Final notes of 2007

This final day of 2007 marks the end of my appointed term on the School board, filling the final ten months of John Andrews' term after his resignation in January. When a member resigns, the remaining members select that person's replacement. I felt a little odd at first that none of the people who were in a position to select the next representative of my district lived in my district.
In June though, when the filing deadline passed for the November elections and I was to be the only name on the ballot, I felt comfortable not only that I could spend the remainder of the year focused on doing the job instead of campaigning, but that folks in the neighborhoods around mine were comfortable with me as their representative. (Of course there is always the possibility that they just hadn't really noticed what I'd been doing.)

At the risk of engaging in some navel-gazing, I thought I'd put a few thoughts down to wrap up the year.

Being a School Board member isn't a thankless job (but being a School Board member's spouse is). Almost from the first week on the job, I started to hear people say to me "I know you've got a thankless job." On the contrary, in my experience so far, it isn't thankless at all. In my first month we had "School Board Appreciation Day," when students brought us a number of handmade gifts and portraits of ourselves. My own portrait was done by my daughter Jenny, making it particularly special to me. I speak with lots of people every week about our work on the school board, and in many ways either explicitly or implicitly they let me know that they appreciate the effort we give. Thank you all for doing so. I hope that those folks who get the opportunity will extend that appreciation to my wife Lori and our children who have to do a lot of things at home that really should be my responsibility, because many times I'm not able to be there for them.

The blog. On May 8th I began this blog as a way to journal my experience, share interesting things I learn along the way and promote more open government. This is the 100th entry. There were warnings from the beginning that something I wrote would come back to haunt me... the less there is on the record, the less there is for people to attack you for. I suppose there's still plenty of time for that. But that warning misses the point. This job isn't about me, and hopefully the blog isn't much about me either. So I don't worry about the impact of the blog on me, only on the work that I do for the children of my community.

The members. Getting to know the members of the School Board personally has been a real joy for me this year. Each person on the Loudoun County School Board brings a different perspective and different strengths. While we don't have nearly enough ethnic diversity for a county of our demographics (of course I don't add to that diversity, do I?), we are otherwise a pretty mixed lot in age, economics, political persuasion, education and career path. To quote Jack Valenti, they "are all parents, normal human beings, neither gods nor fools." Each is alike in one important aspect... every one has a background in community service that preceded our election.

For two members, this marks their final day in office. Sarah Smith is a career LCPS Spanish teacher who in her four years focused on the folks who need a champion... special ed students, custodians, students headed to trade school instead of college. Sugarland Representative Dr. Joseph Guzman aptly described her many times as "the conscience of this board." She is steadfast and determined, and a reminder that LCPS isn't just about students taking AP classes from teachers with masters degrees.

Catoctin representative Mark Nuzzaco came to the Board with a story that demonstrates one of my favorite political sagas... the citizen reasonably disgruntled by the system who doesn't just get mad, he gets involved, becomes part of the system and ultimately loses his seat to the same passions that swept him in. Mark got involved as many parents do, during a boundary process that sent his kids from their home in Leesburg to the new Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn. Instead of throwing up his hands in frustration he rolled up his sleeves and went to work as the president of the Stone Bridge PTO. From there Mark won a seat on the School Board where, in a classic political irony, he ultimately became the target of parents angry over boundary decisions. It was my luck to sit next to Mark on the dais this year, and on a personal level I am very fond of him and will miss him greatly. Read more about Mark Nuzzaco here.

Finally I would like to recognize John Andrews, who served as a Board member for more than seven years, including a couple of years as its chairman. John has been an excellent source of advice this year and was for years a competent voice in local government, something we should all wish to be. While no longer an office holder, he remains a confidant and sage to many of the people I respect most in Loudoun government. I hope and expect we'll see more of him in the future.

The lesson. Get involved. Of the dozen individuals who are part of either the 2004-2007 or 2008-2011 School Boards, few are educators and none are professional politicians. They are your neighbors and were first part of Parent-Teacher organizations, Rotary Club, the Good Shepherd Alliance, little league coaching, Boy Scouts and more. Our community has hundreds of advisory committees, charities, churches and sports leagues that run entirely on the force of ordinary people who just show up willing to help. Step outside of your life for a while, decide what is important to you in the community and make it happen. It doesn't require special expertise.

