Registration Materials Released for the 2023-2024 School Year

Welcome to the 2023-2024 school year! We are in the midst of tremendous change in our school district as construction at the high school is, and will continue to be ongoing throughout this school year and into the first part of the next school year. It is indeed a very exciting time for our district, but in this intermediate phase I’ll urge flexibility and patience. The greatest challenge this year will be adequate parking. For that reason, we have designated specific parking areas for employees and students alike. If parking is not available in one of the designated parking lots, you will have to utilize street parking. For maps outlining parking arrangements for the 2023-2024 school year, please visit www.hudsonpiratepride.com and click on the ‘parking’ tab at the top of the main page. 

Everything needed to register for the 2023-2024 can be found on our website at www.hudsonpiratepride.com. Simply go to the ‘parents’ tab and click on ‘School Registration - Forms, Supply Lists’. Here you will find all the registration material-including the ‘Topics’ newsletter. Online registration provides convenience and flexibility while streamlining the process. If you have questions please don’t hesitate to contact our office. We urge you to complete the registration process by August 1 so we can finalize schedules and class lists. In addition to large gains in enrollment we have numerous families on waiting lists to get into our district, so thank you in advance for completing the registration process quickly.

We value your input, feedback, and questions! For this reason we take our responsibility to interact with the public very seriously and strive to ensure that timely pertinent information is readily available for you, and that you have an opportunity to interact with your superintendent as seamlessly as possible. There are several ways to receive district wide communication:

The School Website hosts a plethora of information that is of value to our patrons, including staff directories, lunch menus, activities and events, and even school news. You are encouraged to become a regular user of our website, located at www.hudsonpiratepride.com.

Superintendent’s Blog is a weekly column that is generally published every Wednesday online and the following Thursday in the Hudson Herald. This column is used to share school news and locally contextualize statewide and national policy proposals. It is also used to educate our public on a variety of education related topics. You can find and subscribe to the blog at http://superintendentvoss.blogspot.com/.

To make sure you don’t miss any articles, please consider subscribing by typing your email address in the subscription box on the right hand side of the screen.

Twitter  For those of you who are tech savvy, I would also invite you to follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/anthonydvoss. This is a great way to keep up with what is going on in school, and who knows, you may even see a picture with some familiar faces from time to time!

Facebook We have also worked hard over the course of the last year to improve our presence on Facebook, which you can find at @hudsoncommunityschools All of our social media channels are accessible from the main page of our website.

Pardon Our Progress

I suppose progress is one way of putting it. I can also understand how one might look at the pictures included in this post and be led to believe we have a real mess on our hands. Truth be told, you are not wrong! But the good news this is all by design. I think there is a saying that goes something like, 'You can't bake a cake with out breaking an egg'. Well, we broke a lot of them! As I mentioned last week, we are working hard to get it right the first time, and to do so will require much patience on everyone's part. 

Patience especially of the students and faculty who will be working in a building that will be under construction for the entirety of the 2023-2024 school year. While the centerpiece of this project is the addition, of which is occurring where there will be no students; we are also remodeling the inside of the building. Our contractors are working hard on classrooms around the west perimeter of the building, but when we designed the project we knew that a lot of this work was going to occur while school was in session. Because of that, teachers will be shifting from one classroom to another as rooms are demolished and then renovated. Students of course will need to be mindful of the fact that where they meet for classes is subject to change. 

We have a good plan to manage these shifts during the course of the school year, but there is another saying that 'No plan survives first contact'. So we need to get used to a fluid environment where flexibility will be much appreciated. I've done quite a few construction projects over the years and I have had to really get comfortable with the unknown; and the realization that we are almost always perpetually behind schedule! This summer has been no different as we deal with material delays and contractors who have to wait on other contractors to show up before they can complete their work!

Perhaps our greatest challenge this year will be managing parking. Parking and traffic flow is something the task force spent quite a bit of time discussing, but ultimately it was determined that because of the way our campus is laid out there is really no viable solution. It will be better once the project is completed, but there is no magic bullet to ensure 'adequate' parking and traffic flow during drop off and pickup. It is always going to be congested. We'll continue to look for solutions and do all we can to mitigate these pressure points, but keep in mind one important point: at the beginning and end of the school day we are moving approximately 900 students on and off campus, in a roughly two block stretch.

This coming school year though, parking is going to be very challenging. For starters, about half the high school parking lot will be inaccessible due to construction. For this reason, we are designating the north parking lot as student parking. However, to accomplish this students will not be permitted to park behind the K-8 building at any time before or after school. This area is reserved for faculty and staff. The high school lot will accommodate approximately 40 cars, and by the time school starts we should have another 40 angle spots available along Wood Street. If students want these premium spots, they will need to arrive early! The good news is that by the time the project is completed we will be net positive when it comes to parking spots around campus and at the high school.

Growing pains for sure. Short term pain for long term gain. We appreciate your patience and flexibility as our construction project progresses. It is going to be a fun year to watch this unfold!