The evening of 2022-03-15 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Gene (Superintendent) was absent, something health related. Details weren’t mentioned, which is fair as they really aren’t any of my (or the public’s) business. I just hope it all works out well for him. But this did mean Renee (Curriculum & Instruction) and Bruce (Business) covered for him.
As such, Renee highlighted that the consensus agenda included three notable administrative retirements. Manor and Middle are both losing their principals (Jeanine and Shawn, respectively), and Transportation is losing it’s Director (Bill). Life is change, and in the end we are all expended, but having to fill all these shoes will be a challenge.
For anyone not yet aware, this years musical is Les Miserables. Attempting to directly quote a Board member, ‘It’s awesome, go see it’. While I suspect the best seats have already been taken, still time to order your tickets.
The HFL Robotics team won the regional competition. At least I think they did, I lack enough frame of reference to completely understand the explanation. Regardless, they did well, so good job them.
The PBAC gave their recommendation. I thought it was a good summary of the past few budget workshops, but no real surprises there. Which is generally as it should be at this point, continue to work the process towards a final budget.
On that note, Bruce also gave an overview of the current budget situation. Long story short: Total budget will be ~$57 million, ~$31 million of that will come from the local levy. Foundation Aid is up, although that sounds like it will be a multi-year process. ~1.98% levy increase, although I’m sure the individual tax bills will vary slightly. A side effect of how the math plays out over the various Town’s in the District, ask Bruce if you want a detailed explanation. Or maybe he’ll make one at a future meeting I can link for you, we’ll see.
Micropen is expanding on Papermill, as mentioned previously. Only relevant here because they want to temporarily use some of the Districts property as parking. The District agreed, because as part of the deal Micropen will be building a small parking area which the District will then receive. Sounds like a dozen parking spaces, so not massive. But it also sounds like a region the District has been considering building parking on anyways, so win-win for all involved.
There was an interesting enough overview of STEAM in Education, but… it didn’t really grab me. At least until they got to the discussion towards the end, where they went over the importance of failure. How if you are too afraid to fail, you won’t be able to learn. Back to the ‘fail faster‘ idea.
On that note, I found this meetings publication amusing, as it claimed this was the “first time the Board will be back in the BOE room since the summer of 2020”. Clearly a mistake, as I was there for the 8/10/2021 meeting. Of which there is a recording, also the 7/6, 6/22, etc. Between the wall decorations, kitchenette, and windows, that room is moderately unique. Mind you, that was the Board itself, not all the various staff, public, etc. Presumably an honest mistake, and a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. Laugh, learn, fail faster (repeat).
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the March 15, 2022 meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education.
Agenda’s and similar information can be found at HFL’s BoardDocs page. While a recording is also available.