Tonight (2020-04-28) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
While video conferencing has it’s technical issues (I crashed out in the middle of the budget presentation), I think this group is getting pretty good at them. The streaming started enough before the actual start of the meeting that nothing was missed. And at the other end, people were leaving before it was cut off. As with most everything, experience improves results.
The meeting did start late, which isn’t unheard of for this group, especially when they have an executive session beforehand. Only mentioning this here because normally when this happens there is a group of us in the room waiting. Chatting with others beats out refreshing the page as waiting activities. Again, if this is the worst that comes of this we are doing quiet well.
On to the meeting proper, there was talk about great things going on in the community of lately. Mostly about how people are coping with the panic. Today, for example, congratulation signs were placed on the seniors yards. Sounds like people are optimistic, which helps.
The big meeting topic was as review of the proposed budget. You are welcome to read (or watch) that presentation. What stood out to me wasn’t so much the budget itself, as the tangential impact.
State aid drops, but federal aid covers the difference. The governor may (or may not) cut state aid another 20%. Brings me back to the idea, as the only portion of the income stream that is actually controllable is the local taxes, the district needs to be able to survive off those. All other income is from those who have clearly shown funding education is not their highest priority (and arguable shouldn’t be, as they should be focused elsewhere).
There was an interesting bit about school buses, and how ‘social distancing’ would play out on them. A good point was made about needing more buses to leave half the seats empty (or whatever the State guidelines say at the time). But I think the more important point would be in the building itself. If having a group of students on a bus is too dangerous, having even more in a building should be even worse. To be clear, I think the school should reopen tomorrow (or as soon as they can retool internally). But if you’re going to apply ‘social distancing’ at least apply it consistently and logically.
On that topic, there may (or may not) be a reopening plan. Any hypothetical details are not yet being shared by the State. When (if?) they decide to, details may be shared. Or not, who knows.
And the same goes for the school budget vote. We have a proposed budget, but no idea when (if?) there will be a vote. I would rather there be one sooner then later, if only to avoid the mess of having a third of the Board’s terms expire. That happening opens a whole mess of questions that are best avoided, if at all possible.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the April 28, 2020 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. While a recording of the meeting will likely be available soon.