Tonight (2019-06-25) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
As it was the last meeting of the year, there were reports on the many and various end of year events occurring around the school. And for those of you that didn’t know, graduation will be on Sunday June 30, 7PM at RIT. Personally, I think it should be in the district (if not on campus), but those calling the shots have differing opinions here.
As it is the end of the year, Gene (Superintendent) put together a Message for the Summer. It can be found online, although it sounds like it will also be mailed out before too long.
There was a report on next years Professional Learning Plan (formerly Professional Development Plan). Oddly enough, the most interesting part was rather vague. Reading between the lines on the conversation, it sounds like there is a group of staff that objects to the plan. I can’t speculate as to their reasons, as I am speculating enough that they even exist. Made for an interesting discussion, the way things were talked around but not actually said.
A reserve fund for the Teachers Retirement System was approved, and some degree of funding should happen from whatever funds are leftover from the current year. The district has wanted to create this reserve for a number of years, but it wasn’t legally allowed by the state. As this reserve is now legal, the district wasted no time to take advantage of the option. Hopefully this will help when the required contributions inevitably fluctuate.
Next years Code of Conduct was approved, and tonight also had a report on Interscholastic Athletics. Combining those, I had an interesting thought. The CoC says “all district students have the right to … take part in all district activities on an equal basis regardless of … gender” (among other qualifiers). Yet essentially all the sports reject anyone of the ‘wrong’ gender. I consider this discrimination appropriate, for a variety of reasons. But I found the contrast between ‘what is said’ and ‘what is done’ to be rather striking here.
A number of salary contracts for next year were approved. What struck me was the percent increases. With one exception, they were all above the tax levy (2.8%). 3.25% seemed to be a reoccurring number (although I think I saw 3% on one a few weeks back). The exception was the Superintendent, who has a 2.75% raise, which puts him just below the tax levy increase. Putting aside whether anyone ‘deserves’ their increase or not, the simple math of the situation says this is not sustainable (to use the buzz term). Each year the salary increase is higher then the levy increase, some other budget item has to shrink to compensate. An oversimplification, but it should be accurate enough here. This years increase was mostly covered through retiring debt (a good thing) and reallocating those funds. But what happens next year? (or the one after?)
Which brought us to the annual amusement of Board members stating their opinions on being in ‘leadership’ positions (ie Board President or Vice President). To summarize for the 6 members in the room at the time: 1 firm no, 3 needs to check schedules, and 2 that would rather not but could be persuaded. No one objected to the current pairs performance, which is good. Although, if memory serves, only 2 of the 9 have been Board President in the past. Considering the stated goal of having multiple people fill the role (over time), that would imply someone else should have the role next year.
Because predictions are amusing, I’m going to predict Amy gets talked into being President again next year, and Dave Francis for Vice President. Either way, we’ll find out in two weeks (7/9).
Tangentially related: There was discussion about how important it is for BoE members to attend the Board Retreat (7/23) as it explains (and generates the bulk of) the years agenda setting. Ironically enough, the BoE member who has asked the most question on the topic was not at the meeting to hear this.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the June 25, 2019 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.