Putnam | Northern Westchester BOCES and the Sunshine Children’s Home and Rehab Center are pleased to share a new student program, Pines Bridge School  at the Sunshine Children’s Home.

Program Rationale:  The population of Sunshine Children’s Home and Rehab Center includes school-age children who are too medically fragile to travel to Pines Bridge School on the PNW BOCES campus. In response to an unmet need for educational services for these students, a unique partnership was formed, establishing the Pines Bridge School at Sunshine Children’s Home. This program enables students with unique care needs to participate in a full-day school program under the medically supervised care of Sunshine’s clinical team – physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses and respiratory therapists.  This program is designed for students who are ventilator dependent, receiving IV infusions and/or have other high-tech care needs.

Pines Bridge School at Sunshine is a self-contained, highly individualized program for students with multiple disabilities. The 12:1:4 program integrates cognitive, sensory, physical, emotional and social learning for students. Individualized programs focus on achieving IEP goals and accessing the NYS Common Core Standards as aligned to the NYS Alternate Assessment.  Enrichment programs are integrated as appropriate and available. Related services, including PT, OT, ST, Vision and Hearing are provided by skilled therapists, per each student IEP, throughout the school day.

Staff: Pines Bridge School at Sunshine is supervised by the Pines Bridge Principal, and staffed with one special education teacher, one teaching assistant, and up to four teacher aides per class. The classroom staff is supplemented by providers of enrichment activities such as art, music, and physical education.

Benefits: The opportunity for parents to send their medically-involved child to a full-day, academically driven, medically supervised school program is tremendously gratifying. School districts have the ability to extend their continuum of services to the most medically fragile students and ensure that they have a high quality education while under excellent medical supervision.