Tonight (2019-12-10) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
First up, next week, December 17, will be a special vote at school on Capitol Project II.V (said 2.5, for those of you not familiar with ‘roman numerals‘). Read the presentation (or watch the video) if you are interested. Of those in the audience, I suspect none of them cared about this topic, so I’ll move on as well. Right after pointing out the implied invitation to visit Manor in the video. You really should go admire the changes.
There was a surprisingly large crowd, many of whom wore ‘I support Eliza’ stickers. The group appeared to be there due to a student being suspended. Presumable, they wanted the Board to reverse that action. Apart from that, I don’t have enough information to offer meaningful comment on the issue. On the other hand, I can comment on the meeting itself.
I’m sure emotions were high, but everyone remained respectful (at least as far as I could tell). So good job us. The crowd did show their ignorance on meeting procedures (after all, who goes often enough to learn them?), and the Board gave a decent amount of leeway there. I’m glad I wasn’t Carol (Board President) tonight. Still, she did a good job.
I only have one nit to pick, which was how they interpreted ‘not discussing individual student discipline’. Instead of opting to listen to the public (the stated purpose of ‘public comment’), the public was informed they too could not speak on this. To their credit, those commenting adjusted their statements to conform. An argument could be made this was a first amendment violation, which is why I pick this nit. Apart from that, I think the Board (and staff) handled an tense situation well.
On to the meeting proper, the current capitol project update was glossed over. Regardless of the reason, pictures are available if you are interested. Of note, there is now a sidewalk inside the High School courtyard. After the meeting I asked, and apparently that is a State requirement. While unfortunate they require such nonsense, at least it wasn’t done because someone local wanted it added.
There was a presentation on the health program. What stuck out to me was the concern about mental health, and how the situation seems to be getting worse. Reminded me of an article I read offering the theory that if you teach children the world is ending and it’s all their fault, of course they have issues. I can’t say that is or isn’t the case here, but the students do spend a good chunk of their waking hours in school. There may be a connection there.
Likewise, there was a report on the community programs. To summarize, all is well. To toss out a few numbers: the Wellness Center loses about $9k a year, while Cougar Care brings in about $205k. Cougar Care is doing so well, the idea of retooling it to also be offered at the Lima building is being explored. Of course, ‘explored’ and ‘is happening’ are very different things, so who knows what the future will bring.
The state has changed the format of the annual School Report Card‘s, again. They are available online at data.nysed.gov, if you would like to look up how we compare.
What was probably the last report on the NYSSBA Convention happened, and some interesting conversations came out of it:
That the schools power usage pattern roughly matches solar power generation, so they may be some potential cost savings to explore there (and they do have all those flat roofs).
Is changing the start time for students worth the hassle? Webster is experimenting with this, and some at the table were very interested on seeing the eventual results.
Concerns over the visibility through the windows of the new High School office were raised. As I brought this up back before the project started (and was told ‘it won’t be a problem’), I found this rather amusing. Hopefully they can find a good solution. Or we can all be entertained reading over the office staffs shoulders.
It sounds like Marjorie Byrnes (or staff) will be holding open hours at the Honeoye Falls Village Office before too long. Odds are good I misheard part of the date/time, so you’ll want to confirm for yourself. Having said that, I heard January 17th, 10AM to 3PM.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 10, 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.