Pine Bush announces tentative back-to-school plan

Posted 7/30/20

Students in grades K-8 will be in the classroom every other school day, while high school students will continue to receive virtual instruction in the upcoming semester, according to a plan announced …

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Pine Bush announces tentative back-to-school plan

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Students in grades K-8 will be in the classroom every other school day, while high school students will continue to receive virtual instruction in the upcoming semester, according to a plan announced Sunday by the Pine Bush Central School District..

Tim O. Mains, Pine Bush Superintendent of School released an overview of the plan Sunday afternoon. He said parents are being asked to complete a Return to Learn Survey, available on the district’s website, and based on what was learned from parent, staff, and student surveys earlier this summer and the extensive guidelines provided by health experts and the State Education Department.

The tentative return plan is as follows:

Elementary and Middle Schools
Kindergarten through grade 8 students will attend their schools for in-person learning on an every-other-day schedule, beginning Tuesday, September 8.  On any given day, half of the students will physically attend school while half stay home. The next day, it switches and those who were home the previous day will attend school while those who were in the classroom the previous day will be home. This alternating in-person hybrid schedule was parents’ second choice behind bringing all students back when school begins on Sept. 8. 

“We want to make sure that students in the same family follow the same days (A day or B day) to be in school.,” Mains wrote.

On the days when students are in the building, they will be given their assigned work to do independently the following day when they are learning from home.

“All that said, we are also giving parents of students in kindergarten through grade 8 the option to choose an all-virtual Return to Learn schedule. The all virtual learning will also give kids direct contact with their virtual teacher every other day (following the same A day, B day schedule of the in-person/hybrid model).  We are offering this to be responsive to parents who told us they wanted this option,” Mains said, “but we recommend that you consider sending your K-8 students to their buildings instead.”

High School
All students in grades 9-12, will begin the year in an all-virtual environment. Mains said the school district could not effectively maintain social-distancing in that building with more than 800 teens changing classes each day.

Parents were to be notified of the survey via email from their child’s principal Wirth a link to access the survey.They are being asked to compete the survey by Sunday night, August 2.