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Our Monthly School Board News
Message from Ilryong Moon
Greetings to all of you and congratulations to our 2024 graduates! I was honored to attend many of your graduations and am always amazed when I hear about the accomplishments so many of our students are achieving and their plans for their futures, whether that be attending a university, pursuing a passion in technology or trade, serving our Country in one of the branches of the military, or volunteering with an organization that helps others throughout the Country or globally. And let's remember to thank our parents for all the hard work they put in raising such great kids and to the teachers who facilitated their successes!! Fairfax has AMAZING students! There is no doubt and I wish all our graduates continuing success in whatever professional endeavors they pursue.
This is also the time of year that our School Board benefits from hearing our annual reports of our citizen advisory committees and receiving recommendations on ways that we and our Superintendent can continue making progress in a variety of aspects of the school system.
This newsletter will be a little longer than my traditional communication. In this edition, I want to highlight the incredible work one of our citizen advisory committees, the School Health Advisory Committee, accomplished this past school year and the recommendations recently presented to the School Board. Below I will provide more detailed links to the report and School Board presentation but I want to share with you a high level summary.
First, our students today are coping with school in ways that were inconceivable 20 or more years go by their parents. The ubiquity of cell phones and social media has transformed the way our children interact with each other and not always in ways that are good for the child because of the “disconnect” when kids are deprived of face to face interactions and connections.
One way our advisory committee recommended coping with this is to broadly make more extracurricular activities available – to give all students more extracurricular or volunteer activities to strengthen connections with other students while also giving them more face to face interactions with other students to build relationships and learn skills in communicating and collaborating such as with team play, etc. This is only one aspect of the report recommendations but one that is very meaningful and potentially impactful in improving the mental health of our kids.
If you research this issue, you’ll find a number of ways that parents can also build good mental health habits for children. Some of those ways include:
* Advocating for balanced technology use and modeling responsible use
* Staying in regular contact with teachers so that you understand the workload and stressors your child is facing (encourage a balanced approach to homework and projects that consider students' overall well-being and promotes effective time management)
* Continue advocating for our anti-bullying programs and teach your child to report bullying incidents to school authorities and provide them with the support needed to do so
* Demonstrate that you value inclusivity and that all voices matter regardless of their differences, especially with regard to gender identity or sexual orientation
* Promote mental health resources such as increasing access to counseling and raising awareness about mental health issues to reduce the stigma associated with seeking help
* Encourage a healthy school-life balance that includes time for students’ extracurricular activities that they enjoy and that can provide a break from academic stress
* Creating that loving, supportive home environment that all children needs throughout their development (remember to listen and validate -- providing a supportive and non-judgmental space for them to share their concerns is the best way to stay connected and involved in their world)
I hope you’ll take something away from this short essay. And I hope all of you and your families can take the summer to enjoy some time relaxing with family and friends while we do the hard work preparing for our next outstanding school year!
All the best,
Ilryong Moon
Check out the work of our Citizen Advisory Committees and Consider Volunteering
The work of our citizen advisory committees is incredibly valuable to not only us School Board Members but to our Superintendent and her staff. It's the way that we complete the feedback loop and get input from our communities, parents, staff and teachers.
I hope you'll take an opportunity to review the great work that our committees performed this year:
- Adult and Community Education Advisory Committee
- Advanced Academic Programs Advisory Committee
- Advisory Committee for Students with Disabilities
- Career and Technical Education Advisory Committee
- Facilities Planning Advisory Council
- Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee
- Human Resources Advisory Committee
- Minority Student Achievement Oversight Committee
- School Health Advisory Committee
- Title I Parent Advisory Committee
Citizen Advisory Committee Appointments
I am currently seeking individuals interested in serving on one of the following citizen advisory committees for next school year. If you're interested, please send me a communication with your resume and statement of interest detailing why you're passionate about serving the school system community:
- Advisory Committee for Students with Disabilities
- Facilities Planning Advisory Council
- Family Life Education Curriculum Advisory Committee
- Minority Student Achievement Oversight Committee
- School Health Advisory Committee
For all of the full descriptions of these committees, please visit the Citizen Advisory Committee section of the FCPS Webpage.
Fairfax County School Board Seeks Audit Committee Applicants
Fairfax County Public Schools invites applications from persons interested in serving on the School Board Audit Committee. Applications will be accepted from June 24, 2024, until July 9, 2024; applicants must reside within the boundaries of Fairfax County or Fairfax City. The Board will be appointing one committee member for a term ending June 30, 2026. Get more information and submit an application.
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I want to thank award winning Claire Kim from Centreville High School for a humbling artistic drawing she provided to me recently. Congratulations to all of the FCPS award winning artists!! |
The views contained within this newsletter reflect the views of the individual school board member who is the publisher of this newsletter and may not reflect the views of the Fairfax County School Board.
© Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax County, Virginia
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