Tonight (2018-04-24) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
The budget public hearing will be next week, May 1st, at 7PM. Sounds like it will be in the High School Chorus room, which is different. Previously it has been in the High School Cafeteria or the normal Board of Education room, I wonder why the change. Two weeks after that, May 15th, will be the actual Budget vote. 6AM to 9PM, in the High School Foyer (outside the pool). While you can vote as early as 6AM, John will be there to make sure you don’t vote often.
Gene (Superintendent) continues his never ending quest to make Raving Fans of HFL. Towards this, he has 4 steps to aid in their creation. I’m wondering if this is 4 of an eventual 12?
Following up on the Opioid Epidemic Forum from two weeks ago, Gene consulted with the districts lawyers to confirm that ‘No’, nurses are not covered under the ‘good Samaritan’ laws. At least pertaining to Narcan on campus. As they are professionals in the field, the law does not appear to allow them that flexibility. So next meeting will be a policy review, likely followed by a policy change the following meeting.
As happens most months, there was a Monthly Treasurer’s Reports. The comment was made, that the cash flow chart shows a negative trend (page 11). Not a crisis (at the moment), but does show that budgets are getting tighter. Or at least that was the sentiment expressed.
Josh (Student Representative) was not in his normal outfit, instead he was dressed to play sports (baseball?). Which fit, as he mentioned how busy students are this time a year with AP exams pending, sports ongoing, and graduation on the horizon. He will be speaking at graduation, and invited all to attend. I found this ironic, as graduation is outside the district, especially in light of the workshops focus on the local community aiding in hiring.
The first big topic was the Workshop on the Hiring Process. Topic felt a bit dry to me, but it is necessary for an organization of this size. Although the focus on sports coaching felt lopsided to me. While I can see how that would be useful, as we are not primarily a sports facility, it would seem to be a secondary factor in hiring. Especially in light of the drop in applicants.
Applications appear to have dropped to a third of what they were three years ago. College enrollment for teaching appears to have dropped a similar amount, while at the same time a significant number of current staff are close to retirement (pages 41-43). Not an encouraging trend, at least for maintaining education as it has been. Perhaps time to revisit the model we are using?
For those interested in a job at HFL, you can watch a recruitment video or read the Human Resources Twitter feed.
Second large item was a discussion on New Board Member Orientation. I took away three things from this discussion: A one on one mentor is how existing members are brought on board. Short summaries of topics at meetings help, even for those that have been around for a while. And “Boss Rules Money”.
Credit to David. As he put it, the function of the BoE is “Boss Rules Money”. Hire the superintendent, who is the boss for all the other staff and makes sure everything runs as it should. Make the policies, which become the rules for how the staff operate. And look at the budget, to make sure the taxpayers money is being spent appropriately. Struck me as a pretty good summary of what a BoE does, and by the reactions in the room I wasn’t the only one thinking that.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 24, 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.