Tomorrow I officially begin a new four-year term. In my time and on this blog I will focus in the first two weeks primarily on the budget. Best wishes to all of Loudoun's students, parents, educators and citizens for a successful new year.

LCPS 8th Grader Named to State Advisory Board

There is an interesting bit of news on the LCPS website today, titled River Bend’s Jang Appointed to State Student Advisory Committee. There is so much stuff I'd never know about if I didn't check that homepage each day. River Bend MS serves the area that I represent, and my step-daughter is a 7th grader there. From the article:

Daniel Jang, an eighth-grader at River Bend Middle School, has been named to the Virginia Board of Education’s Student Advisory Committee. Among the issues Jang wants the state school board to examine are federal No Child Left Behind legislation and standardized testing.“I think there’s an overemphasis on standardized testing. They could cut that down a little bit and let the kids do more critical thinking and questioning."

Well put, Mr. Jang. I'm thrilled that the Virginia Board of Education will be hearing your viewpoint, and I hope we'll get a chance to talk about your experiences in Richmond.

Loudoun County has a Student School Board Representative from each of our 10 high schools, but apart from sitting in on a meeting or two, they really aren't able to provide much input to us. I think that if the Commonwealth feels that student input is helpful, perhaps we should have a look at increasing the level of input that we get from our students. I'll be discussing that with my colleagues over the next couple of months. In the meantime, congratulations Daniel Jang!

Steps To Literacy

In case you missed it over the holiday weekend, the Post published a nice profile of a reading program called Steps to Literacy. The program is targeted specifically at reducing the achievement gap by ensuring that all students have a strong foundation in reading in writing.

In a school district that hires hundreds of teachers each year — each with a distinct approach to instilling one of life's most critical skills — administrators thought it was important to train everyone in the same reading curriculum.

The program they selected, Steps to Literacy, covers phonetics, vocabulary, spelling, writing, word recognition, reading comprehension and fluency in kindergarten through second grade.

If you're interested to see how LCPS evaluates pilot programs, have a look at the 2004 Steps to Literacy Year 1 Program Evaluation. I found it on the LCPS Program Evaluations web page.

Schools and Holidays

"...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson, 1779

I always enjoy the morality spats in this country: the squeals about flag burning and film content and gay marriage. At the epicenter of these is the fight about the separation of church and state. I love this one especially. For many years protestant Christians have used the government at all levels as an extension of the practice of their religion, and as that becomes less and less appropriate with a diverse society many of them are increasingly upset about the schools becoming more secular. They put forth all manner of entertaining reasons to object to this: that secularism is a competing religion unto itself, that the founding fathers intended our nation to be a theocracy (read the truth here), that the majority gets to do whatever it wants, and my favorite: that God in government ("In God we trust (1956)", "Under God (1954)") is just a "civic religion" and doesn't hold any real meaning and yet would be a death knell to civilization if removed.

Now as much as I would love to write an essay taking on the entire concept, I'm limiting myself here to a brief discussion of the practical aspects because in reality these disagreements don't add up to much when it comes to real issues facing educators and students every day. They are an electoral distraction more than anything else.

Take a moment to consider the degree to which Christianity dominates our educational environment.

1. We are currently taking time off from school for "Winter Break." We call it Winter Break, but everybody can plainly see that it is "Christmas Break." Imagine if I were to propose that we have "Winter Break" around Hanukkah, just a couple of weeks earlier.
   
2. In April we will have "Spring Break," which is of course always adjacent to Easter weekend. Try moving it to center on Passover just a couple of weeks later.
3. Every student pledges allegiance to "one nation, under God" every morning
   
4. Since 2002, every school in Virginia must prominently display the motto "In God We Trust." This seems generic enough until you consider that not all of our students are religious, some who are are not monotheistic, and even some monotheistic religions have prohibitions about the depiction of the name of God.
   
5. Many official events that I have been to, typically department lunches and dinners, are initiated by a Christian prayer led by one of the people in the room who supervises all the others on the job.
   
6. The Board of Supervisors swearing-in ceremony this past Saturday was started with a benediction "in the name of Jesus Christ."
   

With that I hope that we've dispensed with the illusion that God has been eradicated from the public schools. The fact is that religion is a very strong, diverse and healthy part of our society and the public schools are no different from any other facet of life in that regard. Public schools should be a place where children can learn about different religions and profess their own. At the same time public schools must never promote one religion over another, or religion itself.

