging place where frustration can turn into success. It's also a place where all students feel success. Whether you are the new ESOL students just coming from another country to the high level advanced learner. All students are challenged and there's not as much a verbal, that things that are required verbally from students, it's all strategies. Stradula allow students to develop problem solving strategies for confronting unknown or unfamiliar. It improves students' abilities to solve problems in and out of the classroom. And the lab develops strategies that cause all students to think and work more creatively. Another aspect of the Iron Richmond program is our Philosopher's Club, which we started with the Six Graters. And it's just, it's really taken off. I did it last year at my other school in this year and this is a place where children talk about their thoughts and concepts about the world. They follow a method of questioning that's inspired by Socrates. The manner of discourse helps students nurture their ability. And the fourth are the ability to reason in imaginative and constructive ways. In this form of inquiry, children are required to back up their viewpoints. Why they feel a certain way about something. They are required to back it up with compelling evidence that's presented in well-structured arguments. So they are sitting there with pens and pencils in a circle setting, and they are questioning each other, arguing with each other, and getting to the real meat of the topic that they're excited about. And we most recently, just this past January, started our GEMS program. Girls excited about math and science. And this is a program also trying to enrich all students. We're doing it with sixth grade this year. If it takes off, then we'll see how it grows next year. And it's an after school club that supports girls' interests in science, math, and technology. And we are having women, professional women in these fields come to Daniel's run and share their experiences in these areas and how they got excited about math and science in hopes that we'll get more of our girls excited about those areas as well. And it's about it for the enrichment program. I'll turn it back over to Kathy. Thank you so much. No hard, no hard, no hard. Right there. I just wanted to see if any of you have any questions specifically for our staff or for me about what's going on at Daniel's run. Hopefully you're seeing why I'm the luckiest principle in Fairfax County. These are terrific lead people. And they've done so much with staff development in our building. And I just want to, many of you already know that you're apparent in my building, but if you're not, you're certainly welcome and Dana U as well. If you want to come and visit a classroom, talk to any of our staff in more detail. You're more than welcome to it. But if you have any questions, we'd be happy to try and answer them. Thank you very much. Very much, Mrs. Mullinx. And thank you to all the staff people. This has given us a really great overview on what is going on at Daniel's run. Questions from board members? Oh, I'm sure. Let's start with Danny. Danny Head is in the middle of a little start from this way. I just have one comment and one question. First thing, what is the RAs in for? Diagnostic reading assessment. That's a good question. We're so we are very familiar with our acronyms and we sometimes forget not everybody knows them but don't I was trying to memorize the cart and I just lost it. Thank you and then the other thing is with the math program the fractions that you're doing at the beginning that's great very, because you are gonna need that through middle school and high school. Because I know I'm having troubles at times and pre-calculus with fractions, you need that forever. So I think that's a great thing. And with the, for last first club, the arguing and questioning, that's a very good thing. Just recently in January, we in my AP government class, we had a round table trying to talk about different presidents. And we had to argue that why our president was the best one, I had Nixon. So we had too long. Yeah, we were good. But you had to argue why our president, that's a great thing, knowing how to support what you say, why you think it's the right answer. Is there another way I can go? Just with different things. So, as you say, well done on what you're doing with your... And, Danny, I want to extend a special invitation to you because I really think our fifth and sixth grade students, maybe in our fourth grade students, would really benefit talking to you maybe during a math class or to the grade level meeting. I'd love to have you come if you can be cut loose from your school. That would be fantastic. I will see what that would be super. Okay, that's good. Okay, and next at Miss Orrenton. Oh, I guess there is an assumption that I at least know more about E-CART. It's a curriculum guidance. It is an electronic curriculum assessment resource tool, but it is on the website. You can go to it for basic information, but really if you would like to know more about it and to actually look at it and see how we navigate through it, you're more than welcome to come by. That might be the best way if you want to do that sometime. And also, I just like to say, it's wonderful the way it sounds like you're collaborating as a group to improve individual students. And I'm really happy to hear that. And that you've developed a common language to talk about it because that's it. Yeah, we're working on it. I think Christy put it well well ruffled feathers. But when I hear that, I think, well gee, maybe it's just that new cool breeze coming through. And it's a good thing. Thank you. Well, thank you, Miss Sorenson, this night. Thank you very much for Chairman Lee. Chair, my on, sorry about that. And I'm just glancing the folder. There's a lot of good information. I look forward to looking through it. I appreciate the most recent copy of the School Improvement Plan also. I'll look forward to looking at that. Quick question on the Philosopher's Club. I didn't catch is that an after school or is that in school? All of the students participate with that. Okay, great. My brain is kind of really not share with my colleagues. I've had the opportunity today, yesterday and then tomorrow, I'm participating in our National School Board Association federal relation network meeting. So my head is swimming with all of current issues. But we had a speaker yesterday, Center for Public Education. It's affiliated with National School Board Association. I'm talking about skills for 21st century and what's necessary in the quote Erica shared about intelligence and what that is and kind of related to how you know they need to be able to solve problems and some of that. It was interesting they had a survey, corporate leaders and principals and what they define as creative in the necessary for our kids in the differences. And so it was very interesting. So one of the things talking about problem solving principles look at for being creative you have to be able to solve problems, corporate leaders look at, you have to be able to anticipate and advance what the problem is coming down the road. And so anyhow, you might want to check the website out. But anyhow, this has been great though because my head's slimming with the federal issues, but to really look at and see how proud I am of our schools and what you all are doing to really make a difference in kids' lives. So thank you. Okay, thank you, Mrs. and I, Mr. Patrick. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess my first question is, how did Mr. Nixon do? It went well, but we did obviously get targeted by the other presidents for one of his. So, but we knew that was gonna happen, so we stopped up on information. Yeah, broad shoulders, very good. Again, thank you for coming out and for a wonderful presentation and thanks a lot for the homework. I'll get on as soon as I can. I know there's some information here on the basecape projects and everything like that. I would like to read more on this and the library information I've got. I recognize you didn't get a chance to speak up here, but I'll have questions. I have a couple questions on Philosopher's Club. You said six graders, when do they meet? They meet. We do it every other week. We do strategies lab one time, and then the other time they put any with it, we do the Philosopher's Club. So, strategy lab also just six graders? I may have missed that. Strategy lab is K-2. You're right. And the students just come out of class. There's a specific time that they come. The class is the same time that we've set aside in a weekly basis. And the whole class comes. I go to them. I just do the blusher's club in their classroom. Strategy is a lot that they come to me. Oh, excellent, excellent. For Jim's, what are your sources for your female engineers or mathematicians or? Why do you use that? Well, I have a friend who works for the National Science Foundation, and we forwarded an email to him. And he forwarded, he found it out to everybody at the National Science Foundation. We have about three or four women that have responded through that. We have our own personal contacts of Vets and dermatologists, and we're always looking for more. So those email professionals in those areas coming to us, we're just going to want to have your colleagues to help you solve future years. Let's see if I can find some for you to work on that. Going back to the E-Card, I noticed there's a lot of work on the planning guides on the pacing guides. I noticed that I'm under the impression that as you identify a vulnerability and the way that the child is learned, the way that students learning, you've got several different resources so that based on the team's experience, you can take and choose amongst the strategy that's going to work best for that child. Is that how I'm reading this? Yes, it provides a resources links, less than ideas. A lot of it links up with a lot of instructional information that has been generated through the Department of Education in Virginia with their standards of learning they have. They also have a plethora of information and those many formative assessments along the way. So it's a little overwhelming. It is just packed with information, but the nice thing is you can go to that site and know that number one, the curriculum's aligned. That was huge. I think teachers have been looking to see that happening as we've gotten more and more into, no child love behind requirements is an aligned curriculum and spiraling strategies and skills that we want kids to have. So there there is a lot there and again John if you want to come and just sort of see how we maneuver that sometimes is the best way to get a picture of it. It's pretty amazing and all the teachers can access it. How long has this been in service, E-Card? This year, really. Just so we don't have real trends or anything I got to see what. No, not yet. But the pacing guys, even though they are, we are looking at how to teach certain things in terms of how we're sequencing and that kind of thing. A little differently, I look at it and see that it eliminates so many sources of information and time teachers were spending who are performing above grade level, you want to really not spend a lot of time looking for resources. You want to kind of hit them in a timely way. I did want to mention too that we in the handout, we gave you some updates on some of our other programs, science. I did want to mention, I think we are, and maybe, Mrs. Munde can have, I think we are the only Fairfax County School with an extensive environmental project. So we're really proud of that. And Mrs. Hubert-Minhays is plotting and scheming, as we speak, for new and bigger things to add. And Mrs. Matthews, who is our media specialist. She's done remarkable things with the Virginia readers and technology and science. I mean, they have really done some nice things and that kind of integration of curriculum. So I'm really pleased. I feel like we've got some great people. And I enjoy hearing anything they have to say and our staff does as well. So it's a very people, they argue the go to people and are building along with some others and they go to each other. So for information, so it's been good. But I didn't include Latin. Marie certainly is presented before. Marie Davis and she, I will send an update from her if you're interested again, if you want to come and talk to her. She's trying to dip down a little bit into second grade, which is nice. And I think that's about it. But just a quick follow up on that. Realizing it's a new program that's just started and the pacing guides are fairly new. I trust we'll be able to take advantage of the experienced teachers, the Ruffle feathers, or feedback into what has worked, what's working best. So some of the outliers, some of the parts of the pacing guide, the resources that are not being as productive can be removed and you can get the fresh stuff. Well, I think we're getting familiar with what's on the site. And those teachers are figuring out what are good matches for them at the grade level or for specific type of learners. But then in terms of oversight and what to end, what to take out, we would, we might be asked to share our thinking at some point and we'd be happy to do that. But we're learning. I mean, I think this is, this is going to take a while for us to really use, learn how to use it efficiently. But everybody wants to, and that's such a part of it, getting people to not look at it and say, well, I'm not going to do it, it's too much work. Everybody's looking at it, and they see