Superintendent's Weekly Reflections

Hello Team FCPS,

Well, here we are; saying goodbye to March. I am remembering that March certainly came in like a lion and is going out like (you guessed it ;>) a lamb. And so, here are my thoughts as we reflect on the weeks past and look forward to a fabulous spring week ahead...

The week before Spring Break was a busy one! On Monday I was invited by Principal Matthew Chapman to help celebrate Marshall Road Elementary School’s first year of composting. In taking time to visit with the young environmentally focused students, I learned about their commitment to this work and how important taking care of our Earth is to this generation. Their passion is contagious and a great reminder that we have work to do in this area. 

I’m told that these young learners have been actively involved in composting every day at lunch and have learned so much about how this practice supports environmental sustainability. Go Roadrunners!!

On Tuesday morning I paid a visit to Pine Spring Elementary School, where I was met by Principal Nicole Yacubovich and Assistant Principal Jennifer Ganci. First, we stopped by some pre-school, kindergarten and first grade classrooms; so energizing! Then, we made our way to the second grade classroom of Dana Altman, where the students were learning about equalities in math.   What could be more fun than math in March ;>)  Perhaps math in April…

Next, we went to the third grade classrooms of Diana Inzirillo and Nadia Berhane, where the students were learning about Gordon Parks, an influential American photographer who also worked as a composer, author, and filmmaker. As we walked around the school, I learned that Pine Spring is a Yoga4Classroom School, which means that the students get to do yoga and practice mindfulness as part of their everyday routines. I’m wondering if I can work that into my daily routine at Gatehouse! ;>) Go Bobcats!!

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Lake Braddock Secondary School for the recent Community Conversation focused on addressing the opioid crisis within Northern Virginia and FCPS. Thank you as well to the Foster family for sharing their personal experience.  We are also grateful for the partnership with law enforcement and our own FCPS Substance Abuse Professionals (SAPs) as together we are making a difference in this important fight for the health and safety of our community. 

I appreciate how engaged our participants were, with many good questions around how to identify drug use, how FCPS is working with local law enforcement, and the prevalence of fentanyl in other substances. Safeguarding our young people from fentanyl and other drugs while providing support services to those who need help is a true community effort, and we will continue to rally around each other for this important cause. 

I can’t wait for our spring Employee Conversations to begin this week! I invite you to register for one of the events below, and be sure to bring your questions, concerns, comments, and ideas. As a listening leader, these conversations are vital to keeping your voice reflected in our FCPS’ mission and vision!

• Wednesday, April 3, 6:30-8 p.m., Fairfax Villa Elementary School.
• Thursday, April 4, 6:30-8 p.m., Braddock Elementary School.
• Monday, April 8, 4:30-6 p.m., South County Middle School.
• Monday, April 15, 4:30-6 p.m., Frost Middle School.

If you’re interested in attending from a family member or community member’s point of view, our Community Conversations series runs from mid-April to late May. Visit our Community Conversation webpage to view dates and register. 

Our FCPS Family Vision Groups are going strong, with two recent meetings at Glasgow and Katherine Johnson middle schools. Thank you to the members of Team FCPS who joined us, including our Chief of Safety and Security Tom Vaccarello, who shared information about FCPS’ safety programs, and our Chief Equity Officer Dr. Nardos King, who shared information about our Student Rights and Responsibilities (SR&R). And thank you to our families! I so appreciate that they took the time to connect and engage with us, especially in the hectic last few days before spring break. The best way to support our students is to come together! 

Last Tuesday morning I met with our Office of Procurement Services (OPS) director Michelle Pratt and her team, along with FCPS’ Chief Financial Officer Leigh Burden. The visit was part of OPS’ month-long effort to recognize and celebrate the team during March, which is known in the profession as “Procurement Month.”

Each week, the Procurement office celebrated all of FCPS’ dedicated public procurement professionals who provide support to our schools and departments in the purchase of materials and services, establish strategic contracts to facilitate those purchases, and maximize the value of public spending for FCPS. Thanks for all your hard work, procurement professionals! Go Team FCPS!!

Learning happens in community and our community remains strong.  This past week, I had the opportunity to meet with local faith leaders, Colonel Joseph Messina (Garrison Commander at Fort Belvoir), Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeffrey McKay, and a principals panel from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. One of my favorite things about FCPS is that though our community partners come from many different backgrounds and sectors, we are all united in our mission to help our young people thrive!

