The evening of 2022-01-18 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE), and Program Budget Advisory Council (PBAC).
Audio quality on the recording was not the best. Having been in the Lima cafeteria for meetings before, this did not surprise me. The acoustics in that room aren’t great, and there is a decent amount of background machinery. Mostly mentioning as I had difficulty following the meeting, thus my observations are limited. Having said that, the Board clearly made the effort. For which I am thankful.
Bill Harvey, head of the Transportation department, is retiring in July. Will be big shoes to fill for someone. But that’s half a year away. Time to transition, with all the well wishing and panicking that entails.
As one capitol project is wrapping up, another is being planned. From previous conversations I recall, seems to be a side effect of State requirements around aid. But it also means there is almost always construction on campus.
There are enough non-english speakers (it sounds like mostly Afghanistan refugees) that the school is adding another English as a New Language (ENL) teacher. We are apparently a ‘popular destination’. I wonder if this is a temporary issue, or part of a long term trend.
The budget portion of the meeting started at ~38:30, and ended at ~1:42. There was some background information, including a video. Then it was onto the Lima presentation, which included a few more videos.
Overall, it felt more propaganda and less budget to me. There seemed to be considerable focus on the ‘extras’, I don’t know if I heard from any ‘regular’ teachers. I did find it interesting how often the phrase ‘all means all’ was mentioned. While the intent appears to be that all students will benefit, in context it seems more about hiring all the staff.
Gary (BoE member) noticed that Lima did not comment on covid’s impact during their presentation. I thought this was a rather insightful observation on his part, although he is prone to them. As the Lima students will have been in a ‘covid world’ their entire educational experience, it would make sense for it to be commented on to some extent. That it’s not means… what?
In contrast, Gene (Superintendent) reports kids are sick. News at ~2:05.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the January 18, 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 is also available.