To help School Board members, Superintendents and educators with this balancing act, there are a number of helpful publications.

• US Department of Education, Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
• National PTA's Parent's Guide to Religion in the Public Schools
• Anti-Defamation League, Religion in Public Schools
  
• First Amendment Center's Teachers Guide to Religion in the Public Schools, endorsed by:
• Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs
• National Association of Evangelicals
• Council on Islamic Education
• National Education Association
• Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
• and many other religious and secular organizations
  

This past week I received another, Guidelines on Religion in Public Schools, published by the Jewish Community Relations Council. It includes a very helpful calendar of religious, national and community holidays for the upcoming school year. It is remarkable to view, because there is a holiday nearly every week of the year, and some weeks have multiples.

When you hear someone bemoan the assault on Christianity in public schools, you're hearing the wailing of a privileged class as its presumed birthright to power is revoked. To wit, see a couple of recent posts by fellow Loudoun blogger Barbara Curtis, whose "Mommy Life" blog is very well read both locally and nationally. Her recent post "Public schools and religious freedom: Can one person make a difference?" is a case in point.

I am hearing from parent after parent and teacher after teacher that all it took was one parent complaining for a school principal to completely cave and put the kibosh on Christmas or Christmas music - even while allowing every other religious holiday (and Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, btw, just something thrown into the mix to level the playing field) under the sun to be celebrated. We can have a picture of a Menorah but not of a Nativity.

I've heard these stories before. One parent complains and suddenly... no Santa! Non-Christian religions have the run of the place! So far each of them has turned out to be a trumped-up charge, third hand at best. But the underlying spirit of this post, insulting Kwanzaa specifically and any faith that isn't her own with her broad generalization of "every other religious holiday," is what really bothers me. Really Barbara? Did your school commemorate Diwali or Ramadan this year? Did they celebrate Wesak, which is the birthday of Buddha? Or the birthdays of Baha'ullah (Baha'i) or Guru Nana Dev (Sihk)?

To her credit, in a different post, called "Christmas shut out at Waterford Elementary School?" Barbara comes up with a sort-of first-hand account:

I have not seen anything about Christmas. And I’m not talking about candy canes and trees. I’m talking about something representing the true basis for the Christian holiday celebrated by a much larger percentage of the population than these other holidays.

We sat silently through the huge hoopla that is Halloween at Waterford School, even though that is a religious holiday we do not celebrate ourselves.

Is Christianity to be shut out of my son’s school completely? If so, this is religious bias and it is illegal.

This is from the text of a letter that Barbara sent to her son's principal, and I appreciate that she did take it up with the principal directly in addition to posting it publicly. If you have an issue with something at your child's school, that is definitely the right thing to do. Too many parents spread their complaint to everybody except the principal.

Nonetheless, I can't find any merit to Barbara's complaint. First, she talks about the "true basis" for Christmas. I wonder if Barbara feels that her child's public school teacher is a qualified religious instructor. Then she mentions that hers is the majority religion... all the more reason to understand that kids of every faith are already awash in Christmas, have ample opportunity to learn about it outside of school, and that the powerful majority should be extra careful of its influence.

In the next sentence she calls Halloween a religious holiday. This is bunk. The connection Barbara would try to make is to Samhain, an ancient Celtic harvest holiday roughly equivalent to Thanksgiving here in the US. Samhain is celebrated on October 31st by some earth-centered religious faiths, and as my pagan friends will attest it has nothing to do with Halloween, certainly not the power-rangers and candy corn variety of public schools.

In Barbara's mind, all of life is a battleground for the dominance of the one true religion. Whenever she's not winning, she's losing. But this nation and the proud Commonwealth of Virginia were founded in part on the principal that government cannot, should not, must not be the arbiter of faith. Where government and religion intertwine there is trouble. Where people of every faith and of no faith are free to do as they please, nobody loses. People of faith must be involved in government, but the government must be built and executed on their values and not their religion.

I opened with Thomas Jefferson's Statute for Religious Freedom, I will close the same way:

Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time.

Merry Christmas.

Gifted Discontent

Today's Washington Post includes a letter from a Loudoun County parent who isn't happy with the gifted programs that LCPS offers.

The gifted program in Loudoun County is an attempt at appeasement. The system officials do not want the parents of the bulk of the students pointing at the gifted program and screaming elitist nor do they want to try to justify large expenditures for a segment of the community.