We recently had a kickoff event for FCPS’ new Human Capital Management (HCM) system! Our new system, Oracle HCM, will replace not only our decades-old Lawson Human Resources Information System, but will also consolidate several other FCPS applications such as BrassRing, Onboarding, MyTime, UConnect, and MyPDE.

Oracle HCM will make things easier for all our employees. It will help us work better, use technology to get more done, and enhance the transparency of our data. You can find out more about it and our plans in the recording of the kickoff event. I'm excited about how this will make things better for Team FCPS, from when you apply to when you retire!

The HCM kickoff wasn’t the only Gatehouse event that day! We also had visitors from a Youth Leadership class. We met for a Q&A discussion, and I shared my journey in education with them, beginning as a middle school science teacher and eventually becoming superintendent of our amazing school division.

I also spoke with them about the need for creating opportunities to elevate all the voices in our community, including students, staff members, families, and local groups. Engaging with and building trust with everyone who has an interest in the future of our division is especially important in a community as large and diverse as ours! It’s also Pillar B of our 2023-30 Strategic Plan: Vibrant Home, School, and Community Partnerships. The students had thoughtful questions during the Q&A portion of my visit — I’m so impressed with how deeply our young learners and leaders are thinking about their futures!

I also joined the All-County Principals Meeting (ACPM) the week before break. One focus at the ACPM was Universal Design for Learning (UDL). UDL is how we will create flexible learning environments that minimize barriers. When we design education for an “average” student, we design for no one. Because there is no such person as an “average” learner!

UDL removes barriers, with the understanding that educational barriers are designed, not inherent in a student’s ability to learn. “One-size-fits-all” doesn’t apply to many situations in life — would you like a one-size-fits-all pair of , or car, or even cup of coffee? So why would we have a one-size-fits-all educational experience, especially when the ramifications can impact the very life trajectory of our young people?

UDL supports the student-centered goals of our 2023-30 Strategic Plan and connects to the overarching goals of our Special Education Enhancement Plan. There will be much more on this in the coming months; so exciting!!

During the March 21 School Board meeting, I presented an update on our 2023-30 Strategic Plan Goal 2: Safe, Supported, Included, and Empowered. One measure of Goal 2 of school attendance, which is an important indicator of student success. Through our attendance campaign (“Attend Today, Achieve Tomorrow!”), we’ve been communicating with families about the importance of regular school attendance.  I want to thank each of you for your contribution to this important work; it matters.

I’m thrilled to say we’ve seen a recent decrease in chronic absenteeism, which is defined as a student missing 10% or more of school for any reason. 93% of our schools have shown a 5% point improvement and 19 schools have made a 10% point improvement. 

We’re continuing to explore different strategies to help reduce chronic absenteeism, including expanding our arts and athletics offerings. These activities help students feel like they’re part of a team, that they have classes that they are drawn to, and that they’re connected to our school community. We’re also exploring flexible scheduling opportunities, such as Spring Sprouts.  It was great to have an opportunity to visit the schools hosting this program last week.  Students and staff were very engaged and I loved the opportunity to learn more about life cycles in the garden and helped to plant seeds with our young learners.  Growth continues to be strong ;>)  Go Sprouts!

This pilot program will allow students at five elementary schools to recover missed days in their attendance record with a focus on early literacy and numeracy skills, as well as other skills. We will have 30 students and five teachers participating at each school for two to three hours a day (outside of school hours) with each group comprising six students. While Spring Sprouts sessions are not a substitute for the learning loss that comes with missing an entire day of school, it will be a way to bolster the connections our students have with school — this feeling of connectedness is critical for getting our learners back on track with regular attendance. We’ll be piloting the program this spring and evaluating its success for potential expansion. Addressing chronic absenteeism has been, and will continue to be, a group effort and a priority for our community.  

During Academic Matters, I shared how FCPS is strengthening numeracy in the primary grades.

To this end, FCPS has been investing in professional development through Add+Vantage Math Recovery © (AVMR) and our educators are using a scripted intervention curriculum to support numeracy instruction. We currently have at least one AVMR trained teacher in each elementary school in FCPS. These educators are trained to help students build flexibility with foundational numeracy – the ability to apply math concepts in the real world – observe student behaviors to make instructional decisions, and provide instruction that is targeted at the edge of the child's current knowledge - accelerating their learning. Our younger AVMR students get to use different things like blocks and toys to understand math in the real world. They also learn by asking questions, practicing math, and talking about different ways to solve problems. We will continue to support our young mathletes — watch this video to see them in action!