that as a means to an end. So that's really happy about that. And last question for Miss Sheritz, What's the outlook for next year's compactive map? Any prognostication? Oh, seriously? Excuse me. Could you come to the podium the television technical person said that we weren't hearing any of the answers from the audience? Thank you for coming up. I unfortunately can't predict that. We are at the fifth grade level really dealing with two classes of students, so you know about 50, where we're kind of filling out. And a lot of it, a lot of them can really start to shine in fifth grade or that third, fourth grade looks pretty good. And then once they hit some of those type of fraction concepts and rational number concepts and fifth grade can struggle. So this is a really big gateway of fifth grade year. So we have two classes we're looking at, you know, starting to get some of those sixth grade SOOs worked in and some of those really heavy hitting pre-Algebra. And so, I don't know on time, what's up? Okay, so thank you very much. I'm glad it's all right. Okay, thank you, Mr. Retrim, Ms. Louis. I just wanted to thank all of you for taking the time to come out and share all of this great information with us. And I commend you for your great work on behalf of our community's children. I do have one question. I wasn't able to read it on here or on the screen. And I'm curious to know how this assessment wall is set up. Like what are those boxes at the top of the wall and what is represented in these graphs? We shrunk it quite a bit because we didn't want to have to go through and take that off with a student name. Okay, that is part of the reasoning. Did they represent different classes? Across the top are the development and reading assessment reading levels across the top. So the expectation is that a child in each box is a child and that each child would move across the boxes so that at the beginning of the year they were over on the left hand side and they would move across to the right. Okay. And each box color is a particular teacher so you could look at it quickly and say oh the I can if I'm the blue, I can see all my children on that spectrum. And then there's a pink teacher and a red teacher. So it represents maybe the five teachers at that grade level. The outline of the box is the reading level that they started at. And that outline matches the color codes that across the top, which I'll show matches, which also matches the books in our reading room, so that if teachers are coming in to look at books, the green color coded books are matched to those children that are in that level there. So we kind of try to all tie it all together. But again, it's a narrow view of a level that they're reading at and there's so much more to it than that. But in the other respect, it's a really nice visual. Here's our class. Here's our grade level now. Here We are as we marched through the middle of the year and here We are at the end of the year and how does that look and how does it compare to last year and how do those children who were down low move and so Does that explain it? Is there any meaning to the at the top or of the bottom of the thing or is that just based on volume that there's a longer line going down versus others? based on volume that there's a longer line going down versus others. Typically, that longer line is the benchmark for that grade level. So if you look at this one, I believe the one I put up there is the fall. That big long line is the benchmark for the beginning of first grade. So everybody that's above that, we're children that entered first grade above reading level. And those that are below it were slightly below grade level. And then we, it marches on. If you look at the one on the right hand side which we did second quarter now the benchmark has moved over to where that other next long line is so does that make sense yes it does now we've got those children that are slightly below and we can talk about what are we doing to support them and how can we get them to move ahead and then those questions are at the other end that's a neat tool. Very good. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, Ms. Louis? Ms. Monday? Well, I have to admit this has been a very, kind of emotional presentation for me because I can remember not so long ago being in very intense conversations with people in Fairfax County on literally all the topics you talked about today, and I want to commend you for the work you're doing. First of all, I remember when E-Cart didn't have a name, and Mr. Betrume, you would love E-Cart. It is curriculum and assessment tools and resources at a teacher's desktop, and there was lots of conversation about whether or not if Fairfax County made this investment, would teachers in fact use this tool and the answers are resounding yes. It's a professional tool. It doesn't have much power in meaning if it's not in the hands of great teachers but in the hands of great teachers I believe then and you've certainly shown me that it can make a difference in learning. In language arts, the whole vision of using the DRA from kindergarten, and last year was the first year your kindergarten teachers used the DRAs, that correct. And they've assimilated that well, and I'm hoping that that's a tool that's more useful than pals was. Yes, no? Oh, my, yes. Oh, good. That's a good answer. That's a good thing. And again, going beyond Fairfax County expectations and using the DRA through sixth grade. And most importantly, just what you just showed us that you know where your children are. We cannot be ever be at a point where we find out late into a child's career. And by late in the child's career, I mean well into kindergarten and certainly not into primary years without knowing exactly where those children, that child's deficits are reading and not just knowing where they are but addressing them in a systematic way. And that's just terrific. And mathematics, I cannot tell you would love to have heard the arguments at the central level about will teachers accept a pacing guide in mathematics and get away from what is called the tyranny of the textbook because for so many years the only determiner of what you taught first, second, and third in mathematics was what was in chapter one, two, and three as opposed to really using research concepts as to why we teach things in certain orders and getting away from that kind of thinking. And it is hard. It means letting go of maybe lesson plans that you've used for many, many years and thinking a different way. I loved your quote about this can't be slow and steady. You've got to break through some old belief systems and behaviors if we're really going to turn mathematics education around and the results you're getting in the short run already with the achievement of math that Daniel's run is just terrific. And of course in what we used to call gifted education which was all about sorting kids, now it's looking for the potential in every child and truly putting meaning what we say. And that is that every child has gifts. And that our fantastic resource teachers don't just go into schools and provide selected experiences for selected children, but really look for the potential in every child and believe that with some nurturing that potential can thrive. So just a really wonderful presentation. And thank you all. Thank you. I'm going to be into visit very soon and I'd like to come in into your maybe be a fly on the wall and watch your philosophers club and six graders arguing must be a wonderful thing to us. