Tonight (2018-06-12) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
The most interesting part of the meeting wasn’t really part of the meeting. It was that only 5 of 9 board members were in attendance. Reasons for the others absence wasn’t noted, but it was expected. Amusing in that actions required all those in attendance to agree on them.
High School Graduation is coming up on the 24th at 7PM at RIT’s Gordon Field House. For those that feel like going. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the logistics hassle, but then again I don’t have any family in this one. If it was within walking range I would probably go, but RIT is a bit far for to walk.
As part of the Code of Conduct discussion, ways to avoid Out of School Suspension (OoSS) came up. There was a feeling that OoSS didn’t help students, as it kept them out of the learning environment. Administrators of three of the four buildings (no one from Lima) spoke about how they use restorative justice as part of a way to minimize OoSS usage. While abuse should be discouraged, this may be a case of ‘spare the rod and spoil the child‘.
There was a discussion on whether or not the school should acquire Narcan for use by the nurses. My sense of the board was they felt there was insufficient information to suggest anything. They seemed to be missing two pieces of information. The first was what the cost would be. Some data suggests it would be free, other that it would be ~$1600. The second was how often it would be used. Allergies (EpiPen) have good statistics about their rate of usage on campus, so they are viewed as being worth the cost. How often do school students overdose of opioids while on campus? What frequency of occurrences justifies stocking the medicine? No decision at this time, but a pending policy review will use the boards feedback to make a recommendation. Hopefully those recommendations will provide the BoE with the information it wanted.
There is talk about phasing out final exams for most (possible all?) classes at the Middle School. Still have regents exams, and any other state tests, but convert the local exams into projects of some sort. Shawn (Middle School Principal) had no definitive answer, apart from that the idea is being explored and he would have an answer before next school year started.
During one of the discussions, I was convinced the speaker was about to break out in tears. Something about the angle I was looking at them and what I assume was makeup on their face. Almost certainly a case of me misjudging what someone else is thinking/feeling, but if not it raises the question of why someone would wear makeup such that they look sad. Eh, people are just strange, and as a person, so am I.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the June 12, 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.