A plan is in place to plant new trees to replace the seven that were removed last month from Pierson Hill in Sag Harbor.

All seven were deemed dangerous because they were in poor condition and could have been an insurance liability, according to Katy Graves, superintendent of the Sag Harbor School District. She said some were diseased, some were infested with insects, and others had had their root systems compromised. An eighth tree originally identified as hazardous was saved through some careful pruning and maintenance.

Ms. Graves said in the future the district would be budgeting more money for the regular care and maintenance of the district’s trees on both of its campuses. Those that had been removed — four Norway maples, two black oaks, and one black locust tree — will be replaced with purchased or donated trees.

“We’ve already had people step forward who are interested in making donations of trees to be placed in spots where we lost trees,” Ms. Graves said by phone on Friday. “People love our Pierson Hill. They value it and understand the historic value of it and the beauty of it, but they want it sustained for generations to come.”

Four separate arborists and tree-removal experts evaluated the trees at Pierson Middle-High School. They also examined those at Sag Harbor Elementary and deemed them safe.

The Pierson trees were first identified as a problem several months ago after a particularly windy storm brought one down. “I think there was a lot of anxiety when the first tree came down,” Ms. Graves said. “I was fielding a lot of questions from families.”

Eric Bramoff, the district’s director of facilities, said the work was completed for just over $20,000 during early September, before students returned to school. “Everyone understood how pressing an issue it was,” he said. “I think the community at large is interested in seeing how we’re going to replace them, and we have a plan in place going forward.”

Young Cowgirls Theater

Kate Mueth and the Neo-Political Cowgirls will lead a Young Cowgirls theater workshop for ages 8 to 13 starting next week at Guild Hall. Participants in the seven-week workshop will explore issues important to them through theater games, journaling, and the development of short dance theater pieces that they will direct and perform.

Workshops are on Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. through Dec. 9, with a final session on Dec. 15 before a Dec. 16 performance at Guild Hall. The cost is $225, or $220 for members of Guild Hall. Advance registration is required by phone or by emailing [email protected].

“Esoteric” Zombie Show

Adam and Gail Baranello of the A&G Dance Company, whom students may know through their dance workshops with the Project Most after-school program, will offer up an “Esoteric Hearts Zombie Show” for families on Sunday from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Hampton Ballet Theatre School in Bridgehampton. Following a performance at 6 p.m. there will be a costume contest, games, and a family dance party. There is a suggested donation of $10 at the door. The ballet school is at 213 Butter Lane.

Loads o’ Halloween Fun

Before, or maybe in the midst of, trick-or-treating on Saturday, there are a number of Halloween parties to give kids a head start on the day’s fun.

A Halloween open house at the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society headquarters will run from 2 to 4 p.m. Kids have been invited to wear their costumes as the ladies serve up songs, stories, goodies, and a scavenger hunt.

Face painting, dodgeball, basketball, and costume prizes will be on the agenda during a free Halloween party at the Sportime Arena in Amagansett. The fun goes from 2 to 5 p.m.

Then at 3:30 p.m., the Amagansett Library will host kids for a bash where they can make bubbling bowls, decorate jack-o’-lantern cupcakes, and listen to a “shivery story.” Kids who stop by the library on Sunday at 2 can make a square for a quilt that will commemorate the library’s 100th birthday. Those in kindergarten through sixth grade also have a chance to make quilt squares on Mondays from 3 to 4:30 p.m. On Tuesday and Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. the library will offer a stop-motion animation class for third through sixth-graders.

Decorating Those Candy Bags

Before heading off to all the Halloween festivities on Saturday, kids may want to stop by the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton at 10 a.m. to decorate a canvas bag for all their treats. The cost is $17, $5 for members.

A pizza and pajama night at 6 on Friday, Nov. 6, will include a slice and a reading of Lois Ehlert’s “Leaf Man.” Entry is free for members, $10 for others.

