Education

With the arrival of summer comes the return of junior lifeguard programs for kids 9 to 15 run by East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village, both happening on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 to 11 a.m.

The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center plans to highlight collaboration and commonality among nonprofits at this year’s It Takes Our Village cocktail party fund-raiser on June 29 at Mulford Farm.

Sunday’s a big day for families at the Parrish Art Museum, where the theme is Savor the Summer. Admission will be free and activities will be plentiful from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Plus: summer reading programs, STEM activities, kids' movies, crafts, and even a flamingo-themed story time at SoFo.

Last Thursday, as the culmination of a lawsuit that began in 2019, New York State Attorney General Letitia James distributed New York’s share of a historic multistate settlement secured from JUUL Labs Inc. for its role in the youth vaping epidemic. The settlement money will be put to use by counties and the Boards of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) to pay for vaping education, enforcement, and research programs.

Jadiel Rodriguez, an East Hampton High School junior who has been acting in community theater and school musicals since the age of 9, played Moonface Martin in "Anything Goes" this year. His performance earned him a Teeny Award — the eastern Suffolk high school version of Broadway’s Tony Awards, sponsored by East End Arts.

Our Fabulous Variety Show's "Tap: A Celebration of Rhythm," hitting the stage at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center for two shows on Saturday, will give folks from these parts plenty of reasons to head west. Chief among them: Several dozen of the performers are local students who have been honing their craft at O.F.V.S.'s studios in East Hampton.

Kids' movies, arts and crafts, a book reading with Nina Ross, a wellness workshop, and more.

The New York State Education Department on Monday released its "vision to transform" how students graduate from high school in the state, the culmination of a five-year process that sought to update older standards and acknowledge the different ways that students learn and show progress.

There was lots of good news out of the Springs School this week, including a one-year contract extension that will give teachers a 3-percent pay raise in the school year ahead, news of student achievements, and even celebratory words for some of the grownups.

With a benefit, Cabaret for a Cause, coming up, the Road Forward Scholarship Fund seeks to continue helping economically disadvantaged students not only go to college, but stay in college.

Guild Hall's Teen Arts Council, consisting of creative teens from East Hampton High School, Pierson High School, and the Ross School, will be the stars of a fashion show at Guild Hall on Saturday at 6 p.m. Plus: Coding for kids, a calligraphy class, Regents exam study hours, STEM activities, D.I.Y. Father's Day cards, and more.

Since last fall, the Springs School PTA has been planning the return of the popular Mystery Art Sale after a six-year hiatus. Friday and Saturday are the big days — let the guessing game begin.

Michael Rodgers, a longtime Amagansett School gym teacher and administrator affectionately called Coach Rodgers by colleagues, students, and parents, has been appointed superintendent of the district.

Saturday and Sunday mornings in June are for families to explore Amber Waves Farm, where staff members are on hand to guide them through the educational garden. Plus: sticker-swap party, movie nights, Pop! Fun night, a pop-up pond exhibit, and more for kids and teens.

Isabelle Caplin has been named the 2024 class valedictorian at Pierson High School and Chad Federico the salutatorian, the Sag Harbor School District announced Tuesday.

Guild Hall’s Teen Arts Council is now accepting applications for the 2024-25 academic year. The council is open to any East Hampton-area high school student with a love and appreciation of the arts.

Ten students from high schools here have been nominated for their accomplishments in theater by East End Arts, the organization that hosts the Teeny Awards annually.

In South Fork districts not attempting to override the state-imposed tax-levy cap, there was good news on Tuesday. Voters in Montauk, Sag Harbor, Wainscott, Sagaponack, and Bridgehampton overwhelmingly supported their respective budgets.

Kites for Kids returns to Main Beach in East Hampton on Saturday afternoon, once again serving as a fund-raiser for the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center. Plus: a CMEE block party, arts and crafts, guitar lessons in Bridgehampton, a teen clothing swap in Montauk, and more.

The local chapter of Whiskey Bravo, a nationwide youth organization that raises awareness of the kinds of support needed by veterans and active military personnel, took on the somber task this year of placing flags at the gravesites of East Hampton soldiers, and also walked a symbolic lap around the field at the American Legion to show their support.

Eight hundred copies of the new Ditch Weekly, chronicling all that’s happening in Montauk from a youth perspective, drops today in shops and restaurants across the hamlet. Its founders are three East Hampton Middle School students.

In the East Hampton, Springs, and Amagansett school districts, tax-cap-busting budgets needed a supermajority of at least 60 percent voter approval to pass, and their respective communities responded by turning out in strong numbers to vote on Tuesday.

Months of strategic planning and detailed debate culminated in Tuesday's budget votes and school board elections on the South Fork, with positive results for the three districts piercing the tax cap, East Hampton, Springs, and Amagansett.

How much money does it take to run a nationally recognized Blue Ribbon school? At the Amagansett School, for next year, the answer is $13.44 million, according to administrators. Now it's up to the voters to decide the fate of that spending plan, which carries a tax-cap-busting 7.77-percent increase to the tax levy.

This year’s Bridgehampton school ballot features two incumbent school board members and two new challengers vying for three seats on the board. The candidates are Merritt Thomas and Nicole DeCastri Zabala, who are both seeking an elected office for the first time, along with Jo Ann Comfort and Angela Chmielewski, who are seeking their third and second terms on the board, respectively.

The Springs School District is the only district in East Hampton Town with a contested school board race this year, with two candidates vying for one seat: Barbara Dayton, the incumbent, and Dermot Quinn, a newcomer.

The Ross School’s middle and high school performers will bring the musical classic “Mary Poppins” to the stage of the school’s Court Theater tonight and tomorrow night at 7 and on Saturday at 2 p.m. Plus: Aromatherapy workshop, story time, art exhibits, guitar basics, and more coming up for kids and teens.

There’s a lot at stake in Tuesday’s school budget vote, not only for school districts, but also for Project Most, the nonprofit organization that offers after-school programs at the Springs School and the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton.

Springs students report the news of the school.

This year, school budgets across the South Fork are hit hard by an economic inflation factor of more than 4 percent, drastic increases to health and retirement benefits for teachers and staff, and the need to serve students still recovering, academically and emotionally, from the Covid-19 pandemic without the benefit of relief money from the state and federal governments.