Jay Mathews, the Post's resident education guru, calls the letter "an apt summary of the strains and stumbles that surround this issue:"

You put your finger precisely on the problem that gifted programs have throughout the country. Public school systems rarely have the expertise or the money to reproduce the kind of program you had as a child, and the number of students like you and your daughter who are ready for it is so small that it is hard to justify to taxpayers.

I wrote about the gifted programs in October as part of a back and forth with Loudoun's blogging gifted program critic, Elise at Loudoun Schools Feedback. She also talks about the Post article today in her blog, I give her credit for getting to it first this morning. Her assessment below:

This parent and teacher perspective, in our opinion, is absolutely accurate. And, while tepid and unimaginative, Jay's response is also absolutely accurate...a tremendous amount of potential will be added to Virginia's vast pool of the untapped.

To see my overall assessment of LCPS gifted programs, see my LCPS Gifted Programs post.

As with so many things, parents who feel impacted need to take ownership and take action. If you have the answers, you have a responsibility to get involved and share them with the rest of us.

• Take advantage of the resources made available on the LCPS Gifted and Talented Program webpage.
  
• Download and read the LCPS Local Plan for the Education of the Gifted.
• Talk to your LCPS School Board member about the changes you want.
• Attend meetings of the Gifted Advisory Committee (next meeting: Jan 10th, 7:00p)
  
• Speak during the public comment sessions of the school board meetings (2nd & 4th Tuesdays, 6:3opm)
• Find out if your Parent-Teacher organization offers after-school programs, and if so offer to teach a class for gifted students

The LCPS parent who wrote the letter refers to "system officials" as the cause of the problem. I'm certainly one of those "system officials," but more than that I'm just a dad and a neighbor who just goes to a lot of meetings. So are every other one of the "system officials." My interest isn't in appeasing, it's in trying to do the very best for every child in our community. We only have the funds to spend that the taxpayers give us, we only have the hours in the day that nature gives us, and so there is always opportunity for improvement. When Elise refers to "Virginia's vast pool of the untapped", I think of the many parents with the expertise and perspective and hours to give and I wonder how to tap into that.

Swearing In

The Loudoun County School Board for 2008-2011 was sworn in last Tuesday in front of an empty (though very open to the public) room:

Pictured, from left to right, Clerk of the Court Gary Clemens, Priscilla Godfrey, Tom Reed, Bob Ohneiser, Jennifer Keller Bergel, Tom Marshall, Warren Geurin, John Stevens, Joe Guzman, Chairman Robert DuPree. Marshall and Keller-Bergel are the newly elected members, the rest of us are repeats.

This Saturday the Board of Supervisors will be sworn in before a standing-room-only crowd.

Weekend Education News

I found lots of interesting stories in the Washington Post this weekend. First was Calls Grow for a Broader Yardstick for Schools: A look at potential No Child LeftBehind Act revisions that would look beyond Reading and Math to other subjects, and even physical education.

Advocates for "multiple measures" say that learning is too complex to be judged by annual tests and argue that spontaneity and creativity in classrooms are being lost to test preparation and drills.

On the other hand:

"Proponents of multiple measures say it will give a richer, fuller view of a school, but this isn't about a rich view of a school. It's about failures in fundamental gate-keeping subject areas."

To see what your School Board said about the issue, see the resolution passed this fall.

Next, in the Loudoun Section, is a piece on next month's vote to get seatbelts on all new school buses. Sugarland Representative Joe Guzman has pushed this issue for years but finally got traction this fall when the US Department of Transportation completed a study and issued new guidelines for the use of seatbelts on buses. There was also an interesting column by the Post's Warren Brown on the subject in November, and I wrote my own piece on School Bus Seat Belts back in August. The School Board will vote on the issue in January, so if you have a strong opinion about the subject, now is the time to make it known.

On the ever-controversial subject of sex education, the Post reports today that Abstinence Programs Face Rejection in states across the country. It does reference Governor Kaine's cuts in his proposed budget, a story I commented on back in November making the same point that is in the opening lines of the story:

The number of states refusing federal money for "abstinence-only" sex education programs jumped sharply in the past year as evidence mounted that the approach is ineffective.