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And I just have one quick question. I was very interested in hearing about your GEMs club, which is really exciting. And I do have a daughter who is a scientist. So she certainly had a number of wonderful mentors along the way. My question is, is that what type of mentoring are we doing for our young, for our little boys? Frequently, our, frequently our boys are having issues and if you're not doing something now for some type of mentoring for little boys in terms of a club or bringing people in, what is your thinking perhaps over the, in the future? I just wanted to comment on how many boys I've heard through walking through the hallway going, why isn't there a club for us for math and science, which is really funny? This is our first year and James is already a club that's been started through the county. I think it started in 1984 and so we went to an in service and learned about it. We thought this is a great opportunity for our girls. We start with our girls so that they take the higher, so they look for taking the higher level classes in science and math as they get to high school. So we thought we'd start with sixth grade because they're the ones that are leaving us next. We'd see how it goes. We'd see what kind of reaction we get from the girls. We didn't know if anybody would want to actually do this club because it's after school. And it's on their own time. And we had 35 girls that wanted to take part in this club. And we had wanted to narrow down only 25, but we couldn't say no to any of them. So we have 35 girls. And we just started, and it's great. So far it's been very successful. The girls are so enthusiastic and yes, the boys are very enthusiastic too. They want their own club. But we need to start this year with one club and we'll see how it goes. Well, I certainly encourage, I'm the mother of three sons and three grandsons. So in our family, the men rule. And, but I would really hope that you get that somewhere there is a model that you can follow, because frequently our young men and our little boys need that extra boost as well to do their gifts. But overall, in closing, I'd like to say thank you very much. Daniel's run always comes with an extremely enthusiastic presentation. And we offer congratulations to Mrs. Molinix for her leadership and to Jackie Turner as well, the assistant and each and every one of you. We are proud of the work you do on behalf of the children in this community and we wish you continued success. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. The next item, let's see if we can find our agenda here. And I'd also like to say before we move on that, I'd like to thank Linda Burke, the Cluster and Superintendent for coming. She's always so good at being in the service supportive of the schools in our pyramid, and we appreciate your attendance. The next agenda item is the approval of the minutes of January the 50th 2009. That chair will entertain a motion for adoption. Mr. Boucheram. 2009 regular school board meeting as printed and distributed is there a second It was moved by Mr. Butchham and seconded by Ms. Louis that the city of Fairfax school board approved the minutes of the January 50, 2009 break your school board meeting as printed and distributed are the other directions or changes. They're being done all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Members opposed and members opposed the motion is unanimous. Thank you for that. The next agenda item is approval of funds for the all-mike graduation celebration at Fairfax High School. Board members will remember that in the past for a number of years, in fact for about the last, since 1988, I will say that this board has contributed funds for the all-night graduation celebration. The purpose of this is so that our youngsters have a place to congregate and to celebrate in a safe environment without alcohol or any other type of substance. And we are lucky to have parents at Fairfax High School and an enthusiastic community which contributes a significant amount of funding towards the celebration. And I would hope that we would continue that tradition. That being said is the board interested in motion? I move that the City of Fairfax School Board approve a donation to the Fairfax High School and the graduation party in the amount of $500 from account number 100-481110-550806. Thank you Miss Swarinson. Is there a second? Second. It was moved by Miss Swarinson and seconded by Mrs. Knight that the City of Fairfax School Board approve a donation to the Fairfax High School. I graduation party in the amount of $500. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Chair votes aye. Members opposed. And members opposed the motion is unanimous. I will, we will point out that the check will be prepared and Mrs. Pierce will invite representatives from the parent committee to come next time, next at our March meeting for a presentation of the check. And Danny, I hope you tell your colleagues that we are supporting the effort into urge all of the graduating seniors to sign out for that celebration. I will, a lot of them, this is the event everyone's looking for after graduation. Great, thank you very much. It'll be well next move just for the attendant matters, Mrs. Monday. Thank you. I do have a couple of things to share tonight. First of all, Mrs. Mollinex mentioned that Daniel's run was recognized by the state under 2009 Board of Education Excellence Awards. This was put out in a press release by the State Department of Education on January 15th, but not only Daniel's run, but also Fairfax High School received the Board of Education Excellence Award for 2009. I'm also happy to report that Providence Elementary School got a lower tier award. They didn't quite make the significant gains that their colleagues at Daniel's run did and at Fairfax, but they got the Board of Education Components to Excellence Award based on their performance. And they're fully confident that they'll be making those gains in the next year and will join their colleagues at Fairfax and Daniel's run. As you