Tonight (2018-10-23) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Also tonight was some sort of cheerleader competition, so there was some noise. Mostly amusing, as the walls muffled the volume enough. But a couple times it got a bit loud. Still, the school is for the kids, so I can’t fault them for enjoying themselves, especially as it was cheerleaders. Loud ‘cheers’ is kind of what they do.
It was time again for the Governor’s annual Recognition of School Boards. And the snack break that occurs at that point in the agenda. Tonight we had cupcakes with a Halloween theme to them, and it was probably the shortest snack break I have observed. Barely an announcement and then back to the agenda. Not that I can fault them, it did end up being a long meeting. And people did grab cupcakes as the urge struck, so it wasn’t like they were ignored.
Also a Proclamation on Red Ribbons, and how drugs are bad. Don’t really see the connection between red ribbons and drugs, but I’ll agree with the sentiment. A minimalistic approach to drug usage is best, the less you use the better.
At most meetings, there is a gift or three to the School, which the board accepts. Tonight was unusual in that the giver was there, to present the check to the Board directly. Also it was a student, giving the results from her club’s (Volunteer Reader Club) recent fund raising activities. Sounds like this is now a self funded club. It’s good to see students report, even if only tangentially as in this case, on what they are doing. It’s doubly good when they are funding their own activities.
Bruce (Business and Operations) gave a report on some preliminary budget numbers. In particular, expected usage of reserves. Looks like the pattern of using the left overs from last year to restock reserves, and then using those reserves as a starting point for next year, continues. While it feels like a shell game, the reserves do seem stable overtime, so I guess it is working. Until it doesn’t, but that’s life.
Next Tuesday (10/30) will be ‘Golden Shovel’ day, aka ground breaking for the latest capital project. While the exact time wasn’t said, it should be before 8AM, and the board is to gather at the central office. I’m tempted to tag along, but we’ll see.
Related, tonight was the formal acceptance of the capitol project bids presented at the last meeting. So tomorrow contracts for ~$23 million will go to the ‘lucky winners’. Worth noting, this is not ‘new’ expenses. This is spending money the voters approved at the last capitol project vote. Which was a few years back, in case you have forgotten.
After that was a presentation on Extracurricular Clubs and how that process goes. I was a little surprised how many of those were music related. Definitely the largest group, and it looked pretty close to a majority. Wasn’t the oddest Club though, that was ‘Mindfulness’. All the other clubs more or less made sense, but how does one do ‘mindfulness’ as a club?
My opinions aside, the bulk of the discussion was on oversight for the clubs. The board, as a group, didn’t seem to feel there was enough. Not that anything was being done wrong, but that there wasn’t adequate accountability and monitoring. Or if there was, it wasn’t being documented (which is effectively the same thing at the Board’s level). Grand scheme of things, the dollar amounts involved are small. Yet in many ways, how you handle the little things, is how you handle the big things.
Possibly related, I can’t be sure, but there were at least 7 HFLEA union members in the audience. I would guess they were there for the Extracurricular report, as apparently all of those go through the union for approval, as part of their contract. I know I’m biased against unions, especially in the public sector (ie school), but this seemed out of place to me. I can understand wanting to be paid for time spent (don’t we all), but running a club feels more like a thing you do because you love the thing it does. The kind of thing you’d do, one way or another, regardless of what obstacles stood in your way. Any income that may (or may not) come from it is a bonus. Eh, maybe I’m just being too optimistic.
Gene (Superintendent) had his contract extended, he gets to keep his job until 2023. It sounds like there is a law that says Superintendents can’t have contracts longer then 5 years. So he was extended for as long as allowed.
The Board reviewed a collection of past test scores for the District. Sounds like this was a new way to organize the data, using BoardDocs as a management/distribution platform. Unfortunately, the data itself was on the Board side, not the public side. While I don’t have any particular need to see those numbers, and they don’t seem confidential in any manner (it was said they are aggregate, not individual students), that they were shared in the public session should mean they are actually made available to the public. Giving the Board the benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume this was a case of ‘show Board first, then show public’.
To summarize the summary of the report on Special Education: We have a decent population of students in this program, and we do a good job of helping them. Of note, ~39% of those receiving Special Education are for ‘Learning Disabilities’. While I can’t presume to know the cause here, I’ve read enough that implies a good chunk of it could be the public education system itself. Is the sort of thing I would definitely like to be wrong about, but I can’t say that I am. Of course, lack of evidence is also not evidence, so where does that leave me? Concerned mostly…
Also a report on Student Attendance, which was mostly good. While there is a group of frequently absent students (Seniors being the largest, no surprise), on any given day ~96% of the kids are in the buildings.
The policy on receiving gifts was up for review, ironic considering the earlier gift. In particular does the Board need to approve them or should they just be informed after the fact. The Board seemed to feel that, while they didn’t see a real need for approving, they did like the opportunity to thank the givers that the approval process encouraged. So likely no change there, although the disposal policy may be changed in the future.
The long policy discuss was on Narcan, and to the credit of Caralyn (BoE Member on Policy Sub-Committee) she had that one last. Much discussion, back and forth, on the pros and cons of having it on campus, training the nurses to use it, etc. Apparently there are legal and financial questions about training the nurses, but those issues don’t apply to random civilians (staff, visitors, etc). In the end, for now, the Board has decided to ask the Department of Health to offer a training session at some point in the future. To be open to the general public, on the idea that everyone that attends is another person that (potentially) could help if ever needed. Good logic, and a good first step. Also doesn’t deny them the option of training nurses, if that is deemed prudent at a later date.
Gary (BoE Member) did make a very interesting comment, to paraphrase: the statistical odds of an opiod overdose on campus are vanishingly small, just like the odds of anyone being shot on campus are similarly small. No one had a hard number as to which was more likely, but I found the contrast interesting. The one, the District is encouraging as many people as possible to ‘arm’ themselves with Narcan, on the slim chance it will someday be useful. In contrast, the District does everything it can (ie required by law) to prevent anyone (except police and similar) from having the tools required to stop a student from being shot. Admittedly, not a likely occurrence, but one the 2nd amendment denies government this method of handling.
So drugs good, ability to defend self bad? That this is during Red Ribbon week just makes it all the more ironic.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 23, 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.