Haunted House in Montauk

A reminder for those who read last week’s “Kids Culture”: Camp SoulGrow and Captain Kid Toys will have Third House in Montauk all spooked up for a Halloween Haunted House today, tomorrow, and Saturday from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Entry is $5.

Green-Power Lab

Melanie Meade of the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton will give 6 to 8-year-olds an introduction to solar energy during a Green-Power Lab at the museum on Saturday at 11 a.m. Kids will make a solar water heater and a solar cooker that may or may not be hot enough to fry an egg. There is a $5 materials fee, and advance sign-up is required.

Arithmetic and Amaryllis

Now for something less exciting, but just as important: Middle schoolers can get help meeting the challenges of Common Core math during weekly sessions with a tutor at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. Chase Mallia will offer assistance in English and Spanish with an emphasis on seventh-grade work, but all middle school students can attend. Sessions are on Mondays from 4:45 to 6 p.m.

Next Thursday at the library, the folks from the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons will help children 5 and older plant amaryllis bulbs at 3:45 p.m. Advance registration has been requested, as the library will provide bulbs, soil, and pots.

The person recently appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to head the New York Department of Environmental Conservation has significant ties to what we consider the right side of many issues. Basil Seggos was formerly an attorney for the Riverkeeper organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council. But he will take over a state agency that has many, many problems, including a portfolio of responsibilities that is too broad and has been dramatically starved for staff and funding.

One concern is outlined in a recent inspector general’s report that said D.E.C. officers violated the rights of commercial fishermen and were allowed to directly negotiate plea agreements and fines with the people they detained. An agency that could permit such an abuse of authority, and invitation to corruption, would appear to have systemic failings. We have previously advocated breaking up the D.E.C. into at least two parts: a scientific and regulatory division and a separate one for law enforcement. As it stands now, it can do neither well. Top-down reform is a must.

Yennefer Rodriguez, an East Hampton Middle School student, adores Taylor Swift, is in the school choir, enjoys math, and gets her hands on as many art projects as she can. In fact, her talent for art earned her a winning spot in an international competition, in which only 12 entries out of more than 500 were exhibited in a museum, reproduced on a calendar, and auctioned off to provide prizes for the artists.

Sponsored by the American Printing House for the Blind, the juried competition includes an exhibition of art by visually impaired artists like the cheerful seventh grader.

“Art is my favorite hobby,” Yennefer said in an interview. “I wish I could do artwork all day. I pay a lot of attention to my art.”

For her winning drawing, she twice traced one hand with a special stylus, then traced circles of various sizes overlapping with the outlines of her hand. The stylus was part of a drawing system that creates raised lines, so the artist can feel the spaces between them. She then used crayons, in colors she chose herself, to fill in the lines.

“This project took many days to finish, so it was a lot of work. But I did it all on my own,” Yennifer said.

She received word in October that her drawing  was a winner. She said it made her feel so happy, and used the word “so” six times to emphasize her point.

Yennefer, who is 11 years old, lives in East Hampton with her mother, Basilia Garcia, her father, Jorge Rodriguez, and a brother, Wylly, who is in the 10th grade at East Hampton High School. Through a school translator, Ms. Garcia said, “In general, in light of some of the struggles and problems, this really makes me feel happy.”

 Bill Ahearn, who works with visually impaired students at the middle school through the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and Laura White, the school psychologist, said Yennefer is able to persevere despite having lost most of her vision over the last few years due to a genetic condition.

“Whoever she is with, whatever she is doing, she is just a ray of sunshine and makes everybody smile and feel happy,” Ms. White said, “and helps us to remember that we may have challenges, but we have to keep going every day and have a positive attitude.”

There is much more to the Bridgehampton School than basketball. So say Orson Cummings and Ben Cummings, brothers who grew up in Bridgehampton and are planning to make a documentary film about a school with a history that stands out among its East End neighbors, with issues like racial diversity and income disparity part of the conversation over the years as well as the boys basketball team, which won its ninth Class D state championship last year.

“We thought we could follow the team, but use the team as a vehicle to explore the African-American community in the middle of the Hamptons,” Orson Cummings told the Bridgehampton School Board at a meeting on Oct. 7.