know, linear middle school, like many of the middle schools in Fairfax County have not made AYP in the last couple of years because of some subgroup performance. So they were not eligible for this award, but we're very proud of all of our schools and our three schools that were recognized by the state. I know in these times one of the topics that's of most interest to all of you and to your constituents is what's going to happen with the school budget. Just to bring you up to date in terms of Fairfax County's timetable. This Thursday the Fairfax County Board will vote to adopt its advertised budget and that's the budget upon which it will make its presentation of the Board of Supervisors and request to transfer from the Board of Supervisors. At this point, Dr. Dale, the Superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools, has advised the Board there that he is not recommending any changes in the bottom line. I do anticipate that some of the, there will probably be changes in some of the provisions of the superintendent's budget in Fairfax County. There always are. It's a very, very complicated budget, as you know. But he has recommended that the board stay the course and not change the bottom line. That is the request amount at this point. Now they may still do that. that's the product of the board, but he especially wanted to address the questions that their board is having about state and federal funding. And I'd like to just take a minute to explain what I know so far. So you understand what the county board is dealing with and what we then would deal with in our own budgeting because we are so influenced by the county budget. On the state side, it would appear that the news is just not good on any fronts. It appears that sales tax revenues may be lower than were anticipated. The county had already adjusted for a lower than anticipated sales tax. But again, in these times, it's hard to know how low that the revenues may actually be. So that's again, there could be less state funding than has even been budgeted at this point. The county doesn't feel that they have enough information yet to lower their revenue projections, but they're keeping an eye on that as we will as well. We also were very cautious in our revenue projections for state sales tax. The other part of the governor's budget that is of concern is that the budget was built around new taxes and the area of cigarette taxes and it does not look like those taxes may pass through the general assembly. And so again, there could be some revenue holes that could affect the schools in ways that we have not anticipated at this point. So I'd say it's cautious pessimism is the order of the day with the state funding. There's a full anticipation that we could have less state funding even than what has been budgeted at this point. I will point out to you that I'm going to get you information and then give you some advice in terms of what you may have seen in a couple of emails recently about a recommendation at the state level to change how we come up with the number of students upon which to figure our sales tax revenue. In the past, it's been the triennial census data. And as you can remember from our census presentation, there's a lot of problem with getting that data for all of the reasons that we were discussed when it was presented to us. It's not accurate data. It's just not very complete data. But it's not certain whether it would actually advantage Fairfax City for the state to use ADM data or income tax data. We don't know whether it would be an advantage to the city. I'm talking with people in Fairfax County, they will probably take a position on that recommendation at the state level. I'm not certain what I would recommend or you would at least need to know what impact it would have on Fairfax City. But nevertheless, that's another issue that the state is grappling with right now in terms of funding for schools. On the federal level, there is a provision for educational funding in the not yet passed stimulus package. And there is funding that, if thank you Mrs. Knight for providing that to your colleagues, the picture of what it would look like at this point based on what came out of the house, what could possibly come to Fairfax City from Federal stimulus package. But I do need to let you know, as you know, and make certain that our public knows that federal money has not to this point actually come directly to Fairfax City. It is administered through Fairfax County for special education and Title I primarily. And most of this money would come for those two programs and therefore we go directly to Fairfax County. There's a lot of regulation around how federal money is spent. So it's highly unlikely, even though the dollars look large at the county level, that this would affect mainstream programs and the operational budget, because these are targeted funds for specific programs and they must be spent in a very specific way. So if they do come to the county, then they would be working through how best to use these funds and hopefully to, you know, have some overall benefit but it's not going to change the bottom line in terms of the operating budget. And lastly, there is a small amount of construction funds that could potentially come directly to Fairfax City. Again, there is not much clarity on what that would mean. My understanding is that has to be used for renovation, can't be used for new construction. It needs to be, it's a jobs project, so it would have to be used to create jobs. And again, there could be a great deal of regular, there should be regulation certainly and reporting requirements around it. So we really don't know what, how we, whether even going to get this money directly as a pass through from the state and under what federal requirements we would have to use it. So there's a lot of question about this money in terms of how it might impact our actual budgets and what will likely happen for students next year. And at this point in Fairfax County, the advice of the superintendent is let's just hold on and not even consider that in our deliberations right now. There are just too many questions about, first of all, the package hasn't passed. And we don't even know what it'll be in its final form, but we really don't want to make any budget decisions now, based on what's a possibility of federal funds to our schools for next year. Thank you so much. Additional questions for Ms. Mundey? Ms. Fornison? Yeah, I had a couple of questions. Do you know what the status is of the governor's budget regarding permanent cuts versus temporary? I don't know what the status is. I don't know where the votes are. I do know that there's been very heavy lobbying from this region to not make these, these, this budget calculation permanent. I don't know what the, what the trending is