Tonight (2018-03-27) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Despite the room being packed, Donna and I were the only ones not there at the behest of the School. Plenty of school staff, and a few invited guests, all there for the Mental Health Workshop. Donna was there in her role as a journalist. I’m starting to wonder if I would also fall under that umbrella.
As mentioned previously, and in multiple places, April 11, 7PM, at the District Auditorium (Middle School) there will be an Opioid Epidemic Forum. As we were directed tonight, bring your friends and neighbors. Apparently free drugs will be offered (for certain definitions of ‘drugs’).
The board declared the pending carpet renovation a Type 2 Action according to the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR). Perhaps this was required because asbestos abatement will be needed? Perhaps SEQR (and by extension, the state) is just that oppressive. Either way, the trend of ‘micro’ capitol projects continues. This year, like last year, a section of carpets is getting replaced. With the state (ie taxpayers) footing ~85% of the bill, and the district (ie also taxpayers) handling the balance.
‘Doing the right thing isn’t always easy’. This came up in a discussion on allowing home schooled (and by extension privately schooled) students to participate in HFL extracurricular activities (besides sports, which is apparently denied by law). While no decision on that topic was made (apart from discussing it again in the future), I am always glad to hear people say they are willing to do what is right, even if it is hard. But words are cheap, actions are more difficult.
The district’s budget will be exceeding $50 million dollars for the first time. In the past 10 years, the districts enrollment has dropped by ~500 students. Both tidbits came up at different parts of the meeting. I wonder if there is any connection there. Namely, has staffing and expenses risen even as enrollment has dropped? I’m tempted to do the research to quantitatively answer that question. Probably won’t, as I expect to find the results depressing.
A proposed policy change would put ‘herbs’ into the same category as illegal drugs. Considering the long list of herbs, I would expect this to have significant negative impact if actually enforced. I did point that out, we’ll see what next meeting brings.
The above are comments on the various quick agenda items. The bulk of the meeting was a Workshop on Mental Health. In many ways this was a continuation of an early Workshop, held last November.
Renee (Assistant Superintendent) managed this workshop, and I think she did a good job. Brought the audience to the table, kept the discussion going and on topic. Which was basically how the kids are doing, and what the staff is doing for them. Still a very broad topic, but did lead to some interesting thoughts.
It was brought up that in days past, students (and society in general) worried about Nuclear bombs (primarily from Russia?), while today they worry about being shot (by fellow students?). Does this mean there is always fear, and learning to deal with it is part of growing up? Or that the fear has moved from nebulous/distant to direct/personal? Does this imply students are as likely to die at school as in a nuclear inferno? Or maybe the big question is how do we prevent fear from controlling policy?
Turns out ~25% of 2nd, ~50% of 3rd, and ~90% of 5th graders have cell phones while they are in school. Related, it was said that the challenge is NOT looking at content. Which puts us back at the function of schools having been changed. It’s no longer about delivering content, that challenge has been solved by others. Now it’s about… what? Directing what content is ‘right’? Making the students ‘socially adjusted’? Babysitting so parents/guardians can go to work? Regardless, it almost feels like public education itself is experiencing a crisis over it’s continued relevance. A concept I seem to find myself encountering frequently.
In many ways, it feels like we (as a community, district, nation) have failed in educating our children. And in doing so, it feels like the focus has shifted away from traditional education of knowledge, towards preserving sanity while surviving the system. To such an extent, there was discussion on the difficulties with sending students home, where the parents may not know how to help them as well as the school staff does.
All this, combined with seeing the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ in one of the proposed policies, has me thinking that may be the underlying problem here. We are teaching that humanity is great and wonderful and can do/be anything. When history pretty clearly shows, humanity left to itself becomes a horrific monster. We (as people) are our best when dedicating ourselves to god. Yet, in a perverse interpretation of the 1st amendment, god is excised from public life. I am not surprised that civilization seems to be crumbling around us. There is too much “Love of Self” and not enough “Love your neighbor as yourself“.
Or perhaps the entire issue could be resolve by mandating self defense training for the students? The discipline of Martial Arts and Marksmanship could only help in confidence building and feeling safer. If nothing else, knowledge of such a program should discourage potential attackers. After all, who would want to pick a fight where all their potential victims know how to fight back?
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the March 27, 2018 meeting of 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.