School Board Meeting: 9/14/2021
At Tuesday’s school board meeting (time-stamped sections below), Dr. Noonan gave a back-to-school presentation, presented preliminary data on enrollment, and provided information on staff vaccination. There was also discussion around potential mandatory vaccination for after-school activities (see time-stamp below), school calendar issues as a future agenda topic, and planning for on-site vaccination clinics for when the FDA gives emergency use authorization for a Covid-19 vaccine for children under 12. The board will receive a presentation on SOL results in October (see my thoughts on the recently released results here).
The school board also approved and adopted a proclamation for Bullying Prevention Month. As the parent of a young child who often has difficulty interacting appropriately with other children (which can lead to him being somewhat isolated), I am deeply interested in this topic. The student conduct policy addresses bullying as prohibited conduct, and the proclamation discusses the number of students impacted by bullying at a national scale. As always, when you have a goal (in this case, preventing bullying), it is important to know whether we are making progress, and while the proclamation references the estimate that 20 percent of students in the US experience bullying each year, I would like to know what the experience of students in Falls Church City is. Is the incidence of bullying higher or lower than the national estimates? Is bullying up or down or staying the same over time among our students? What are the disciplinary actions taken in bullying incidents and are those actions effective in reducing future bullying? Some research suggests that, nationally, cyberbullying decreased during the times school was held virtually last year; what is FCCPS learning from our pandemic experience regarding bullying among our students? Those are just some questions I am curious about around the topic of bullying prevention.
Time stamps for your convenience:
Video on sustainability and ways in which that concept is woven into instruction in FCCPS
Preliminary enrollment data (apples-to-apples comparisons can be made after September 30):
Drop in enrollment relative to projection (down 94 students) and relative to last year (down 5 students)
Return to pre-pandemic homeschool numbers after last year’s increase in families that homeschooled
Large drop in enrollment from ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) community (2019-20 school 161 ESOL students, this year is 115) (Dr. Noonan mentioned that his regional colleagues are also seeing large drops in ESOL enrollment)
Noticeable decrease in enrollment (relative to projection) at Jessie Thackrey
5 employees who are not vaccinated (working on testing protocols for those employees)
Discussion of masking and vaccination regarding when masking will be discontinued in conditional on vaccinations (not until CDC recommends it), and a discussion of planning school-based vaccine clinics for when the vaccine is given EUA for children 5-11
Further discussion of ESOL enrollment drop and keeping in touch with the city around the affordable housing units
Discussion on potential mandatory vaccination for after school activities, currently no mandate
Discussion of mitigation measures (particularly eating outside)
Second reading and adoption of policy notifying families of laws governing the prosecution of juveniles as adults (click here to read the policy)
Policies for first reading regarding use of school facilities by city agencies, student records, and retirement (To view policies submitted for first reading click here)
Future agenda topic - discussion of school calendar issues (further discussion to occur at the next board meeting).
Future agenda topic - Mr. Henderson expressed interest in discussing rescinding the policy limiting names of school buildings to those who have been deceased for at least 10 years
Future agenda topic - Discussion of SOL scores planned for October (see my comments about recently released SOL data here).
Superintendent’s Report and board and student liaison comments
As always, I might have missed something, so if you have time, please listen to/watch the whole thing.