in the, in the state. Yeah, the second thing is, as I was asked to go over the Virginia Board of, the Virginia School Board Association's emails that we've been getting a lot lately. Another issue came up a couple of days ago and that the federal money, apparently years ago, there was a clause put in regarding a federal deduct. In other words, if the federal government gave money to the state government, they would be able to deduct what they would pass on to the counties, based on the federal money they got. And it's just something to be aware of. And the federal pets come up at FR, at the federal money they got. And it's just something to be aware of. And the benefits come up at the federal relation network meeting this week. And definitely that it has to be clear that the economic stimulus money is not to, you know, be able to fund it. Exactly. So that's definitely an issue. And maybe if I could, I was going to, in board matters, report a preliminary share from the Federal Relations Network meeting that maybe Ann's brought up some of these issues if I could comment. Obviously, the economic stimulus package has everyone's attention and everything that Ann has reported is absolutely accurate as far as, you know, it's a hold and see pattern on how the money might be dispersed, that there would be specific guidelines on how it's spent and accountability. One of the things that has been brought up a little bit is for creating new jobs, but they've also talked about the retention of jobs, and that that's a critical, critical factor in that you can't just say it's all well, let's just create new jobs, because school systems are one of the largest employers. So that's boosting the economy right there by funding some of these stimulus dollars, but also with looking at school construction, perhaps money, you know, that could be used in other ways to improve, you know, energy efficiency, screening of schools, that sort of thing. So that was one thing. Another thing, there is, and it was, it's kind of interesting, the update from NSBA because the one report just lists those major funding categories that is in the House of Fill with the Title I and IDEA and school construction. And, what was the last thing? The economic stabilization dollars. There's also a lot of little pieces of money that will go to states to help support, like with Ed Tech, like Billion to, you know, data systems to help support states their teacher quality is also a big issue. So there's, you hopefully some other monies that will come down. They're not as big as the major pieces that have been talked about. One piece though that I am very inquired. May I ask you to interrupt you? Are these finding sources through the stimulus package? Is this a two-year program, a't want an IDEA or two year. Okay, but school construction is immediate. Okay, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's that the stimulus package is really for increased funding. But it is that from your perspective or what you've learned so far, it is the stimulus package which will have a sort of a start in an end date. Some of the funds are two year. Okay. Like the two year investment. Like the Title I and EDA, both are 5.5 for 09 and 5.5 for 2010. Are we talking about the early 11? Okay. No, that's Title I and EDA. Okay. And then the, that there's still two billion because it's 13 billion in the past for each of those areas. The other two billion go to school improvement grants. So it's kind of interesting the way some of these things are divided out. So as far as the school construction, you know, when we go on our hill visits tomorrow, we're bringing plastic sand shovels because the big keyword is to be shovel ready. Of course, on congressman Jim Moran spoke the group today, and he laughed and said, I think we need backhose. And if you're definitely going to be creating a lot of jobs if you're using shovels, because it's going to take a long time people to do it. But anyhow, the other piece, though, that I thought was kind of interesting, this emergency stabilization fund per state fiscal relief. And nobody really knows quite what that means, but they're talking about 39 billion to states, 79 billion total, 15 for competitive grants, for key performance measures, 25 billion for other governmental priorities that might include education, but it could include a post of other social services. And then I'm 39 billion, which would be dedicated to K-12 pre-K or higher ed initiatives. And it would be up to the states to decide how to allocate. So there could be some real possibility for state lobbying efforts to try to get some of that money. But what's interesting, the purpose of that economic stabilization money is to prevent cuts to key services, to other services. So to me, that seems kind of like an area of interest that we might want to follow. I mean, and again, it's all, it's so interesting because of our unique contractual relationships. So what does that mean? Can we get through that, an allocation that would go, you know, come to the city or how that all would work out? But it's, that is a piece that nobody seems to know a lot about. And so it's not being talked a lot about. But some real major concern, of course, is while adding Title I and IDEA funding into the picture is, okay, so for two years and then what? And you know, and it's just finally actually those funds are really just getting us a little bit closer, but not all the way closer to what Congress has promised for funding. I guess IDEA, it's supposed to be 40%. You know, and I think this gets us up to like 37%. So, and then what happens when that money ends. But then also, when you've got school systems that are cutting across the board, having increased class sizes and all of that, and then you've got these monies that are coming in that are so specific, how do you justify cuts and, you know, teacher cuts and increasing class size and all of these things, you know, to use this pool of money that maybe. So that's an issue that I think I know in our visits to the Northern Virginia Legislatures tomorrow afternoon we'll be bringing up. Then in addition. I'm certain you'll hear the, I'm sure you heard it today. The expression supplant and supplements. Yes. These funds are supposed to supplement what a school system normally provides. It can't supplant. Right. And everybody understands that's a spirit of the law. But when you've cut everything in mainstream regular education, it's hard to just supplement. And that was part of the problem. And would there be some flexibility, especially perhaps in restoring some things in certain areas, and therefore being able to free up some money other places? But it's going to be very tricky for the jurisdictions to figure out how to use this money. Right. Legally and to obviously support the children for whom