The evening of 2024-01-09 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE), and Program Budget Advisory Council (PBAC).
Full disclosure: I sit on the PBAC, so some of these Observations aren’t exactly from the Audience.
As has been the pattern for the last few years, first of these meetings is at the Lima school. I always enjoy the opportunity to see how the various buildings have changed since last time.
Before getting into the budget portion of the meeting, the Board went over a number of their agenda items. The only one that stood out to me was that State Legislatures appear to not understand electric buses. Or at least the issues school districts are having with them. Mind you, I was hearing a report of someones impressions from a different meeting, so could well be wrong. Having said that, if/when electric buses made sense for a school district, you would expect them to make the switch. No mandates needed.
The budget portion of the meeting started off with Colin (Business) giving an overview of the process. Having been at these enough times, this felt like review more than anything else. The only thing that stood out was the tax levy projected increase cap of ~3%. Mind you, things can still change, and it’s still a few months until it’s clear. But as was pointed out, the big variables in the formula are known. While this doesn’t mean the levy will increase by that number, considering the past, I would expect the tax levy increase to equal the tax levy cap.
First budget presentation was from Transportation department. My big take away was things are going well. There are always challenges, but overall good, at least for the moment. The pending mandated conversion to an all electric fleet is expected to cause issues down the road. But there is time to address those. And even if there weren’t, that falls outside this years budget. Still, good to be aware so that plans can be made. Regular replacement of buses, at ~$1 million a year, is much better than replacing the whole fleet at once, at ~$25 million.
Second budget presentation was from Facilities department. Again, big take away is things are going well. The Deputy/School Resource Office split between Lima Primary and Lima Christian School is going well. But they are hoping to add more SSP’s (Student Support Partner, aka Sort of Security Person).
The last budget presentation was from Lima Primary itself. What stood out the most to me was the concept of ‘mustakes’ Which appears to mean something along the lines of ‘we must make mistakes’. Which I think is great to hear. Mistakes are inevitable, and the sooner someone can learn how to work through their mistakes the better. After all, if you don’t risk making mistakes, you can’t succeed.
I was also glad to hear they have changed their reading education approach. Although, if we can be sold a story once, for as long as we were, how do we know we aren’t being sold another one right now? I fully expect issues will appear with the ‘Science of Reading‘ before too long. At which point the question becomes, do we continue on that path? Or admit we made a ‘mustake’, and change course?
On a related tangent, I would argue that we, as foolish mortals, are always wrong. If we are always wrong, we can never be right. And as such, we should aim to be the ‘least wrong’ we can be, with whatever knowledge and ability we have at the moment. If ‘least wrong’ is the best possible, then there is no shame in being wrong. But there may be for having poor knowledge and ability. Which should help us stay open for new knowledge and ways to improve ability. Thus making us less wrong as time goes by. Still never right, but hopefully closer. Of course, this isn’t easy as we seem to be wired towards wanting to be right, and thus investing more then we should in doing so. But that’s what you get from foolish mortals…
With the budget presentations done, the PBAC and BoE split up. As tends to happen at these meetings, the PBAC got talking for so long that the BoE had left by the time we finished. Thankfully their meeting was recorded and I can watch what I missed in the future…
And having done so… (the future is now!)
Two things stuck out in the remainder of the meeting, both things Gene (Superintendent) said.
The first was his talk about having taught reading wrong for 30 years. And how things are changing now. Of note, was how he referred to himself as a ‘zealot’ for the old method. Which may be the key point here, any topic producing zealots is inherently dangerous. Might not necessarily be bad, that’s a different measure. But zealots have a degree of irrationality about whatever they are zealous about. Which will, if nothing else, have them push back against less wrong alternatives. Should they arrive, as they did in this case.
Somewhat ironic as he later pointed out the Good News Club is meeting at the Manor school, and he can’t keep them out. Or he could, but then he would have to throw everyone else out (Boy Scouts, Sports Boosters, PTA, etc). And how, in the end, that was a Board decision, as they write the policy. Felt more like he was informing them of concerns residences had expressed, options that could be taken, and the potential impacts. All while not letting his personal opinion show. Or maybe that was the recording, and nuance is lost.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the January 09, 2024 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.