Editorial

Tim Mains: trailblazer and educator

Posted 1/6/22

At a time when it most needed to show an inclusive face, the Pine Bush Central School District hired Tim O. Mains as its superintendent of schools.

Mains, once hailed as the first openly-gay …

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Editorial

Tim Mains: trailblazer and educator

Posted

At a time when it most needed to show an inclusive face, the Pine Bush Central School District hired Tim O. Mains as its superintendent of schools.

Mains, once hailed as the first openly-gay elected official in New York State, was proud to be considered a trailblazer in the cause of human rights, but he was first and foremost an educator.

When he arrived from Rochester in the spring of 2017, the district was reeling from accusations of rampant anti-semitism. The district had been named in a lawsuit and had been embarrassed by coverage in the New York Times.

He set out to change the culture, inviting Holocaust survivors into the schools and implementing programs in conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Southern Poverty Law Center, Sandy Hook Promise, Safe School Ambassadors and the Orange County District Attorney. The results pointed to a more inclusive district.

Like so many other districts, he faced the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic in a region of high infections. The semi-monthly school board meetings became platforms for the ongoing debate over remote learning, masks and testing. The focus remained on learning.

It became more complicated at the start of the school year, when a shortage of bus drivers led to cancellation of classes and another crisis. It led to another debate over the merits of remote learning vs in-school classes. Eventually another bus company was brought in to fill in the routes that weren’t covered originally. Eventually some semblance of normalcy prevailed.

Through the pandemic and the issues that threatened to engulf the school district, Mains held the district true to the mission he identified upon arrival, one of fitting each student need, rather than mass assembly line instruction.
“But there’s no map to get there,” he said in 2017. “My job is to uncover opportunities.”
His time here was too short, but in that time, many opportunities were reached.