|
English | Español | አማርኛ | 中文 | 한국어 | Tiếng Việt | العربية | فارسی | اردو
Note: This newsletter contains links to translated versions of the content for your convenience. These translations are generated by Google Translate and are not intended to be a substitute for professional translation services.
Expanding Access to Advanced Academics, Improving Advisory Board Engagement, and other School Board Happenings
Dear Neighbors,
I want to start by lifting up the families impacted by multiple tragedies in recent weeks across Braddock and Fairfax County. It has been a heavy few weeks and I want to offer my condolences and support in any way that I can. On top of it all, we commemorated the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, an event that fundamentally changed thousands of lives, including my own.
If your student has been affected by one of these tragedies recently, or needs additional support during this incredibly difficult time, FCPS' school-based mental health team and crisis counselors are available for any student who needs to talk. Additionally, Hazel Health teletherapy is also available to middle and high school students at no cost, connecting your child confidentially with a licensed therapist.
It’s been a busy few weeks on the School Board; we’ve held two regular meetings so far, including one last Thursday. I also chaired our first Public Engagement Committee meeting a couple weeks ago, and joined neighbors, FCPS leaders, and experts at last week’s Advisory Committee for Students with Disabilities.
During our August 27th Board meeting, we voted to approve the timeline for expanding AAP Centers to every middle school including Robinson, Holmes, Irving, Key, and Poe. At our most recent meeting on September 10th, we took a number of actions, one of which was to direct the Superintendent to examine programmatic options in under-enrolled schools including Lewis High School. We also learned about summer literacy training given to hundreds of FCPS’ finest (including my own child’s teacher, as it happens). You can read more about these items and more below.
Lastly, I’ll share some optimistic advice from my grandpa, who passed away this weekend at the age of 98: “Let every kick in the butt serve as a boost.”
As always, I welcome your inputs and questions on every issue before the Board, and those that you feel I should bring forward. You can email me at Braddock@fcps.edu.
Yours In Service,
Tom Dannan
Braddock District Representative
Updates from the Public Engagement Committee
Improving engagement with the public was a priority of mine when elected, and I’m honored to get to lead this committee in the coming year. We held our first meeting of the new school year on September 1st, where we discussed our priorities for the coming year, starting with ways to maximize student input and improve our work with Community Advisory Committees by providing better guidance to both committee members and Board liaisons. We are also looking into ways to improve student representation on our Board.
I’m looking forward to more of these discussions at our coming meetings where we continue to find ways in which Board members, students, staff, and community members can engage with and support one another.
Table of Contents
August 27th Meeting
September 10th Meeting
Academic Matters
Building Supportive School Communities
 For the Academic Matters at this meeting, Dr. Reid gave a presentation about how building supportive school communities is essential for student success and how it ties into Goal #2 of the FCPS Strategic Plan that students feel “Safe, Supported, Included, and Empowered.”
The presentation given by Dr. Reid highlighted that students who feel they belong within their community have better outcomes—academically, socially, emotionally, and beyond high school. For example:
-
22% vs. 40%: U.S. high school students who felt connected at school were far less likely to report poor mental health.
-
5.9% vs 11%: Students who felt connected were about half as likely to miss school because they felt unsafe.
-
Academic Achievement: A sense of belonging was a statistically significant predictor of achievement for U.S. 9th graders.
-
3x: Students who experienced strong school and family connectedness during adolescence had more than 3 times the odds of graduating from a four-year college.
You can read more about Dr. Reid’s August 27th Academic Matters here, as well as view the full presentation on BoardDocs.
Summer Literacy Symposium
 The Academic Matters presentation at the most recent Board Meeting highlighted the FCPS Summer Literacy Symposium, and how literacy curricula is scaffolded appropriately for multi-lingual learners and learners of different levels, with the goal of developing cognitively engaged and independent learners who can recognize when to appropriately apply the skills that they have learned and developed.
There were over 1,000 FCPS teachers who attended The Summer Literacy Symposium, which focused on three targeted areas. The “Core” sessions focused on helping teachers use materials and high quality curriculum, the “More” sessions expanded on the reading interventions that were focused on evidence based strategies, and finally the “Enhanced Core Reading Instruction (ECRI)” provided specialized training for first and second grade teachers, particularly in schools that need Title I support, and schools identified for additional support.
In my remarks to Dr.Reid, I expressed my appreciation over the focus of strengthening academic rigor in our students, priority to Title I schools, and all the work the FCPS staff has put in to prioritize literacy for our students, as well as strong literacy instruction practices and curriculum for our teachers. I also asked how FCPS determines which subjects get chosen to be the focus of this kind of training symposium for teachers to which she responded that there have been such successful results with the ECRI program, that leadership wanted to create an opportunity to offer its intensive training to a broader audience. Dr. Reid also mentioned that by holding this symposium in the summer, it allows for ample staff development while not disrupting instructional time within the classroom.
Summer Literacy Symposium: 3 Learning Opportunities
CORE: Rigorous Instruction for All
- Using adopted core curricula with appropriate scaffolds to develop cognitively-engaged independent learners.
- Priority registration to: K-6 teachers in Title I schools, and all 6-9 English teachers in Middle & High school.
- 450 Participants
MORE: Reading Interventions
- Training in evidence-based literacy intervention programs with language supports for multilingual learners.
- Priority registration to: K-6 teachers in Title I schools, and all 6-9 Literacy teachers in Middle & High school.
- 632 Participants
ECRI: Enhanced Core Reading Instruction
- Delivering enhanced phonics instruction using explicit routines that accelerate skill development.
- Open to first & second grade teachers in Title I schools, and second grade teachers in Federally Identified schools.
- 260 Participants
You can view the full presentation on Board Docs.
