The stars are still just a little bit out of reach at the Montauk Observatory’s observation dome at the Ross School in East Hampton. The organization needs some mechanical parts to get the dome working, and has launched a fund-raising campaign to pay for them.

According to Susan Harder, one of the organization’s founding board members, the cost is far from astronomical: A little over $4,200 is needed for a motor, a power supply, a shutter system, and a handful of other parts, which were discovered to have rusted while the dome was in storage awaiting a permanent home over the last few years.

The Montauk Observatory’s long-term goal is to raise $25,000, according to a crowd-funding website set up for the campaign, which will help it set up educational programs, internships, and research opportunities for students. The organization has received the offer of $6,000 in matching donations from a private supporter, meaning that for every $1 someone gives, that contribution will be matched with another $1, up to $6,000.

“We’re hopeful that that will happen sometime soon,” Ms. Harder said Friday. “We’d like to have it up and running to complement our lecture series. We just have to finish up these little parts.”

The observation dome was installed at the Ross School’s tennis center over the summer. Once it is outfitted with new parts, it will permanently house a 20-inch, research-caliber telescope that weighs 900 pounds. In addition to supporting the organization’s lectures and other programming, the general public will be able to request remote online access to the telescope for research and recreation.

Donations to the Montauk Observatory, a registered nonprofit organization, are tax-deductible. Contributions can be made online at gofundme.com/MontaukObservatory or at montaukobservatory.com/donate.asp, or by sending a check to Montauk Observatory, care of Terry Bienstock, its president, at 2312 Bay Avenue, Miami Beach, Fla. 33140.

The East Hampton Library is sponsoring free reading tests on Saturday, Dec. 3, for children in kindergarten through third grade who have difficulties reading.

Aimed at giving parents the tools to help their children improve their skills, the program will also include a presentation on library resources and adaptive technology for kids who are reluctant readers, book giveaways and refreshments, and information for teachers who are interested in receiving training to help such students.

It will begin at 10 a.m. with individual 15-minute sessions with a specialist who will identify children’s weaknesses with reading. Refreshments will be provided from 11:30 a.m. to noon, followed by an informational session covering dyslexia and other reading-related difficulties, with a question-and-answer period.

A separate session aimed at teachers and school psychologists, from 12:30 to 1 p.m., will introduce the Orton-Gillingham method and teaching reading using “multi-sensory approaches,” a term that refers to using a variety of strategies in the classroom to help children learn in alternative ways.

The presenter will be Evelyn Gross Whitebay, a teacher in Ulster County and an expert on dyslexia, who has partnered with the group Dyslexia on Long Island. Registration is required and can be accomplished by calling the East Hampton Library at 631-324-0222, extension 2.

So Fun at SoFo

There will be activities for the whole family at the South Fork Natural History Museum’s free open house on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but a few will be geared especially to children. From 10 a.m. to noon, kids of all ages can get their faces painted and make leaf “stained glass,” and kids 7 and older can create cornhusk dolls. 

A live animal and insect program from 2 to 3 p.m. is an add-on to the day of free activities and costs $15 for adults and teens and $8 for children, $10 and $5 for those who are members of the museum. Frogs, toads, rabbits, chinchillas, guinea pigs, mice hermit crabs, and reptiles are among the creatures that will be on hand. Advance reservations are a must for this portion of the day.

The museum has asked visitors for canned goods or nonperishable food items, which will be donated to the Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor Food Pantries.

Family Time at the Parrish

The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill is offering family art activities tomorrow and Saturday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. In addition to gallery tours, there will be art projects inspired by the works in the galleries, a book signing tomorrow, and origami instruction on Saturday, all free with museum admission. 

Alex Beard, an artist and author of the children’s books “The Jungle Grapevine,” “Crocodile’s Tears,” and “Monkey See, Monkey Draw,” will be at the museum tomorrow at 1 p.m. to talk about and sign copies of his books. On Saturday, children and adults can learn to create folded paper origami art from 1 to 3 p.m. in the museum’s theater. 

The museum’s holiday gift market will take place tomorrow from noon to 5 and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Angelina at CMEE

Katharine Holabird, the creator of the Angelina Ballerina series of books about a young mouse with a passion for dance, will be at the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton on Saturday to bring her stories to life with the help of a local dancer. The program begins at 10 a.m. and costs $15, including museum admission. Members get in free. Registration ahead of time is required. 