these funds are intended, and that's what everyone wants to do. But at the same time, when you're cutting so dramatically your bottom line and your operating budget for your mainstream students, how can you? Is that possible? Right, I have some benefit there. All the terms and buzzwords, this supplant and, um, is a supplement, and you know, it's supplement, and then I guess, uh, maintenance of effort is referring to, um, making sure that states maintain the funding that designated levels and can't, you know, of course, I responded to your question, but I couldn't remember the term. I counted in my notes. So, um, those are some things that are on the table. But the other thing also that, that, you know, we've been reminded not to forget is we're not just out to try to seek as much funding as we can get immediately, but also we have current issues that the school board association has been promoting all along. And of course one of the main issues is reauthorization of the Elementary Secondary Education Act, you know know, child left behind, and that that needs to be reauthorized and problems corrected in that. And if it can't be done immediately, then what they're asking is for the immediate amendments to allow schools to have more the flexibility and how they do the measurements and the accountability of the assessments and that sort of thing. So that's another thing. So we'll be meeting with Senator Web and Senator Warner at 10 and 11 in the morning and then 2, 3 and 4 with will actually Congress and Connelly's education staff person and then with Congressman Wolkommesman and Moran. So it's been very interesting program. I really learned a lot and I appreciate the opportunity very much that I've been able to represent Virginia at this meeting and it's helpful. I hope that I can bring some information back that's useful for us also. So thank you. Do you have other questions? Thank you. This is tonight you've been doing a great job on keeping us up to date and we all appreciate that. Okay, let's, if we have nothing on that, we'll move to board matters. And one of the things that I wanted to discuss, the first thing so that our community is aware of this. As many people know that there's a proposal to modify the start times not only at high school but at the middle school and the elementary school levels as well. And Purfax County has announced a series of meetings the week of February the 24th. The one that I think most of our community will be able, might be best for them to attend, is the meeting on Thursday, February the 26th at Providence Elementary School. This meeting will be held from 7 to 9, and it's an opportunity to participate in a community dialogue. And at that time, the possibility of changing school start times will be discussed. And we would hope that all of those who are interested whether they're in favor of the changes or whether they like or whether they would prefer the changes not be made. We would encourage all of our citizens to attend that meeting. Additionally, there will be a survey at Fairfax County Public Schools website, and that survey will go online next Monday on February the 9th, and that's an opportunity again for community members to express their opinions about school start kind of dismissals. This information has been sent out to members of our email community and this information will also be on the City School Board's website beginning a little bit later next week. Madam Chair. Yes, ma'am. May I point out something because the meeting at Providence is on Thursday February 26th, but I was happy to see that on Tuesday the 24th there will be one at Oakview Elementary, which is not particularly far from here. And on Wednesday there will be one at Rocky Run, which is also reasonably close. So if someone can't attend the meeting on the 26th of Providence, there are two other fairly close locations there. The other nice. Absolutely. I think I believe that if you live in the central Fairfax area, there are probably sites that are more easily accessed than if you live in other parts of the county, just because of our location. So we're pleased to see that we do have one in our community and we hope that citizens will participate. The second thing I would like to point out is that Mrs. Monday talked about the adoption of Fairfax County's budget, which will be on Thursday of this week, but on Wednesday of this week at Luther Jackson, the school board, the county school board will meet in work session to discuss budget that meeting begins at 8 p.m. as I said it is that Luther Jackson and it was unclear whether or not it would be televised but much of the conversation about what and if will occur at that meeting and I would encourage those who are interested to attend that meeting. Lastly is that, as you know, Alisa Lueck is the board's representative to PrEP, and she will be working to come up with in an agenda for our annual meeting in May. If you have ideas about what you'd like to see, discuss to that meeting meeting please pass that information along to Alisa. In addition to that, Alisa and I will be meeting with appropriate recreation and other folks to review the city, the agreement between the city school board and the city council regarding the use of school facilities for recreation. So we'll be working our way through that and as we come across any possible changes, we will make sure that the board will keep the board informed on that. And then we'll continue with board matters and I will start with a lease tonight. I think you covered everything. Looking forward to the meeting tomorrow. Please do send me your ideas regarding suggestions for Prab. They haven't indicated a desire to hold our joint meeting this year at linear. So I'll also be trying to coordinate that through the school board office. And again, I would encourage all members of the community to go out and have your voices heard at one of these community dialogue sessions regarding the proposed school bill. Okay, thank you, Lisa. Yes. Yes, ma'am. You may have said it, but what's the date on that joint meeting this year? Do we have to do it now? We don't have a date yet. Oh. Okay. I believe we have a date. It seems like it was on the calendar, Julie, but I don't know off. Okay. Okay. I'm sure we've seen it. I would like to get on my calendar. Okay. Thank you. Maybe it will. We'll check that. That would be great. And we'll alert board members to that. Thank you. And a day or so. Okay. Walk off. Walk off. Thank you, Mr. Pressure. Thank you, Madam Chair. This week in Fairfax High School held its annual science fair. And I wanted to congratulate Principal Scott Raybrand and his staff again for a very exciting and educational Fairfax High School science fair. I was impressed by the number of students participating. There were a record number of students participating, some were well in advance of 500. And at the level of sophistication of the projects. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the projects from the students and witnessed the brightened enthusiasm by which they presented their projects. As Dr. Braverand stated on Saturday, there were many who helped mentor the students, organized the activities and actually conduct the event. His teaching staff led by Mr. Bird and Ms. Webster, and an army of support that just too large to mention this evening, worked like a well engineered machine to ensure a great event. And it was truly a great event. And I'm going to quote Dr. Brebend in his own words that this was an opportunity to emphasize the day when science is the main thing. Thank you. Thank you. Anything else, Mr. Patrick? Hi, that's all I've got. Okay, Mrs. Lee. First, just wanted to say what an outstanding job the students at Perfect Science Bowl and Academy was to be in the rain. And it was very exciting to see, I guess this first really school-wide collaboration effort involving the academy. I think that was really an achievement. It took a lot to manage to pull that together, and I think they did a great job. Also, just wanted to let everyone know and remind folks if they would like to get the data on the calendar. The community coalition is having the youth speak out on March 26th. So their next planning meeting is on February 20th and then the actual youth speak out is the night of the 26th in March. There will be more publicity coming closer to that date, of course. Also just to remind the community, please don't hesitate to let us know if you have questions or concerns. We do appreciate everyone that we've heard from that has shared their views with concerns either budget-related or related to the start-time issues. And I think has, I know it's been clarified and we continue, it's a continual education effort to help our citizenry understand the process of how decisions are made with that we don't control those decisions here, but that's part of our contractual relationship with the county. So it just behooves you to please speak up and be part of the process. And so please attend the start-time meetings, participate in an online survey. Continue to keep us aware of your concerns. We appreciate that. It helps us very much to know, but also you need to let our counterparts on the county board know of your concerns. And if you have budget questions or budget issues and understanding, please let us know. That's what we're here for to help make sure your questions are answered. So thank you. Thank you, Julie. Mrs. Sorenson. Oh, yeah. I just wanted to point out that last week Mrs. Monday and I attended a ramp presentation by the Guides Department of Fairfax High School. RIMP stands for, I brought it with me, recognized ASCA model program. Now ASCA stands for the American School Counseling Association. Fairfax High School is working to get RIMP status, I believe it's called. It's an accreditation for their guidance program. was working to get ramp status, I believe it's called, it's an accreditation for their guidance program, their school counseling program, and the presentation was awesome. They talked a lot about the increase in progress among Hispanic students at Fairfax. They've been working with freshmen throughout the freshman year and have lowered the number of Fs that the freshmen have been getting, discipline referrals and so on, and now they're looking to look at another problem group which is transfer students who have a lot of trouble in the high school when they haven't had a continuous high school career. I suggested to Mrs. Monday and I think she agreed that sometime they should make this presentation to us because it was really, really good. And I also saw singing in the rain and it was amazing. Congratulations to Mike Repoglie for directing it, but also to Wendy Knight because on stage it actually rained. It was amazing. It was like how are they doing with it? Dr. Braygram was there and said I don't want to know. It happens. I mean, there was a lot of water. It was a lot of water. It was amazing. And then finally, how did they get the water up? It was like a little platform. I think it was like the lip. It splashed over, though. They had a lot of mop and up. They had wet rack and mopping, it was quite before intermission. And the kids were very, I mean, they were very, very talented kids. And then finally, I was at the high school the other day while they were getting ready for curriculum night. And the director, Marcy Miller, was preparing the slideshow, the PowerPoint presentation. And it kind of goes along with our, you know, the road map, but it also had a lot of information about all the electives that are available, Fairfax. And frankly, it's only been three and a half years since my daughter graduated and I was just amazed at the number of things that kids can take now. So I thought maybe you might want to thumb to that and look at it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But some of those things. Anyway, that's it. Okay. Thank you. Before you finish Miss Sorenson, is it March when you'll be you and Mr. Batchell will be going to Richmond for the actually legislative day? Okay. I'm sorry. I forgot. Okay. That's right. And will you just keep us up to date on what's happening as as a result of you attending that being Thank you miss once and we appreciate you we appreciate you Taking the day and driving to Richmond because it's a it's a long day early in the morning and late in the afternoon So thank you and Dan One thing for the how they made it rain. I was talking to Mr. Repole, say after school, he told me what they did is they put a hose at the top of the behind the main curtain and just put holes in it and let it water on. Just came down. He said that. He said quote unquote, getting it to rain is easy. That's not the problem. The problem was what are we going to do when the rain hits the main stage? And so, Mrs. Knight built a whole, that platform that you saw, and they covered the whole stage with something to protect it. But I was just amazed by it. And also the lead had to tap to your planet. Yeah. I'm impressed. It was great. It was great. And then also, I'm excited about the grading policy in change even though that doesn't affect me next year, but the AP one point that's very good. I'm very excited about that and just looking forward to graduation many more months. Actually, we're already counting down in school. In our leadership class, we got the 87 days left. We're counting down already, so... Now, you are going to miss high school, trust me. And us. I'm going to come back in and make you a meeting. OK. OK, great. If we have no other business conduct, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much for coming this evening.