Dear Pine Bush faculty, staff, and parents,

Ever since we announced that we would replace our hybrid schedule of two days a week with a four-day schedule, in what we have been calling our “Return to More Learning,”  we have also said that we fully intended to transition this new model into a full five-day-a-week schedule before the end of the year.

Well, I am writing today to inform you that transition will now occur on Monday, May 17, 2021.  We will have two more Mobile Mondays, and then, Mobile Mondays will go away.  Teachers will have two more Mondays to complete the planning and training they requested. The five-day schedule that begins on May 17 will remain through the end of the year. 

Parents do not need to do anything.  If your child is attending school in-person, your child’s bus schedule on Mondays will be the same as it is now Tuesday through Friday. If your child has been attending all-virtually, then you should see an increase in the synchronous instruction on Mondays, when we expand to this new five-day schedule.  Parents told us very clearly that five days was their preference, and we are pleased to finally get to our objective of ending the school year in the way we hope we can begin next school year.

Planning for that “Return to Learn Fall 2021” will begin in earnest this month.  A multi-stakeholder task force is currently being formed.  This task force will break into smaller teams to complete shaping recommendations about what next fall should look like from a Pine Bush point of view.  Of course, we will also ultimately have to be guided by whatever directives come from our State Education Department (SED) and our NYS Department of Health (DOH).  If you have an interest in serving on this task force, you can volunteer by contacting my assistant, Jayna McAteer .  If we wind up with too many volunteers, we may need to use a lottery to keep the total size of the task force within manageable limits.  By the way, in addition to parents, teachers, SRPs, and administrators, we are looking to include some high school and middle school students, so feel free to share this information with your middle school and high school students.

Have a great rest of your weekend,

Tim O. Mains, Pine Bush Superintendent