Stinky and Brave

In Sag Harbor at the John Jermain Memorial Library, Kate and Jim McMullan will read selections from their children’s books for children 5 and under tomorrow. Among the many picture books to the couple’s credit are “I Stink!” and “I’m Brave!” The program begins at 10:30 a.m. 

Jester Jim in East Hampton

Jester Jim will be back at the East Hampton Library on Saturday at 2 p.m. with a comedy, juggling, and beatbox show for kids of all ages. 

Tomorrow, kids 4 and older can learn about the art of frottage, or crayon rubbings, using seashells, wood, coins, and other textured objects to create images they will cut and paste into works of art. The program starts at 2 p.m. 

A Snap Circuits workshop on Wednesday at 4 p.m. will have children 7 and older constructing electrical circuits that will light up, make sounds, or power an accessory. 

Next Thursday, “The Polar Express” will be shown at 4 p.m. on the library’s big screen. Advance registration has been requested for all but the Jester Jim show.

With just under three weeks to go before Sag Harbor School District residents vote on using money from the school’s capital reserve fund for an artificial turf athletic field at Pierson Middle and High School, the district’s PTA and Parent Teacher Student Association have planned a public forum on the topic to hear information and viewpoints from all sides of the issue.

The forum will be next Thursday at 6 p.m. in the Pierson library. It will feature presentations by Katy Graves, Sag Harbor’s superintendent, and by Patti Woods of the organization Grass Roots Environmental Education. It is open not just to PTA and P.T.S.A. members, but also to the community at large, according to Aura Winarick, the president of the Pierson P.T.S.A. It was inspired in part, she said, by a similar forum held last week by the Noyac Civic Council that she called “very enlightening.”

“The motivation is to educate,” she said Tuesday. “To give our members an opportunity to learn what the vote is actually about. Not everybody pays attention to the details of these things.” 

Equally important, Ms. Winarick said, is that the P.T.S.A and PTA members will vote to take a stance either in opposition or support of the turf field proposal. Only members of the groups will be able to vote, but she said the groups will be accepting new members during the forum.

“I do think it is important that PTA and P.T.S.A. take an official stance because we are a large and very well-organized group with state and national bylaws that guide us. We can have a large voice in what’s going on,” Ms. Winarick said. “We aren’t just all about bake sales and book fairs. There’s so much more we can do.”

The capital reserve referendum vote is planned for Dec. 14 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the Pierson gymnasium. A voter registration day will be held Dec. 5 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the district office. 

Time for Gingerbread Houses

The room will smell of sugar and spice and everything nice during the Children’s Museum of the East End’s gingerbread house decorating workshops on Saturday in Bridgehampton. The cost per house is $32 and includes museum admission. Members pay $20 per house. Workshops will be offered at 10 and 11 a.m. Advance reservations are a must as these popular programs often sell out. 

In Sag Harbor, Forever Bungalows on Route 114 is offering a free gingerbread house decorating event on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Families have been asked to stop by on their way to or from holiday festivities in Sag Harbor Village. Supplies and sweets will be provided. 

Cupcakes, Crafts, Circuits

At the East Hampton Library this week, creative kids can decorate cupcakes, make their own soaps, build electrical circuits, and put together holiday wreaths. On Tuesday at 4 p.m., the library will have cupcakes and all the decorations on hand for kids 4 and older. That same age group can make holiday-themed scented soaps to give as gifts on Wednesday at 4 p.m. 

Next Thursday, the library will offer another of its Snap Circuits programs to teach kids 7 and older the basics of electrical circuitry. The program runs from 4 to 5 p.m. All the materials for glittery wreaths will be on hand in a program on Friday, Dec. 9, at 3:30 p.m. for ages 4 and up. Advance registration has been requested for all library programs. 

Winter Birding Walk

Winter birds, homemade clay, climate change, and robotics are on the agenda for kids this week at the busy South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton. The weekend kicks off Saturday morning at 10:30 with a birding walk for families with children 5 and older. Crystal Possehl will lead, and binoculars will be available to borrow with advance notice.

Kids 8 to 12 will do a “climate-change vulnerability assessment” at the museum on Saturday, looking at how some of the South Fork’s native animals might respond to climate change in our own backyards. The program starts at 10:30 a.m. and will be led by Eleni Nikolopoulos.

Ruby Jackson, an artist and educator, will teach families to make their own nontoxic clay on Saturday at 2 p.m. There is a $3 materials fee for this one. In another family workshop, on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. participants will make a mini bug-bot butterfly as they learn about robotics and insects. There is a $10 materials fee. Melanie Meade will lead. Advance registration is required for all of the museum’s special programs. 

