Pine Bush High School is the central high school for the Pine Bush Central School District, located on Route 302 in the

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

Pine Bush, New York Pine Bush is a hamlet (and census-designated place) located in the town of Crawford and adjacent to Shawangunk, New York, within Orange and adjacent to Ulster counties in the U.S. It is roughly coterminous with the 12566 ZIP code and 744 teleph ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The school no longer offers the

International Baccalaureate The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO), more commonly known as the International Baccalaureate (IB), is a nonprofit foundation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and founded in 1968. It offers four educational programmes: the I ...

degree program. It had been authorized to do so since 2002. The school was used in an episode of

ABC Afterschool Special ''ABC Afterschool Special'' is an American anthology television series that aired on ABC from October 4, 1972, to January 23, 1997, usually in the late afternoon on weekdays. Most episodes were dramatically presented situations, often controve ...

in 1991 titled “It’s Only Rock and Roll” which starred Grammy Award Winning singer Carol King.

Notable alumni

Joe Nathan Joseph Michael Nathan (born November 22, 1974) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the San Francisco Giants, Minnesota Twins, Texas Rangers (baseball), Texas Rangers, Detro ...

, former professional baseball player *

Mike Kiselak Michael John Kiselak (born March 9, 1967) is an American former professional gridiron football, football player who was a Guard (American football), guard in the Canadian Football League (CFL) for the Sacramento Gold Miners, San Antonio Texans ...

, former

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...

player for the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division. Established in 1959 ...

, and

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...

. * Cleanthony Early, former professional basketball player *

Joe Landolina Joseph Alexander Landolina (born January 27, 1993) is an American inventor and biomedical engineer, who is known for starting his company Cresilon, Inc. (formerly Suneris, Inc.) at a young age. Career While an undergrad at NYU Poly, Landolin ...

, inventor, entrepreneur and

biomedical engineer Biomedicine (also referred to as Western medicine, mainstream medicine or conventional medicine)

*Joseph Gaynor, Head Cider Maker of Angry Orchard

Controversy

Pine Bush High School has been involved in several well-known controversies over the last 10 years. *In 2012, five Jewish students brought a lawsuit against Pine Bush Central School District claiming that they experienced anti-Semitic slurs, graffiti, physical attacks, and jokes related to

The Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

during their time in elementary, middle, and high school. New York Governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( , ; born December 6, 1957) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 until his resignation in 2021. A member of the Democratic Party and son of former governor Mario Cuomo, ...

ordered an investigation into these allegations in 2013. Pine Bush Central School District settled this lawsuit in 2015, and paid the plaintiffs $4.48 million. *In 2015, a student read the

Pledge of Allegiance The U.S Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic recited verse that promises allegiance to the flag of the United States and the republic of the United States. The first version was written in 1885 by Captain George Thatcher Balch, a Union Army o ...

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

in an effort to celebrate national Foreign Language Week. This caused school and community-wide controversy as students and community-members associated the reading with conflict in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

. This incident garnered nation-wide attention and resulted in an apology from the school principal, Aaron Hopmayer. *In 2019,

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

wrote a follow-up article about how anti-Semitism still plagues Pine Bush Central School District. The article explains that the school district surveyed a portion of their students and found that 766 respondents in middle and high school said that they had seen or heard anti-Semitism in school in the last year.

References

{{authority control 1938 establishments in New York (state) Educational institutions established in 1938 Public high schools in New York (state) Schools in Orange County, New York