The most interesting aspect of this trend is that these states aren't just opting for more comprehensive sex education, or cutting sex education from their curriculums. They are effectively saying "you couldn't pay me to teach this stuff." Some folks will say that the liberal educational establishment actually wants kids to go out and have lots of sex. This just isn't true. I'll say it again and again: Studies show that just telling kids to be abstinent isn't the best way to actually get them to be abstinent. Further, it makes them more vulnerable to pregnancy, disease, rape, abuse and other complications of sex if they do not choose abstinence or are assaulted. This is a very inconvenient fact because these same conservative critics of public schools are often the ones decrying educational programs that haven't been proven effective.

"Why would we spend tax dollars on something that doesn't work?" asked Ned Calonge of the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. "That doesn't make sense to me. Philosophically, I am opposed to spending government dollars on something that's ineffective. That's just irresponsible."

Note that the quote is from Colorado... hardly a bastion of liberalism. Ohio is, interestingly, trying to have it both ways...

"The governor supports abstinence education," Keith Daily, a spokesman for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D). "What he does not support is abstinence- only education. We are asking to put the money toward abstinence in the context of a comprehensive age-appropriate curriculum."

Of course, while pro-abstinence-education groups say of their programs: "They are holistic. They include relationship-building skills and medically accurate discussions of sexually transmitted diseases and contraception," Ohio has made itself ineligible for the funds by taking this approach, showing that "abstinence plus" just ain't so. The relationship building skills are focused entirely on maintaining virginity and the medically accurate information is entirely about scaring these kids. Other medically accurate information is not included in these programs.

Another way to think of it is that just as with science and civics, we're teaching children not just knowledge that they need now, but knowledge they need for a lifetime. By focusing on Abstinence education we do nothing to prepare them for the lives they will actually lead, in which most of them will be normal people who will have sex lives just as surely as they will have careers and families. We don't send them into the workforce without a clue, why would we send them into their bedrooms that way?

Finally in my list, on Friday the Post reported on the revenue shortfalls faced by the new Board of Supervisors, and tries to portray the issue as a point of contention between our two boards. I would comment that since the School Board hasn't even yet voted on the budget, it is premature to suggest that we're bickering with the Supervisors over it. We all understand that this is going to be a tough year, and we're all going to do our best to work out the best possible budget for the kids and the county.

AP Fees & Budget Cuts

Today's Washington Post features a column by Jay Matthews on school districts paying AP testing fees for their students. He makes the point that

The college-level AP and IB exams given in Loudoun and Fauquier counties are written and graded by outsiders. So if all students take the exams, classroom teachers have no way of lowering their standards without that being detected when the results are released.

Today's LoudounTimes.com carries a story on the looming revenue shortfall in Loudoun County, closing with this shot across the bow:

"Right now, schools are not even in the right universe," said Board Chairman Scott York (I-at large), commenting on the school system's expected $801 milliion spending plan for next year.

In the midst of the difficult choices that both Boards will need to make about tax rates, class sizes and what creates educational excellence, some School Board members are eyeing the AP fee payments, particularly for the many students from affluent families, as a potential target for savings. What do you think?

Boundary Changes passed

The School Board last night unanimously approved changes to elementary school boundaries in Ashburn/Dulles North and Dulles South. I encourage interested parents to view the webcast from the meeting to listen to the explanations by Mr. DuPree and Mr. Ohnesier, who represent these areas, as to why the particular plans were the best available.

For those keenly interested in the final results, use these links to view the adopted Dulles North boundaries and the adopted Dulles South Boundaries.

December 11: Meetings & More

It's going to be a long day today. I need to do as much as I can on my day job, then I'm headed to read to my son's first grade class and have lunch with them in the cafeteria.

After lunch, I'm meeting with Andy Johnston (of Loudoun Cares) and Susan Jane Stack of the Department of Family Services regarding the Living Wage in Loudoun County (I want to be sure that we're paying our custodians well enough that they don't require public services to live).
Then I have a meeting of the Finance, Construction and Site Acquisition Committee followed by a Board work session on the proposed budget for Instructional Services. At 5pm the new Board will be sworn in by Clerk of the Court Gary Clemens and then have dinner together.

At 6:30 we will have the full Board meeting. At that meeting we will vote on new elementary boundaries for Dulles North & Dulles South. Don't expect major changes from the staff recommendations... a neighborhood here or there maybe but not likely any wholesale revisions.