Fun in Montauk

At the Montauk Library, kids in kindergarten and above can make their own snow globes on Saturday while also learning the science behind them. The program runs from 2 to 3 p.m. 

Also in Montauk, Camp SoulGrow will host an ornament workshop on Wednesday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. with Eileen Devlin leading the creative charge. It is free for kids 7 and older, and registration is at [email protected]. 

The Cookie Tower

At the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor on Wednesday, families have been invited to decorate a cookie tower from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Each family will get 13 holiday star cookies and tips on various decorating techniques. Space is limited to 15 families. 

On Saturday students in seventh through 12th grades can learn how to use the library’s Pinback button maker during a workshop from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. After that, they will be cleared to use the button maker on their own time. 

Children in kindergarten through sixth grade will use old paper to create new in a paper-making workshop on Sunday from 2 to 3 p.m. Registration ahead of time has been requested for all programs. 

Coding for Kids

An “hour of code” workshop for grades two through six at the Amagansett Library on Wednesday and Dec. 14 will have kids learning the basics of computer programming using a Minecraft or Star Wars platform. The workshops start at 3:50 p.m., and advance sign-up is a must. 

“Curlee Girlee” Story Time

Atara Twersky, a children’s book author, attorney, and mother of three young children, will read from “Curlee Girlee” on Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at BookHampton in East Hampton. It tells the story of a girl who wishes she could tame her locks and be just like everyone else, but eventually comes to appreciate her curly hair. The story time is free, but advance registration has been requested and can be done on the shop’s website, bookhampton.com. 

Hampton Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’

Looking ahead to next weekend, the Hampton Ballet Theatre School’s production of Tchaikovsky’s classic “The Nutcracker” will open on Friday, Dec. 9, at Guild Hall in East Hampton and run through Dec. 11. The opening night show time is 7. The production will also run on Dec. 10 at 1 and 7 p.m. and Dec. 11 at 2 p.m. Orchestra tickets cost $25 in advance, $20 for children, through hamptonballettheatreschool.com. Tickets for balcony seats cost $10. Tickets at the door are $30 for adults, $20 for children. 

The production is choreographed by Sara Jo Strickland, the school’s director, and has costumes designed by Yuka Silvera and lighting by Sebastian Paczynski. Adam and Gail Baranello of A&G Dance will perform the roles of the Arabian prince and princess.

The Springs School District has reached a new agreement with its superintendent, who will remain on the job rather than stepping down at the end of December, as had been announced in July.

“I am thankful the board has amended my contract to a per diem rate, which will allow them flexibility as they conduct their search for a new superintendent. Springs is a very special district with much to offer its students, parents, and community,” John J. Finello, the superintendent, said in an email Tuesday.

The school board approved the new contract by a 4-0 vote during its Nov. 21 meeting, with Liz Mendelman absent. The board has only recently begun the search for a new superintendent. Barbara Dayton, its president, said three search firms are being interviewed to help in the process. The district is also looking to hire a new business official.

According to a summary of the Nov. 21 contract amendment provided by the district’s law firm, Mr. Finello will earn $975 per day, “with no provision for utilization of leave days and with no additional compensation, excluding reimbursement for professional expenses.” It takes place on Jan. 2.

The tax-sheltered annuity payments Mr. Finello received as part of his previous contract will end on Dec. 31, and his total compensation will not exceed the $200,000 allotted for the superintendent’s salary in the district’s 2016-17 budget. The full text of the contract amendment was not available by press time.

Under his previous contract, Mr. Finello was to stay with Springs until July 31, 2018, earning $215,000 this year, plus the annuity, $11,000. During the most recent budget-approval process, he offered to take a pay cut to $200,000. Because he is a retiree working with a waiver from New York State, he does not have retirement fund contributions paid by Springs, which this year amounted to about 13 percent of an employee’s salary. He also does not have medical or dental benefits.

Mr. Finello, who was hired as a part-time superintendent at the start of the 2013-14 school year and appointed to the position full-time in June 2015, has come under criticism from some Springs residents who say his salary is too high — over $2,000 per day, they say, including his annuity and paid days off. He is contracted to work 220 days per year, meaning his base salary last year broke down to about $909 per day. His base daily salary this year breaks down to about $977.

Make Your Own Lip Balm

Chapped-lip season is not far off, and with that in mind, the Amagansett Library will host a lip balm-making workshop for kids 8 to 12 on Saturday at 11 a.m. Participants will use natural ingredients to create a lip balm they can take home. 

