Tonight (2018-02-06) was a budget study session for the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE) and Program Budget Advisory Council (PBAC).
Full disclosure: I sit on the PBAC, so some of these Observations aren’t exactly from the Audience.
This budget study session was at the High school. Agenda was the presentations from Counseling Services, High School, and Health/Physical Education/Interscholastic Athletics. They each spoke on what greatness they had done over the past year, and what they wanted to change for next year. Along with that was a budget projection/wish list.
First up was a group representing the counseling department. They gave a nice presentation of the overall program, but I felt the department was a bit schizophrenic. They seemed torn between preparing kids for college and seeing to their mental health. Both tasks are important, but is the school managing them properly? Or even the right place for those tasks to be managed? I don’t know, but in many ways this was the theme of the night.
They had a student in to demonstrate the Naviance program, which was a nice touch as it’s always nice to have students presenting. Naviance looks to be a useful tool for helping set goals and managing tasks. Useful skills to have later in life. Especially ironic as the student made a point of sharing SMART goals she had created. A task too many of the schools Decision Input Units (DIU) can’t seem to manage. Brings to mind the old joke about ‘those who can’t, teach‘.
As useful as Naviance seems, I wonder if students are pointed to similar tools for when they are out of the school system. Making (and reaching) goals will remain a useful skill. How many will continue to do this when they lose access to this tool, and how many will fall now that the crutch is removed? Hopefully more of the former then the later.
The Stop Walk Talk program was mentioned. First time I had heard of it, so I looked it up. Sounds like an anti-bullying system. I don’t know if the district has joined the program bearing this name, or are using the name for their own purposes. That distinction probably doesn’t matter. I’m not going to say bullying should be ignored, nor will I say such a program is a complete waste. It just seems a better method would use bullies as a tool to teach how to interact with those that choose to use less then friendly tactics. Because there will always be bullies out there, and there won’t always be teachers to lean on. At some point, you become the adult and the bullies are your peers/boss/etc. As sad as that may sound.
The High School is probably the biggest budget presentation. As David (High School Principal) pointed out many times during the evening, it contains 13 DIU’s. For those counting at home, 9 operating plans bundled into this presentation, plus 4 other DIU’s that gave their own presentation (Counseling, Athletics, Music, and Art). So alot going on here. Really too much to even cover, which is why they focused on a few areas. And in turn, why I will focus on those tidbits that I found interesting.
A couple times during the presentation, Gene spoke up to get an acronym explained. Always good to have them explained, and it’s about this time (as we are on the fourth night of presentation) that people start making sure they get explained. Odds are good the Central office will explain all their acronyms at their presentation on the 27th. Better late then never, but it would be nice if the explanations came as the terms and phrases were first used. Maybe next year…
To close out the Language Other Than English (LOTE) section, they played a recording/slideshow from a student learning Chinese at HFL. I can’t comment on the accuracy of either the speaking or text, but the poem was amusing enough on it’s own. Made for a good transition between sections.
Ezry, the therapy dog in training, was in attendance as well. She (and her handler) shared about the current implementation of a therapy dog, and the intended expansion of the program in the future. Was a bit different, and seemed to go over well. Although I wonder if this is a side effect of our increased usage of electronics. Common activities have less nature, so deliberate steps must be taken to add more back in. Or not, I can but ponder. That and be amused by another situation that has a dog in the building regularly.
Brian (Director of Health, Physical Education and Athletics, which I shall now call HEAP) brought a group of students along for his presentation. Three girls to speak about the benefits of the nutrition class, and two boys to speak on the Cougar Freight Train. As stated before, it is always nice to have the students presenting. Unfortunately, I felt a sameness in the girls speeches. They almost could have been clones.
While it sounds like this department is doing good, I did have some concern about their usage of electronics in Physical Education. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I judge gym class primarily on how much time is spent exercising. And in the process, learning how better to exercise. Anytime that is spent not exercising (sitting around, taking test, etc) is wasted gym time. Having said that, from the presentation they seem to be managing this well enough. But the concern remains, hopefully never to materialize in practice.
Also, I should suggest they use line graphs instead of bars for the participation rates. I think it will make their history data much easier to read. Although, while I am at it, I’ll applaud them on having the history data. Too few of the other departments have it. Brian seems to have taken the concept of ‘constant improvement’ to heart over the years.
After that, the PBAC and BoE split up to discuss their thoughts on the presentations. Next week, nothing (for this group). PBAC next meets on the 27th.
With that out of the way, some ramblings on a trend I noticed: All the night’s presentations (and supporting documents) spent a fair sized amount of time on the mental health of the student body.
Going from what I heard and read, I would think the district was in the midst of a crisis. Apparently that is not the case. Although when the question was asked, I got the sense they didn’t want to call it a crisis, but it actually was? Or maybe wanted to justify actions without the title of ‘crisis’? Or maybe it’s ‘normal growing up’, but we are looking at it differently? I don’t know, and it wasn’t clear they did either.
It sounds like our students have a high level of anxiety. Which strikes me as an indication we (as a community) are not doing our job. I doubt it’s any one thing, these sort of things always have plenty of ‘blame’ to spread around. The school, family, politics, economy, etc. But in many ways, none of that matters. It is the duty of the responsible adults to make sure their dependent children make it to adulthood, in the best condition practical. Normally ‘responsible adults’ would be ‘parents’, but the school district is doing a pretty good imitation.
Which may be the underlying issue her: society is in a transition phase as to who the ‘responsible adult’ is when it comes to raising children. Either we shift back towards the traditional/historic role of parents as ‘responsible adults’. Or we continue the shift towards the government with that role, with the public school system being the primary contact point. Brings to mind the section of state law that grants BoE’s the power to house students in dorms (Section 1709-42, as I recall).
On the other hand, I may have no idea what I am talking about. Either way, it is a strange world we live in. Perhaps we’ll be buried in snow tomorrow, but probably not.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the February 6, 2018 budget study session for the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education.
As has become the norm for this group, Agenda’s and similar information can be found at HFL’s BoardDocs page.