The evening of 2022-12-13 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
It was a relatively straightforward meeting. It sounded like a few agenda items were postponed due to illness of the planned presenter. Unfortunately, it is flu season, so such does happen. Make the best of it and carry on.
An update on the Urban-Suburban program was provided, mostly as question and answers, as information was provided online. One of which was around transportation. Bottom line, they make it work, but it is a challenge. And it seems like some people opt out of the program due to the distance. I can’t blame them, school districts are generally geographic for a reason. It was said that next year HFL is gaining 9 students in this program. I was hoping to find out the current total, to put that 9 in perspective.
HFL will be rejoining NYSSBA, at least for the remainder of the school year. They are planning to discuss whether this is worth continuing with during/before the reorganizational meeting this summer. It will be an interesting discussion to hear. I look forward to feedback from the newer BoE members as to what benefits they have seen to this association.
Next years High School Program of Studies was presented in draft form (an emphasis was made on it being ‘draft’). A finalized version should be sent out to students and parents soon (I heard December 18th).
There was some discussion around the status of Regents exams. They remain in effect, although there was speculation that will change before too long. The reason appears to be ‘equity‘, which I think continues a worrisome trend. The idea of an exam is to measure knowledge. While other methods may exist, an exam should provide an objective yard stick for comparisons (if it doesn’t, adjust as needed). Removing the objective measure makes it harder to evaluate learning. And through that, ensuring the required knowledge is learned. On the other hand, it does make it easier to promote the ‘right’ people by more subjective measures. Something to consider next time you see a doctor (for example). Are they there because they demonstrated knowledge in the required field? Or because they are the ‘right’ kind of person?
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the December 13, 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 will likely be available soon.