Tonight (2018-10-09) was a meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education (BoE).
All of the BoE members were in attendance tonight, which is a first for this school year (although one of them was on the screen). While it is good to have everyone there, this still leaves the question of what a Code of Ethics violation results in.
Student representative (whose name I haven’t learned yet) reported that the kids are looking forward to Spirit Week, especially America Day. They are not looking forward to losing the ‘senior pit’ portion of the cafeteria next year, as the capitol project moves along. Other then that, sounds like the school year is going well enough.
New Librarian is working now, which should bring that group back to capacity. On the other hand, bus driver shortage is forcing cut back on things such as field trips. Oddly enough, this has led to outsourcing delivery of the Urban-Suburban students. While the comment was made that the cost is about the same as doing it in house (if staff was available), it will be interesting to hear the financial impact of that program, when the time comes.
Fall weekend parade will be at noon (or thereabouts). It was commented that, as the forecast is cool with a chance of rain, we’ll probably have snow. As I recall, we have had our share of rain for that event, so plan accordingly. And it wouldn’t be the first time it’s snowed then either.
Phase 2 bids were accepted, and Bob (Campus Construction) says it’s “all good”. He then went into detail, but the only part that stuck out to me was he plans to break ground by November 1st.
Gary (Board Member) asked some very good questions about the Independent Auditors’ Report. In particular, he was asking about the ~$99 million OPEB (probably Other Post-employment Benefits, but wasn’t stated). Which is most of ~$122 million total Long-Term Debt Obligations. Oddly enough, the pensions sit at about half a million. Glad to hear Gary asking the questions, as those numbers worried me when I was looking at the report, especially with the ~$11 million increase from last year. While no answers were given tonight, I’ll be looking forward to them.
The BoE adopted a Sexual Harassment policy tonight, at the demand of the state. Sounds like this came by surprise, and has already taken effect as law, so there wasn’t really time to discuss and debate. I suppose an argument could be made that this is harassment (of the NON-sexual kind) by the state. In any case, I expect the Board will give this a more thorough look over when next they review policies.
Much like last meeting, there was a long discussion on what the Board wants for it’s goals this year. This time, nothing was said on goal 2 or 3, it was all goal 1: Communication. I would assume this means they are happy with 2 and 3, but with how the discussion went, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were forgotten.
My sense of the discussion is they went around in circles on the two sides of communication. On the one hand, the BoE wants to know what the community is talking about and thinking. And on the other, they want to be able to share what they are thinking with the public. While those are both decent goals to work towards, they are different goals and too much of the discussion seemed to be unable to split them. Which was ironic.
Tangentially related, the Facebook community page was criticized. Or put differently, that it was ‘inappropriate’ for a member of the Board to post to it, as that could create the impression they are representing the BoE as a whole. To complicate the matter, the page in question is private, which limits how much of the district could read it. Perhaps another case for the Code of Ethics, as it gives the role of ‘spokesperson’ to the Superintendent (Gene) and Board President (Amy).
An update to the way volunteers are handled let to an interesting discussion. The volunteer form asks if you are a felon, which can’t legally be asked of staff. Gene said he can’t kick you off campus for an honest answer, but he can for lying. Which led into a question on general checking of id’s at the door, and how you are kicked off campus if you don’t have a valid photo id. This feels like a contradiction, but I’m failing in attaching words to that feeling. Something to ponder more.
And those are my Observations From Audience Land for the October 9, 2018 meeting of the Honeoye Falls-Lima Board of Education.
As has become the norm for this group, Agenda’s and similar information can be found at HFL’s BoardDocs page.