The evening of 2023-10-24 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
Tonight’s meeting was at the Middle School, instead of the usual High School Cafeteria. Apparently there were too many cheerleaders at the High School. This wasn’t explicitly stated during the meeting, but that was the impression I got listening to various people beforehand.
There were dueling proclamations. One for Red Ribbon week, read by Caralyn (Board President). And one for School Board Appreciation week, read by Gene (Superintendent). Followed by cupcakes, because snacks make everything better.
The Board of Education authorized two firms to pursue legal action against social media platforms. Before I go on, I’ll point out I raised concerns on this during the question portion of the meeting. Last time I did that, I received a response shortly afterwards. So this may well be updated in the future. But until then…
While the way it was presented implied some discussion during executive session, as far as I could tell there was no discussion during public session. At this meeting or the previous one. While I understand and approve of the Board having their opportunity to discuss things in private (at least to a point), when an action is taken the rationale for that action should be mentioned. A simple ‘The Board has concluded this is a good idea because (insert reason: facebook is evil, more income is good, lawfare brings us together, something else altogether)’ could do the job. Nothing being said raises questions and leaves any concerns unaddressed.
I see two significant issues with this topic, as presented. First, there does not appear to be a limiting principle. Second, abdicated responsibility for educating students.
This lawsuit targets ‘social media’ (the definition of which is another issue, which I’ll be ignoring here), but the logic used would seem to work for just about anything that negatively impacts students/teaching/etc. Will news media in general be next, as they promote (insert topic of the day: racism, climate, health, political, etc) hysteria? Then drug producers (from alcohol to opioids and everything in between), as they can be harmful and/or addictive? Only things the Surgeon General has spoken against? Or is anything fair game, in the interests of ‘protecting the children’?
The education system exists to educate. What would you call teaching someone the likely negative outcome of certain choices but education? If you ‘doomscroll‘ before going to sleep, you will be depressed. If you compare yourself to online ‘models‘, you will feel ugly. If the bulk of your ‘social‘ interactions are through a screen, you will feel lonely. Much like coffee being hot, so I should expect it to burn when poured on me, all this and more should be reasonably obvious. If anyone doesn’t understand any of the above, they should be taught. Until then, a degree of censoring makes sense, which is why we impose limits on children (movie ratings, driver licenses, and various other ‘adults only’ restrictions).
I am no fan of Facebook, I doubt I’ll shed a tear should it vanish. As such, I have no complaint with the action taken by the Board. I do have issue with the lack of transparency in why the action was taken. Although, and as said above, I expect to have an explanation in due time. It’s just would have been nice if something was said during the meeting. Or maybe I’m just upset I didn’t get to observe the discussion I expected…
There was also a Financial Literacy Workshop, which was somewhat amusing. Colin (Business) appeared to have patterned it off of a game show of some sort. I couldn’t match it to any show I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean much. Either way, increasing everyone’s knowledge on financial issues should only make them better at fulfilling the fiscal responsibilities of the position.
At various time I’ve heard about how elected officials ignore the public at large. While I’m sure this is true for some places, at HFL this Board of Education listens. As demonstrated by tonight’s discuss on the extracurricular policy. Last meeting there was a public comment on the topic (and apparently there have also been some letters), and tonight the Board talked about it. While no action was taken tonight (first read, action likely next meeting), I got the sense they are looking more to clarify the current stance of attendance at HFL required to participate in HFL’s extracurricular activities. The Board was mixed on details, so we’ll see what happens. But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen them respond in a timely manner to topics the public brings to them. Which is commendable. Even if I suspect the outcome here won’t be what the parent involved wants. Still, better a clear ‘No’ followed by the reasoning and what would need to be done to get a ‘Yes’ (ie enroll as an HFL student) than a degree of ambiguity.
And tonight was Christina’s first time fulfilling her role alone. From where I was observing, everything went well enough. I mean, it’s not rocket science, even if we had enough math and numbers during the workshop. But at the same time, getting through a ‘first time’ can be stressful. Other times may well be worse/harder/whatnot, but when those happen there will be a degree of history which should help. In a way, that’s life: you do what you can now, learning from the experience to better prepare for the inevitable future hiccups.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 24, 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.