The evening of 2023-10-10 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
The most significant item of the evening was the celebration of Rhonda’s many years of service. While this has been mentioned at previous meetings, tonight seemed more official. To such an extent, a couple of previous Board members returned just for the occasion. While her position has been filled, Rhonda will be missed.
A parent made a Public Comment about allowing resident, but non-students to participate in extra-curricular activities. In particular Odyssey of the Mind, but the logic would apply to any others. The argument seemed to be that living in the district means paying taxes, and as such participation should be allowed. Regardless of the student in question attending classes at an out of district school. Which seems reasonable enough. But so is the idea that by opting out of the core HFL experience, you also opt out of it all. I can see both sides of the argument, but the paying taxes part seems more critical to me.
The summer Professional Development and Curriculum (PD/C) report was accepted by the Board without comment or question. To be fair, the report did seem pretty self explanatory. On the other hand, reading through it I didn’t see an answer to how effectiveness is measured. Data on those participating and similar, and some great comments on how staff felt this helps them. But no hard data on the benefits. Mind you, I could see that data being hard to quantify. Still would be nice to see.
All bids for the capitol outlay project were rejected, as they were all over the budgeted amount. In part because asbestos was found. It was pointed out, much of abatement involves going outside. For this project, one of the first steps is to remove the door, which puts the work site ‘outside’. I’m sure that is an oversimplification of the process. But as often is the case, simplify to illustrate the point. It sounds like they will be going back out for bids, after tweaking the scope of work.
A settlement against Altria (Juul) which gains the District ~$11k was accepted, with no discussion. As with PD/C, it was moderately self explanatory. But I would also have liked to see some discussion here. Does the District think this covers costs associated with vaping? Or is it a drop in the bucket? Where there no additional costs, as if it wasn’t vaping it would have been something else? So thanks for the money? In the face of the total budget… I really can’t fault an ‘accept and move on’ approach.
There was a ‘first review’ on joining litigation against social media companies, for their harm to students. As it was a ‘first review’, no decision tonight. Almost no discussion either, so I am really looking forward to hearing what is said on this next meeting. As it seems to be the same law firm as for Altria, perhaps they are ambulance chasers? Or specialized in educational institutes?
As for the proposal itself, it seems both overly broad and vague. Which is probably to be expected at this point in the process. It’s not clear what the District would want if they ‘won’ the case. Money? Changes in how social media operates? For that matter, ‘social media’ doesn’t appear to be defined.
I personally wouldn’t mind if Facebook (for example) just went away. But I question if this is the proper way to go about it. Especially if the same logic would start lumping other things into the ‘social media’ umbrella. Would email qualify, as you can use it to talk to multiple people? What about websites (such as this one)? At some point you run into the first amendment (freedom of speech, as there is alot in that one).
As said above, I look forward to the discussion on this topic in two weeks.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 10, 2023 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.