Education

After being notified of a second confirmed case of Covid-19 in a student at the John M. Marshall Elementary School, the East Hampton School District has decided to close the elementary school, middle school, and high school on Wednesday "out of an abundance of caution," the district said in an email and voice memo sent to parents on Tuesday afternoon.

The East Hampton Library wants teens in grades nine through 12 to make the best of a beautiful season with its Fall Bucket List Challenge.

Here's how it works: capture memorable moments from the library's list in selfies and email them to the young adult librarians. That's it! 

The bucket list includes pumpkin picking, carving a jack o'lantern, hiking, watching a scary movie, navigating a corn maze, and other fun fall activities.

The email address for submissions is [email protected].

The East Hampton School District on Saturday announced that what had been a suspected case of Covid-19 in a student is now a confirmed case at John M. Marshall Elementary School.

A Southampton Elementary School student has contracted Covid-19, according to the School Covid Report Card, a state website that tracks cases in public and private schools and colleges, but the student had not been on campus and classes had not yet begun before the diagnosis.

Charles Soriano, the principal of the East Hampton Middle School, announced this week that after-school clubs will return for in-person meetings starting on Oct. 5. Homework help sessions will also be reinstated. All standard Covid-19 precautions and rules will be in place.

The goal is to "provide social, artistic, and creative stimulation for our youngsters, so critical for this age group," Dr. Soriano said in an announcement. "Restarting our clubs and activities is more important than ever, particularly with the countywide postponement of athletics."

As to the process of preparing for this unprecedented school year, James Crenshaw said he has a tendency to approach anything by planning for everything. "The understanding is that you're probably going to miss a ton of things," and by going into overdrive at the beginning, there are fewer surprises along the way.

The Sag Harbor School Board on Monday opened a discussion of recognizing Juneteenth on the school calendar and renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous People's Day. Juneteenth is celebrated on June 19 each year to mark the day that the last enslaved people were freed in post-Civil War Texas in 1865. New York State passed legislation to officially recognize Juneteenth as a holiday.

High school students on the East End are invited to join the Retreat's eight-week Teen Leaders program, which starts Wednesday and runs through Nov. 18.

Before the start of the school year, the Sagaponack organization Supplies for Success announced it had donated 20,000 backpacks filled with new school supplies to local children whose families cannot afford them.

Since Mindy Richardson established the organization in 2002, Supplies for Success has helped 135,000 underserved local children. And since March 5, 2020, when Ms. Richardson's son Eric died in a ski accident, the organization has responded to the pandemic in his honor. 

Madeline Grabb, the Bridgehampton School's 2020 valedictorian, is one of 200 people chosen to compete in a research competition known as the World Food Prize. Her gap-year project focuses on ideas for fighting malnutrition in Pakistan, where 68 percent of the population suffers from anemia.

Tim Frazier, the recently retired Southampton Intermediate School principal and the current vice president of the Springs School Board, has stepped in as interim director of the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center.

Trivia time for teens, circle time for toddlers, and more.

Two school districts here have brought independent investigators on board to look into sensitive incidents and school residency.

With school back in session, online homework help is being made more available to library patrons across the East End. The sessions, hosted by Brainfuse, an online tutoring provider, offer one-on-one help and test prep in a wide range of subjects for students in kindergarten through 12th grade on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 11 p.m.

The Sag Harbor Learning Center, formerly the Stella Maris Regional School, finally opened this week to prekindergarten and kindergarten students in the Sag Harbor School District, which bought the building from the Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre in 2016.

The East Hampton School District will be providing meals to remote and hybrid students who are on the federal free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch programs. The district will also be providing meals to Springs School students in the same categories.

Motivated by the patterns of tobacco use among their peers, a student group called Breathe In Change is renewing its efforts to educate other students about the dangers of tobacco use — including cigarettes in addition to e-cigarettes, according to the students.

The winners of the East Hampton Town Anti-Bias Task Force's bumper sticker design contest were announced this week.

New York State's school Covid-19 reporting system is now online. The publicly accessible website allows visitors to look up school districts by name or address.

The system can be accessed at schoolcovidreportcard.health.ny.gov. As of Monday morning, none of the South Fork school districts, from Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor through Montauk, had any cases to report.

Robert Hagan has resigned from his post as director of instruction and technology for the East Hampton School District. He had been with East Hampton for more than seven years and is leaving to accept an assistant superintendent position closer to home.

During a Sept. 1 school board meeting, Mr. Hagan thanked the school board and district administration for creating a supportive learning environment. "I wish you all the best, and I'm never far if anyone ever needs anything. This place is really a special area that is close to my heart."

As of Tuesday, with the daily Covid-19 infection rate on Long Island hovering around 1.5 percent, school sports are still a go starting on Sept. 21. On Wednesday, the New York State Department of Health released further guidelines governing each sport, clarifying that football, volleyball, rugby, and now cheerleading will not start until March 1, 2021.

Two six-week programs for young thespians through Bay Street Theater will begin on Sept. 26 outdoors on the grounds of the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum.

With mask-wearing mandates in place for every student, except in some cases those with disabilities, many school districts are now banning the use of masks with valves or exhalation vents.

Those "are not recommended, as they can allow exhaled respiratory droplets to reach others," according to the New York State chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The Bridgehampton School and the Sagaponack School are among those that are following that organization's guidelines.

Parents and children can expect the experience of riding the school bus to be different in light of Covid-19 -- if, that is, they take the bus at all.

Most South Fork school districts are reporting that bus ridership will be down as more parents choose to drive their children to school themselves. And unlike in the past, when every child who qualified for transportation was automatically assigned a place on a school bus, most districts asked families to specifically opt in to transportation this year.

Brittany Carriero, who has held leadership roles in the Sag Harbor School District since 2013, is expected to be named the new principal of Pierson Middle and High School on Thursday at a meeting of the Sag Harbor School Board, the district announced Tuesday. Laura Westhoff will be appointed dean of the middle school until a new middle school assistant principal is hired.

New York State school districts must now report confirmed cases of Covid-19 to a state Department of Health website that will be publicly accessible by the start of the school year.

With the Covid-19 pandemic hanging like a big question mark over the school year, The Star polled local students to see how they're feeling about returning to school. In their own words,

Dr. Gail Schonfeld of East End Pediatrics in East Hampton shared some advice for keeping East End kids and families healthy.

Students in the special education and vocational programs at Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services will return to school this year along with their peers in other public schools.

DanceHampton in East Hampton Village, Creative Edge Dance Studio in Montauk, and the Hampton Ballet Theatre School in Bridgehampton are enrolling dancers for fall programs.