Last night (2017-02-07) was a budget study session for 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.
This budget study session was at the High school. Agenda was the presentations from Counseling Services, High School, and Health/Physical Education/Interscholastic Athletics. They each spoke on what greatness they had done over the past year, and what they wanted to change for next year. Along with that was a budget projection/wish list.
While Counseling does cover all of K-12, they seemed to have more focus on the High school. Which does make some sense, as that is where it all wraps up and most students go off to college.
There was a big focus on students connection to school, in particular the Connectedness Survey. At the same time they noted difficulty communicating with parents at times. There will be a survey coming out trying to help with that.
I found it humorous that they talked about giving out smarties (candy) to students, while on the wall in the background where large posters about the benefits of vegetables and eating healthy.
To assist with students going to college, Counseling uses a program/website called Naviance. Seems to be a very useful tool for them. Although, as with most things, it’s the sort of tool that you get out what you put in. So you juniors out there, don’t expect it to magically do the work for you. No time like the present to login.
Bruce (Business and Operations) gave a summary of where the budget numbers stood at this point. Lots of ‘if’s, which makes sense at this point as everything is in flux and still being planned out. IF taxes are raised to the cap, it will bring in ~$536,000 more. IF state aid increases as expected, it will bring in ~$185,000 more. With that, IF all planned budget changes happen, there will be ~$650,000 budget shortfall. While that’s not great, not that many years ago the shortfall was about 6 million at this point in the process. Still work to be done, but we’ve managed in worse situations.
David (High School Principal) started the presentation for his group. He has 13 departments under him, so I’ll only be mentioning the parts that really stood out to me.
Special Education Department talked about how they prepare students for the ‘real world’. I found that ironic, as government employees are about as far from the ‘real world’ as you can get. But at least they make the effort.
Science Department shared some of the tools they use and research they are involved in. Apparently HFL students help a number of universities conduct research. Mostly seems connected to the environment (water quality). Appropriate, as we are to be good stewards of this world we have been given.
Business Education Department had a few students present about their (fictional) business, complete with website. At the end they gave out cupcakes. Was nice of them, but I think they should have had more BED jokes. The departments name almost demanded it.
Brian (Director of …) presented for his group. And I think the first thing that should be said is they need a better name. “Health/Physical Education/Interscholastic Athletics” is just too much. Either make an acronym out of it (PEHIA?) or rebrand it as something simpler (Health and Exercise?). That being said…
Gym class currently does a unit on Nutrition, and they are looking to make it into an elective. Which I think is a good idea. I know I don’t get enough exercise, and I see plenty of other people that are in the same boat. Combined with poor diet is a killer (literally). So the more time students can spend running around (and by extension learning ways to get exercise) the better. And at the same time, offering a dedicated class for what/how to eat has benefit as well.
Apparently things have changed drastically since I was a student. There is now homework in gym. At times, they record the students doing things (volleyball bumping was the example) and then email them the video. Each student then has to comment on what the did right/wrong in the move. It makes sense as a training aid, and fits in well with the use of electronics. I just find it shocking that gym class has homework.
They also have an interesting way to offer ‘written’ tests in class. They used Plickers, so that they can quickly take tests. While I have mixed thoughts on the data gathering aspect (and was disturbed by the claim it was anonymous, which is clearly false), it can be a useful tool. They did a quick demonstration at the meeting, which went over well.
This comment doesn’t really fit under any one part of the many budget presentations, so I’ll mention it here. There is much talk about getting the students ‘college and career ready’. That seems to me to be a misplaced focus. I think it would be better to focus on getting them ‘ready for life’. If they can handle life, and all the challenges it throws at us all, then little things like college or a career will be easy enough. Whereas by focusing on those two tasks, when something else comes up some people will be unprepared to deal with it.
Or to put that differently, you don’t prepare for the zombie apocalypse because you expect zombies. You prepare because if you can handle a zombie apocalypse, you can handle anything. Same thing here, if you can handle life, you can handle anything…
After that, the PBAC and BoE split up to discuss their thoughts on the presentations. Next week, nothing (for this group). Next meeting looks to be the 28th.
As sometimes happens, this meeting went a bit late, so I opted to write this in the morning. Hopefully the delay led to a more coherent Observation.