Good evening,

Today the Governor finally announced what many of us had anticipated: Schools throughout New York will remain closed to the end of this school year. He also indicated that in-person summer school will not be decided until the end of May, so I will wait until then before making any final decisions about our summer academies. Since there will be no summer Regents exams, it will be important for us at a minimum to ensure we have some form of virtual summer school for high school students in order to maximize the opportunity for seniors to complete their graduation requirements.

One part of me is pleased that we will not be returning to school, because we have no way to provide appropriate social distancing, and we could run the risk of exposing our students to the highly contagious coronavirus. But another part of me recognizes that learning at home is less than ideal, and now we will have to continue on our path of virtual instruction for another two months.

It is hard for many of our parents to support their children’s learning at home, and I imagine that many of you have an even greater appreciation for your children’s teachers than you did before. I know the teachers and parents alike have been working hard to ensure their students continue to learn during this time. I ask you hang in there, because I know we can and will get through this.

I do want to remind parents that your child’s classroom may be virtual, but it is still a classroom. We don’t allow people to photograph or record our real classrooms, and the same is true of the classrooms being carried over the Internet. These are still proprietary connections. Some parents, delighted by the cool things their children are doing, have asked if they could take a screenshot and post it to their social media. That answer has been a consistent “no.” The teacher and all the other students in the class have a right to privacy. So please do not record or take a picture of what’s going on in your child’s Google classroom. When teachers post a summary example of student work, we have generally been posting that to the school’s web page.

Please know that our high school team of administrators, counselors, and class advisors have designed a terrific plan for two-part graduation ceremony that I will be describing in detail in a separate update message next Monday night. Also, a special team has already been formed to work on a plan that will allow staff and students to come back to school before the end of this year to get their things and to return books and other school property (except for their Chrome books). I’ll be rolling out that plan in one of my updates later next week (probably Wednesday or Thursday).

Finally, today we celebrate our school lunch heroes! Our incredible cafeteria staff once again served over 15,000 meals this past week. If we get the shipment in time, they hope to also be distributing masks on Tuesday.

Seeing what we have already done gives me confidence. We are well ahead of many others in the county. Keep up the great work, and please stay safe and healthy!

Staff will be getting a second message later tonight.

Tim Mains, Superintendent