The evening of 2022-08-23 was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
The longest portion of the meeting was the superintendent’s report. Not the first time this has happened, due to nesting multiple presentations within it. On the plus side, gets the bulk of the meeting out of the way in one swoop. Leaving the rest as more formal actions with less discussion.
It was also pointed out that starting/ending times for the schools have changed. Apparently a return to pre-panic timing. In any case, if you’ve got kids, make sure to double check times for them.
One of those presentations was on the proposed Phase 3 Capitol Project. Gene (Superintendent) is recommending against the addition of a UPK wing at Lima for various reasons. The biggest seems to be uncertainty, in both students and the states side of the funding. So a ~$40 million project for all the ‘normal’ sort of things will likely be put to the voters at some point.
The current Capitol Project Phase 2.5 snuck in, but apart from pointing people at pictures, nothing to say there.
The other presentation was on using Dell’s VxRail to virtualize various tasks. While I’m sure other uses would occur, sounds like it is the Computer Aided Drafting and digital art program driving this. The current computer lab is aging out, so how is that function replaced? The argument is this method minimizes total costs, while maximizing flexibility. No new hardware to take care of, and students don’t need to be in the physical lab to do their work. As someone that uses virtual computer environments often, I definitely see the potential value. But there is also value in being able to laugh at servers being down, because all you need is in your hands. Always trade offs.
Micropen is apparently having ‘supply chain’ problems with their expansion. This comes into play here as they have a previous agreement to use a portion of school grounds for temporary parking. Tonight that agreement was extended, as it should have no impact on school functions. It’s good to help out neighbors when you can.
I found the most interesting item discussed was what wasn’t. Renee Williams resigned. The agenda item was read, and approved, with no discussion. Pretty sure her name was not stated at any point, leaving looking it up on BoardDocs as the only way I knew who was retiring. Definitely no ‘she will be missed’ or ‘thank her for all her years service’ or ‘hope she does well in future endeavors’. Mind you, she wasn’t in the room, but that’s still the sort of thing I would expect to hear (at least to some extent). I’m sure there is a perfectly rational explanation, and perhaps she’ll even be at the next meeting for a send off party. It just struck me as odd how little was said, thus mentioning here.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the August 23, 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 will likely be available soon.