Motions
The Board voted to begin the community engagement process for the expansion of full-time AAP to all FCPS Middle schools.
I voted in favor of this for a number of reasons, including that expanding AAP centers would provide greater equity throughout the county, build community, and hopefully lead to long-term cost-savings.
In addition to there being more opportunity for students to have access to AAP, this would also help families feel more secure by not having to make a choice between their student being able to attend an AAP center, or remain at their base school and with their established community.
Another benefit would be easier mornings with shorter transport times to school for students who are currently being bussed to an AAP Center school outside of their community. As a parent with a child in the AAP, those benefits resonate with me and how they help in both long and short term ways.
During the meeting, I asked Superintendent Reid and her team about the potential impacts at Robinson Secondary, which implements a Middle Years Program (MYP) for middle school students to prepare for Robinson’s International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Under this plan, Robinson would add an AAP center by SY 30-31. In speaking with staff and educators at Robinson, the MYP framework could layer on top of the AAP curriculum, with minimal impact on educators’ time.
I’ll continue to track the impacts of this potential expansion in Braddock, especially on enrollment numbers, and will share updates.
 The Board voted to direct the Division Superintendent to recommend programmatic options to increase enrollment at traditional high schools with a program capacity utilization of less than 85% (excluding modulars and trailers), prioritizing high schools with enrollment of fewer than 1800 students, no later than November 12, 2026.
Future reviews of new qualifying schools shall be part of the annual Capital Improvement Program. Recommendations should appropriately account for adjacent high school pyramid programming, with some adjustment occurring at select schools in the 2027-2028 school year.
I asked Dr. Reid what the role of community input is when it comes to making decisions about the programmatic options available at each school, what studies have been done around student transfers, as well as what the process is to ensure that families are following residency requirements for their pyramid and how common investigations of that nature are. You can view my full remarks on YouTube.
I voted in support of this because it helps provide more equity and opportunity for students in schools with lower enrollment and capacity. We want to make sure that every school is setting up students for success. By implementing more programmatic options at schools with lower capacities, it would benefit not only that school, but could also reduce overcapacity at neighboring schools that offer specialized programming.
The Board voted to find the Superintendent in compliance with Executive Limitation #1: Global Executive Limitations. I voted in support of compliance as I feel that she has set high standards for our school division and has always acted ethically both behind closed doors as well as to the public. This is especially important for a division as large and diverse as ours.
I asked Dr. Reid when the public could expect to see the findings from the Baldridge report, as well as what the status is in terms of the fingerprinting process for level three volunteers. You can hear my full remarks, as well as view Dr. Reid’s presentation, and the full monitoring report here on BoardDocs.
The Board voted to find the Superintendent in compliance with Executive Limitation #8: Superintendent's Relationship with the Board, and also approved the monitoring report based on the Superintendent’s reasonable interpretation of EL-8 as outlined in the Strategic Governance Manual.
I voted in support of Dr. Reid’s compliance and mentioned how I appreciate her candor and level of professionalism, especially in managing contentious discussions. I also noted that I would like to work further with her this year on ways to better organize the volume of information that comes to the board.
The Board approved a number of updated or revised policies. On August 20th, the Governance Committee met and agreed to move several updated/revised policies to the September 10th Regular Meeting agenda. As a policy wonk, I appreciate all the work done, and discussions held with my fellow committee members and colleagues to be able to collaborate on these updates. The policies that were approved for revisions include the following:
- Policy 1360, Visitors to Schools
- Policy 1405, Accountability for Division Efficiency and Effectiveness
- Policy 1501, Public Access to Information
- Policy 5017, School Procurement System
- Policy 5105, Authority to Enter Into Contractual Agreements
- Policy 5501, Preparation of Annual Budget
The updated policies can be found on Board Docs.
Proclamations
Honoring the 2Twenty Club
 The Board made a Proclamation honoring the 2Twenty Club, which is a non-profit that is dedicated to supporting low-income children and families through its mission, “Sharing Love with Our Neighbors”. For the past 19 years, the 2Twenty Club has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to addressing food insecurity by sustaining its Weekend Backpack Food Program, ensuring that students in need have access to nutritious food over weekends and school breaks, including throughout the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through its longstanding partnership with Fairfax County Public Schools, the 2Twenty Club currently provides weekend food assistance to approximately 50 students at each of 13 elementary schools and one middle school, positively impacting the lives of hundreds of students, and helping remove barriers of learning by addressing a fundamental need. Through nearly two decades of sustained service, the 2Twenty Club has made a lasting difference in the lives of children and families while fostering a culture of generosity and service throughout the Fairfax County community.
 The Board made a Proclamation Recognizing September 17 as Constitution Day, National DEI Day, and Citizenship Day, commemorating the signing of the United States Constitution in 1787, and recognizing those who have become citizens through coming of age or naturalization and highlighting the values of diversity, equity and inclusion.
The commemoration of these three elements together provide an opportunity for students, educators, families, and communities to learn about the Constitution, the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the principles of democratic self-government and the strength that comes from people of different backgrounds, experiences, identities, and perspectives learning and working together.
National DEI Day's organizers intentionally observe the day alongside Constitution Day and Citizenship Day as an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between constitutional ideals and the continuing pursuit of a more equitable, inclusive, and welcoming society.
Fairfax County Public Schools serves a richly diverse community whose varied histories, cultures, identities, perspectives, and experiences contribute to the strength of our school division and our Commonwealth.
Looking Ahead: September 24th Meeting
Our next Regular Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 24th at 7:00pm at Luther Jackson Middle School and you can view the full agenda here on BoardDocs. These topics were among those introduced as New Business at the most recent meeting and should be acted upon at the September 24th meeting.
| 