James Bates Joins Mendon High School as New Assistant Principal

Mendon High School will have a new assistant principal on October 9. The Pittsford Board of Education made it official at its September 8, 2026 meeting: James Bates joins the building with two prior AP appointments and a career that started in a middle school biology classroom.

From Biology Teacher to School Administrator

From Biology Teacher to School Administrator

Bates built his career from inside the classroom. He taught middle school biology, then earned a department leader role at East Rochester High School — the track that runs through the curriculum before it runs through the administration. As a department head, you represent your subject in district-level decisions, manage a team of teachers, and serve as the first escalation point when instruction breaks down. That path tends to produce administrators who know what teachers actually need, having recently been one.

From there his career moved into building-level administration: Monroe 2 BOCES and Western Wayne Summer Academy, both as an Assistant Principal. Two AP roles before this one means Mendon is not where he figures out how to run a building.

Mendon High School's Assistant Principal Team

Mendon High School's Assistant Principal Team

Mendon High School serves 919 students in grades 9 through 12 in Pittsford Central School District. Its departments span English, Math, Science, Social Studies, World Languages, Business, Art, and Health — a breadth where a background in science education translates directly across most of the faculty.

Bates is not an addition to the administrative team — he fills the assistant principal vacancy created when Andrea Lynch left the building. The district selected Lynch as assistant principal of Calkins Road Middle School pending Board of Education approval on August 11, 2026, and her biography now appears on the Calkins Road assistant principal page. Stephanie Barg continues as an assistant principal at MHS; she came to the building from Jefferson Road Elementary, where she served as principal, and previously held the district's Social Emotional Learning Coordinator role.

The Board Vote and What Comes Next

The Board Vote and What Comes Next

The appointment was a formal board action. The Pittsford Board of Education voted to approve the hire at its September 8, 2026 meeting, with the announcement going out through the superintendent's newsletter.

Bates's start date is October 9. He steps into the post Lynch left in August.