Go Ahead, Gross Them Out

Want to really gross somebody out? The youth librarians at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton have invited 7 to 12-year-olds to do just that on Tuesday at 4 p.m. Kids can look for “the most cringe-inducing information they can find” for the library’s Gross Me Out challenge. Also at the library this week, there will be a story hour on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. for ages 4 and up, and teens can drop in through Tuesday to make keyhole wall art. Starting on Wednesday, materials will be provided to make upcycled bookmarks. 

Soy Candles and More

At the East Hampton Library, Tuesday will bring a Thanksgiving story time and craft at 4 p.m. for ages 4 to 6. Kids 5 and up will make scented soy candles on Wednesday at 4 p.m. Family movies this week at the library will be “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” today at 4 p.m., and “Finding Dory,” next Thursday at the same time. 

Calling Young Wizards

Young wizards ages 8 to 12 can make their own Harry Potter wands during a workshop on Sunday at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor to celebrate the release of the new Harry Potter movie. Materials will be provided for the workshop, which will start at 2 p.m. On Saturday, children 4 and up who are learning to read can practice their skills with Wally the therapy dog between 11 a.m. and noon. Advance registration has been requested for both programs. 

Apple Pie Workshop

A family apple pie workshop on Saturday at 2 at the Montauk Library could provide some tips for the upcoming Thanksgiving meal. There will be enough ingredients for 15 families, each of whom will take home a pie to bake. Advance sign-up is a must. 

Fall Leaves and Pumpkins

Autumn leaves and pumpkins, an apple orchard tour, and basket making. The South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton is gearing up for what sounds like a perfect fall weekend. On Saturday at 10:30 a.m., Eleni Nikolopoulos will lead families as they talk about and search for pretty leaves and then decorate pumpkins with leaf patterns. There is a $7 materials fee for the workshop. At the same time that day, families can join in a tour of the Milk Pail orchards near Mecox Bay and learn how apple cider is made. The cost is $5 per person. On Saturday at noon, Pat Robben, a basket weaver, and Trish Brophy, a basket weaver from the Mohawk Tribe, will work with children 7 and older to make small reed baskets at 2 p.m. There is a $5 materials fee. Advance registration is requested for all of the museum’s special programs. 

Springs School architects sent school officials a list of building repair projects, maintenance, and necessary upgrades last Thursday, one that is even more detailed and far more expensive than the list initially presented to the district’s facilities committee in the summer of 2015.

The price tag of the work rose from just over $3 million to $7.438 million. The expanded laundry list includes a number of big-ticket items: renovating the nurse’s room bathroom to make it handicapped-accessible, $125,000; replacing the roof over the older portions of the building, $680,000; replacing all older, single-pane windows, $558,000; installing a new fire alarm system, $200,000, and upgrading the existing electrical system, which is approaching its capacity, $250,000. The list also includes a host of smaller projects, such as the installation of a chair lift to make the music room handicapped-accessible, $50,000, and new wall padding in the gym, $21,000.

New enrollment projections were also unveiled. According to a September report by the Western Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services, the school can expect approximately 50 more students over the next five years, which is slower than the previous growth rate of 200 students over the last 10 years. School officials noted the BOCES figures had been wrong in the past, though, and indeed, a 2013 projection showed 2016-17 to be the peak year, at 700 students. As of last Thursday, Springs had 740 students in kindergarten through eighth grade, at least 20 more than this time last year and 40 more than the year before that. The updated BOCES projections suggest the school will be short three regular classrooms by 2022.

No decisions were made last week at the meeting of the school board and administrators, who make up the capital planning committee. Whether the repairs and maintenance will be addressed through the capital reserve fund or through a larger expansion project accomplished via bond referendum has not been determined.

Barbara Dayton, the school board president, said Tuesday that the process was “still very much up in the air.”

“I think there are certain repairs that are at the top of the list, like dealing with the roof,” she said. “It may have gotten worse since the first BBS [Architects] report was done. . . . Some of those repairs will be covered if we build out, and others need to be taken care of right away. Can we afford to repoint some bricks if we’re expanding? Everything is going to be weighed very carefully.”

The committee also discussed the possible expansion and renovation of the school building. A key issue is the fate of the gymnasium, which has been deemed too small for current needs. Officials debated whether to add a second gym to the school or build a separate, larger one and carve the existing gym up into classrooms and smaller learning spaces. 

