Dear Pine Bush parents and staff,

Tonight’s message covers our end of the year planning.

 

At this point, since we didn’t take any spring recess, our students will have met their 180-day state requirement for school attendance on Friday June 12. So Friday, June 12, will be the last day of virtual instruction here in Pine Bush. Teachers will not post anything after June 11, but teachers may allow students to submit assignments as late as Wednesday, June 17. Since teachers must work 184 days, their last day will be Thursday, June 18, which is also the last date for all grades to be submitted. Between next Tuesday, May 26, and that final day for teachers, varied employee groups will be coming into the buildings to help pack up student belongings, organize their rooms, gather their own personal property and complete all of the usual end-of-year obligations. Letters from Donna Geidel with more details will be emailed to principals who will in turn email them to all the respective employee groups sometime tomorrow.

 

Each school will schedule times during the week of June 15-18 for parents to come to school to retrieve their personal property and to return any school property, except for Chromebooks. We will only be gathering Chromebooks from seniors.

 

All of the regularly scheduled moving-up ceremonies for fifth and eighth graders will still occur as live-streamed virtual events at their previously scheduled day and times in the published school calendar. You’ll be getting reminder calls from your principal about those sometime in June. Our virtual graduation for Pine Bush High School is still scheduled for Friday night, June 26, beginning at 7 p.m. 

 

Next week we expect to hear more from the governor and/or county executive about what limitations they will place on graduations. So far, we have been told that gatherings of more than 10 people will simply not be allowed. I frankly doubt that this will change. If it does, we will be ready to change as well. So we’ll wait to share final details about our graduation plans until after we get that clarity from our state and county leaders.

 

Tomorrow I will be back with information about the public hearing scheduled for next Tuesday for our school budget vote on June 9.  

 

Also, a reminder that staff have until tomorrow night to complete the staff survey about your life during the shutdown. You’ll see a separate email from me with that link, if you haven’t gotten to that yet.

 

Have a great evening,

Tim O. Mains, Pine Bush Superintendent