We will not have a vote on the proposed changes to the meeting formats that I made two weeks ago... enough members wanted more time to consider and discuss the changes before voting that it has been postponed for action.

After the regular business is complete, we will reconvene the work session review of the Instructional Services budget for any items remaining from the 4pm work session.

I hope you all have a nice day too.

Budget Immersion

The past two weeks have reminded me somewhat of what it was like when I first joined the Board... trying to ingest information at a rate that is like drinking from a fire hose. It's late and I'm not going to write much now, but I do want to take the time to tell you how very impressed I am with the many people who work so hard to put together the proposed budget that we are reviewing. It is, officially, the "Superintendent's proposed budget," and before it gets to us it has been through his own vetting process. What it really reflects though is the work of at least a couple of hundred people, from principals and other school-level staff to supervisors and directors with the help of specialists and secretaries and up to the senior staff members. Feel free to add the folks I've missed in the comments. Their work began months ago, before the last school year even ended.
Once published, it is the supervisors, directors and assistant superintendents who take a seat at the microphone, each in turn, and field innumerable questions from board members in hours-long endurance sessions.Every board member comes to the table with different levels of experience, different priorities, different abilities, different constituencies. It must be the intellectual equivalent of playing catch with six people... each with a ball from a different sport.
To a person each member of the staff demonstrate a very clear command of their area of responsibility. I'm sure that they've had to justify each line item at multiple levels before they get to us, we're just the last so maybe they've warmed up by then.
When we passed the reconciled budget back in April, Tom Reed prompted the Board to get up and applaud the staff for their work from the dais. I understand better now why we did that.
I am looking through this budget with an eye toward what is most important, what we can put off until another year, what we can do without. I'm trying to be prepared to pare it down to what the community is willing to pay for. But I have to be honest with you, that won't be easy. This budget is the work of professionals, really good professionals who really care about giving your children and mine the best education possible. Who among us wants to cut that?

Dec 6 '07: Two Hour Delay

Let the kids sleep in this morning. Two hour delay.

All Loudoun County Schools will open on a 2 hour delay today, December 6th.

Those taking part in the HHMI Holiday lecture series should report to their home schools.

For more cancellations and event information, click here.

Please sign up for the Loudoun County Alert System.

No early closing today

Update for January 17, 2007: Again, schools are not closing early. New post.

In the event that you are reading this and have not received the alert:

All Loudoun County Schools will close at their normal times today, Wednesday, December 5, 2007. All after-school activities involving school buses are canceled. ALL LCPS AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES FOR WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2007, ARE NOW CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS. The Administrative Leadership Team meeting scheduled for 3:00 p.m. today is canceled.

High School principals should remind student drivers to drive carefully or take the school bus home if they are not sure about driving on snow covered roads.

The forecast is for increasing surface temperatures after 1:00 p.m. that should aid road crews in treating road surfaces.

It appears the LCPS website is being hammered right now, I am unable to view it and I suspect many people are relying on it as their source of information. It's a very good idea to sign up for the LCPS alert service in advance of events like these and have the alerts sent to your email address or phone.

Food Allergy Parent Group

I met briefly tonight with a group of parents who have children with food allergies. Their meeting overlapped with an important meeting of the Special Education Advisory Committee, so I couldn't stay as long as I wanted. Nevertheless, nearly 20 parents came to the meeting and I did get to talk individually with a handful of them.

The meeting was led by Maria Hardy, who has a blog called Allergy Free in Loudoun. These parents are dealing with an especially challenging life situation that I think most of us don't really understand. For these children, the real world is a dangerous place and allergies are not a health issue, they're a safety issue. It's far more complex than kids just staying away from foods that they're not supposed to eat. They need tremendous understanding from teachers, principals and fellow parents. Many times they get that understanding but sometimes they do not.

I hope that Maria or another parent will leave a comment here with a link to a webpage that can help people who are not familiar with childhood food allergies to understand the scope and importance of the challenge.

I am interested in exploring over the next year ways in which LCPS can help our teachers, principals and administrators with guidance and support in ensuring that every school is a safe place for every child with food allergies. If you are the parent of a child with food allergies, I encourage you to get in touch with this parent group for support, and with your school board member to let them know that this is an important issue for you. If you are facing challenges with your child's school or would like to highlight the ways in which your child's school is helping your child have a full and safe experience every day, I hope that you will let me or your school board representative know.