The evening of 2022-08-09 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
After the usual summer gap in School Board meetings, it was back to business as usual. Biggest highlight was all the summer activities. Sounds like Summer School had 28 students, Summer Tutoring 123, Summer Recreation 230 campers, Strength Training 247 athletes, and Staff Training 213 employees.
Gene (Superintendent) was absent this meeting. If memory serves, that happens this time most years. In any case, Bruce (Business) filled in for him here, going over his presentation.
Of note, we are back to ‘normal’ free lunches. Which is to say, the covid free for all has ended. Your children may still be able to get a ‘free’ lunch, but it is ‘needs’ based and not a blank check. And I would be remiss if I didn’t point out there are no free lunches. It may be free to you, but someone always pays.
Electric buses are being explored. Sounds like there is a state mandate in play here. Not in effect yet, but the deadline is coming. Will be interesting to see how this plays out, as my understanding of the technology says it’s not ready for this use yet (for various reasons). As usual, I would like to be wrong.
The tax rates are being adjusted, but this should be a non-issue. Due to the way property taxes work, it is the levy that matters. The rates are then set to distribute that cost across the total property value. So if the levy goes up say 2%, while your property value went up 10%, your rate should go down. Will you actually pay more in actual dollars? Probably, but that’s more about your properties value relative to other peoples. If you go up say 5%, while your neighbors went up 10%, your total bill should go down. Or not, the levy system looks to be designed for the benefit of the taxing entity (ie the school), not the taxpayer (ie you).
There was a gift of a US flag for the sports complex. Not much discussion during the meeting, but if you look into the documentation it sounds like this is to honor the gifters father who was a veteran. No grand story provided, but it is heartwarming to hear this sort of thing.
On the flip side, there was a comment about sending laptops home with children and them seeing inappropriate content. The cynical pessimist in me says that exposing children to the torrent of inappropriateness is a feature, not a bug, of giving them easy access to the internet. How better to addict them to that junk then at a young age. But again, I like to be wrong.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the August 09, 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.