Middletown middle school still on shortened, altered schedule after student stabbing

Mike Randall, Middletown Times Herald- Record
·2 min read
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MIDDLETOWN - Five days after a student was stabbed at the school, Monhagen Middle School shifted its focus back to education when it opened Monday morning.

However, it continued to have three-hour delayed openings, with shorter days scheduled for Monday and Tuesday.

After a 13-year-old student was stabbed at the school on Wednesday, and another 13-year-old student was charged with the attack, Thursday and Friday focused on healing and recovery, and getting students access to counselors if they needed it.

Both of those days began with a three-hour delay.

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In her latest update to parents and others in the school community Friday night, Superintendent of Schools Amy Creeden said the school "will be making a shift back into an academic focus beginning on Monday,"

"However, we will do this slowly," Creeden added.

School days would proceed with nine periods of 22 minutes each.

Students will continue to enter the school through metal detectors, at two entrances: sixth and seventh graders will enter through the music wing doors and eighth graders will use the entrance in the eighth grade wing.

Students are now allowed to bring backpacks, and their Chromebooks and other school-provided devices.

The standard pass and cell phone policies are in place — no passes in the first and last five minutes of any period, and cell phones are not to be out and used during the day.

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Dismissal will be phased, one grade level at a time, and there will be no change to bus departure or parent/guardian pickup times.

There will be after-school athletics, but equity/diversity/inclusion and after-school tutoring will not take place this week. Clubs will meet on an individual basis depending on the advisor's after-school schedule.

"Continue to treat one another with gentleness, compassion and respect, and let our diverse community serve as a model for others," Creeden concluded.

Mike Randall covers breaking news for the Times Herald-Record and the Poughkeepsie Journal. Reach him at mrandall@th-record.com or on Twitter @mikerandall845.

This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Middletown student stabbing alters school schedule before winter break