“I think our vision is to get a couple of scenarios to say, ‘All right, this is the basic necessity. This is the one where we can do the things we need to do,’ ” Ms. Dayton said. “It’s been brought up before with the gym, where we’re not offering enough. I thought their idea of splitting the existing gym into multiple spaces was interesting. It never occurred to me. It was an eye-opener. I think this whole process is very exciting. I think we’ll get somewhere — it will just take us some time.”

The district is still eyeing a springtime referendum, but has not set a specific figure for the community to vote on.

The capital planning committee and the architects will hold another public meeting next Thursday at 11 a.m. at the school to review the school’s needs in closer detail. A second meeting, to begin the process of laying out potential components in an expansion, will be held after Thanksgiving.

The Springs School District is poised to hire LTV to film its school board meetings, joining East Hampton and Sag Harbor as districts that promote wider access to the meetings.

A contract with LTV had been discussed in past years but never brought to fruition. According to Barbara Dayton, the school board president, encouragement from Loring Bolger, chairwoman of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee, spurred the board to action.

“It had been in the back of our minds, and it was great that somebody else specifically requested it and had the information that we needed,” Ms. Dayton said on Tuesday. “Other community groups do it. It’s appropriate for Springs to do also.”

Ms. Bolger, reached by phone, credited a Springs resident, Martin Drew, for giving her the idea. She then polled the Springs C.A.C., and said its members were overwhelmingly supportive.

“I think it solves a lot of problems,” she said. “The Springs School and the Springs community have a somewhat rocky relationship. . . . By having the school board meetings televised, everybody can make up their own minds about issues.”

Another good reason to call in LTV, Ms. Bolger said, is that the school board and the advisory committee sometimes meet on the same evening, a problem for residents who like to attend both. Monday night was a case in point; she postponed a scheduled C.A.C. meeting to next week in order to attend the school board meeting and speak about the LTV contract.

“I was very pleased with the outcome,” she said.

For $50 per hour, LTV sends a cameraman with one stationary camera and several microphones to meetings. Morgan Vaughan, LTV’s executive director, yesterday called the charge “a bargain-basement price to cover our expenses.” 

“I’m really excited about being able to film the Springs School Board. I know it’s something a lot of people want in Springs,” Ms. Vaughan said. “It’s pretty hard to say that the school districts don’t have an impact on the lives of everyday people. I think it’s completely imperative that people see the process, and not everybody can make it to these meetings.” 

Filming will begin either at the board’s next meeting, set for Nov. 21, or the one following, on Dec. 19. The films will not be edited, Ms. Vaughan said. They will be aired at a to-be-determined time on channel 22, and will also be available on demand on the station’s website, ltveh.org.

In other announcements at Monday’s school board meeting, an online filing system called BoardDocs is soon to be launched on the district’s website. Tim Frazier, vice president of the board and an assistant principal in the Southampton School District, which uses BoardDocs, recommended it. 

“He said it just makes communicating and updating things so much easier,” Ms. Dayton said. “One piece of paper isn’t a great expense, but how many times do you do that over the course of a year? Having this will allow people to get many of those documents electronically. This certainly gives us more options.”

The system costs $4,520 in its first year and $3,420 each year thereafter.

The Amagansett School Board, which took a water fountain in the gymnasium and six sinks out of service two weeks ago after lead was found in the water, took another step on Tuesday toward solving the problem. 

The board resolved to spend $5,000 on water filters for six fountains, including the one in question and five others. Those five had not tested high for lead content.

“We would like to try those out, and send and retest the water. Then we could go back to using the fountain,” Eleanor Tritt, the school superintendent, said. “Not only that one, but five other locations as well, even though it’s not required. . . . It seems pretty straightforward.”

Sandra Nuzzi, an administrative clerk who researched the filters, said they would have to be changed every three to six months. “I’ll just add that as a procedure for the plumber to do quarterly, to make sure we are on top of it,” she said.

The four school board members in attendance all approved of the expense. “Better safe than sorry,” Kristen Peterson said.

Also on Tuesday, the board approved $11,000 for the purchase of materials for a new schoolwide program called Reading and Writing Fundamentals. The program was tried out earlier this year in the sixth grade and will be expanded after teachers reported positive results almost immediately. Maria Dorr, the school principal, said its mini-lessons helped students fine-tune their writing abilities and boosted their reading skills.

“Teachers are seeing the follow-through,” Ms. Dorr said before the board approved the expense. “Everybody would really love to bring the program into their classrooms.”