After the School Board meeting, the weekend was off to an inspiring start with EduFuturo’s 26th anniversary celebration. FCPS has a strong partnership with EduFuturo, which helps support our newcomer multilingual students and their families through mentorships, STEM enrichment, leadership development, family engagement, and academic support. This work matters!! 

As Spring Break began, I attended the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) conference in Washington, D.C., and served as a panelist on a discussion titled "Transformative Strategies: Unleashing the Power of Your Plans for Student Excellence." I was proud to share the community and student-centered work that FCPS has done to align as a school division on our goals, strategies, and measures. From our School Improvement and Innovation Plans (SIIPs) to our 2023-30 Strategic Plan, I’m thrilled to see what can be achieved as we continue to work in community, together all things are possible!

Congratulations to Justice High School ESOL environmental science and biology teacher Kirsten Salonga, who was chosen for the 2024 Robert E. Yager Exemplary Teaching Award! Kirsten is one of six science educators to receive this recognition from the National Science Teaching Association (NSTA). Go Wolves!!

The NSTA noted in their award announcement that “Kirsten is passionate about representation and experimentation. As a 2019-2020 Fulbright Scholar, she utilizes her experiences teaching English at Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia, to create and implement content that is accessible and rigorous. As the recipient of an Educate Fairfax Grant, she implemented “Hydroponics in Action!”, solidifying concepts learned within her classes and bringing science to life, as students created their own models of photosynthesis while participating in Project-Based Learning. Her classes are a unique mixture of scientific content and English language development, and she has created much of the ESOL Environmental Science and ESOL Biology Curriculum that many teachers in Fairfax County Public Schools use today. She attributes all success to her parents, who immigrated from the Philippines to give her the life she has today.” Thank you for all you do, Kirsten! Go Team FCPS!!

Thank you to Roni Breza, technology, and engineering education teacher at Jackson Middle School, for sharing more wonderful news: Jackson’s Engineering Department recently received the International Technology and Engineering Educator’s Association (ITEEA) Program Excellence Award! The Program Excellence Award is one of the highest honors given to technology and engineering education programs at the elementary, middle, and high school levels and is presented in recognition of outstanding contributions to the profession and their students. The Jackson engineering team consists of Roni Breza, Phil Kim, and Mark Smith. Roni and Phil (pictured above) attended the conference in Memphis to receive the award in person. Go Team FCPS!!

Mark your calendars for next week’s solar eclipse!! The eclipse is taking place on Moonday ;>) April 8 and (weather permitting) will be visible in our area around 2:04 p.m. and end around 4:32 p.m. 

This will be the last total solar eclipse visible from the United States until 2044. You can see the path of totality on the map above, courtesy of nationaleclipse.com. The maximum eclipse will occur around 3:20 p.m. I hope that each of you can take advantage of this truly awe-inspiring natural phenomenon, which has been capturing our collective curiosity and imaginations for centuries. Don’t forget to practice safe solar viewing! 

Thank you to Micheline Lavalle, a family literacy specialist at our Office for ESOL Services, for sharing the following FCPS Inspires moment from our Family Literacy school sites! Micheline shared the picture above and wrote that: “FCPS’ Family Literacy Program participants at five schools visited the Molina Family Latino Gallery’s inaugural exhibition of “¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States” to explore the theme of Latino changemakers. This was part of a fall ‘23 and spring ‘24 collaboration between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino (NMAL), its Office of Audience Engagement, and FCPS’ Family Literacy Program (Office of ESOL Services).

“Following the visit, multi-session arts-based workshops were held at each school. Multilingual participants engaged in creating their own artworks, entitled “I am – Yo Soy.” These workshops aim to give access to the museum experience and to elevate participants' awareness of their own contributions to their families and communities by sharing identity and stories.” Here are some quotes from our family participants:

• “It was a very pleasant time, especially when we thought about our inner feelings, what we are and what we want.”  - Lema
• “It reminded me of what I did in my country fifteen years ago. We worked on art projects to think about our dreams.” - Cindy
• “I was feeling like an artist from a museum, when I was doing my project.” - Rosario

Thank you to Lema, Cindy, and Rosario for sharing their experiences and their artistic visions — I’m told that NMAL plans to display their artwork at the museum’s Learning Lounge! And thank you to Micheline for sharing this wonderful, transformative program; this work matters!!

And so, as I close out this note, I wish each of you all the best this spring week ahead.  As our seasons change...“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”  —  Henry David Thoreau. These remain our best days…

Warmest regards,