Tonight (2019-10-15) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Before the meeting was another wandering of the construction site (ie school). The project is coming along nicely. Looks like the new office at the High School is now in use, and the new turf field looks to be (mostly?) done. Although the wall around the High School cafeteria looks rather bland, seems like a great place for some decoration. Especially because, when the project gets to that point, it will all be painted over. Maybe something for the annual Christmas decoration competition?
As I’m sure most of you are aware, there was a bomb threat at school recently. Was a threat, police didn’t find any actual bomb (which is good). More importantly, sounds like the district learned some from having a chance to implement their lock down procedure. So some good came from the threat. Not to suggest more threats be made, but there is some value to the practice it causes.
Tonight was the annual School Board Appreciation event. Always a nice time. In part, because snacks (cupcakes tonight), but also because there is time to mingle and chat. If nothing else, it breaks up the meeting and provides a chance to stretch my legs.
The Music Boosters are apparently called the ‘Moosters‘. Obvious merging of a name, which I find amusing.
There was much discussion on Capitol Projects. First was the report on the project in process. Apart from mentioning pictures, I’ll reference above and say progress is being made. Then was a report on a potential next project, which was where it got interesting.
As this next stage, in the never ending Capitol Projects, includes adding lights to the new turf field, the question was asked about how that interacts with the project currently in progress. Or put differently, how much are we wasting by not doing the lights when the field was built. And instead, coming back a few years later to add them. Great question to ask, and I was glad to hear it be asked. The answer felt weak, but it sounded like any waste will be negligible, primarily due to the cost of LED’s continuing to drop.
As there is an upcoming NYSSBA convention (Oct 24-26), there was a decent amount of discussion about that. In particular, how HFL should vote on the proposed resolutions. As NYSSBA can’t make laws, it’s all ‘support X’ instead of ‘legislative X’. Still there was interesting discussion on what things the BoE wants to support, and which, while they may be great ideas, just aren’t something the school should be focusing on. Which was another thing I was glad to hear. Always good to hear government trying to restrain itself and limit it’s influence/control.
One of the proposed actions was on vaping, and everyone seemed to agree it was bad (especially for kids). Similarly, lowering the minimum age for CDL’s was brought up. Which had me thinking: If we don’t want kids vaping, and we think 18 year olds aren’t ready to drive school buses, then why is it ok for girls to be boys, and boys to be girls? Putting aside my opinion on the ‘right’ thing to do, if someone is ready to make any of those decisions, how are they not also mature enough to make all of them (be it yeah or nay). In other words, either you are an adult able to make adult decisions (and more importantly, live with their repercussions). Or you are a child, and not able/ready to make adult decisions.
So I tried to point out this apparent contradiction to the BoE. Did I make a fool of myself? Without a doubt. Did I stand and say what I believed was necessary? Also yes. Not perfect, but I can live with it. At least for so long as this fleeting life lasts (which is another topic altogether).
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 15, 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.