The Cummings brothers, who are about a year apart, attended Bridgehampton School through the eighth grade, leaving in 1983 and ’84 for a private high school in New Jersey where they could play tennis. They recall their elementary school years as good ones.

“The teachers were terrific. You had classes with just 10 people in them, which in some cases is a weakness in a school, but you had these amazing teachers who gave you so much attention,” Orson Cummings said by phone. “You spent a lot of time with your teachers and really got to know everyone.”

“People think about the Hamptons, where there’s this brand — the image of the fabulous 1 percent living in mansions on the beach,” he said. “There’s a side to the story of this place that hasn’t been told.”

The idea originated with an old classmate, Ronnie Gholson, who graduated from Bridgehampton in 1987 and now works in the Westhampton Beach School District as a security guard, mentor, and coach. Reached by phone, Mr. Gholson said he first pitched the idea to Carl Johnson, the boys basketball coach, who liked the idea, before contacting his old friend Ben Cummings.

“I always had a documentary in my head,” Mr. Gholson said. “Obviously, I wasn’t going to do it, write it, or put it together. I said it would be really nice if someone could do a documentary or a  book on the Bridgehampton basketball legacy. You have a lot of great stories across the country about schools and teams. . . . I think it’s just a great story that I would love to read or see in a movie.”

The Cummings brothers are no newcomers to the film industry. They wrote and produced a feature,  “If I Didn’t Care,” which was given the new title “Blue Blood” when it was released internationally. They recently wrapped up a psychological thriller, “Pacific Standard Time,” and are working on a political drama based on a book by their father, the late Richard Cummings.

The school board gave the project preliminary approval at the meeting, and the Bridgehampton Historical Society has jumped on board as a sponsor and a research partner, which will allow the brothers to raise money for the film’s production under a nonprofit organization. The Cummings brothers are also getting help with research from their mother, Mary Cummings, a longtime historian and author of books about Southampton and the 1938 Hurricane, who is a descendant of the Hildreth family who came to the East End in 1635.

  But the project was not entirely without criticism at the board meeting. Lillian Tyree-Johnson called it “exciting,” but Jeff Mansfield expressed caution.

“I think we’ve come so far and we’re so much more than those hot-button issues,” Mr. Mansfield said. “I don’t want us to look back. This school needs to look forward, and the last thing we need to do is make this school a basketball-only school.” He said he didn’t want to send the message that winning a hoops title is the pinnacle of a high school career.

Ronnie White, the school board president, said the documentary idea was a great one, but agreed with Mr. Mansfield. “It can’t just be about ball. . . . A lot of times we’re under the magnifying glass. If there are 10 kids in a graduating class and 2 decided they didn’t want to go to school anymore, that’s a 20 percent dropout rate and that’s huge.”

Ben Cummmings agreed. “Basketball is the film narrative that gets you a beginning, middle, and end, but there’s no basketball without the school.”

Fiesta at Guild Hall

A Fiesta de las Artes at Guild Hall on Sunday will offer free fun for the whole family from 4 to 8 p.m. The celebration of Latin American culture will include an open arts and crafts studio for kids from 4 to 6 p.m. Esperanza Leon will oversee a bilingual poetry and art program from 4 to 5 with Mariel Burns, a local poet from Argentina, and Lukas Ortiz, a spoken-word poet. Students from Eva Iacono’s East Hampton High School class will read.

Artwork by English as a new language students will be shown all afternoon, and from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Aurelio Torres will lead a toy-making workshop. The Island Empanada Food Truck will pull up out front from 5 to 6:30 p.m., and Mambo Loco will have people dancing in the aisles starting at 6:30.

Field Day in Montauk

More free family fun is in store at Montauk Field Day, an afternoon of games, races, bounce houses, and more at the Montauk County Park sponsored by Montauk Youth and the Concerned Citizens of Montauk. Field day runs from noon to 4 p.m. at Third House, weather permitting. Food will be available for purchase.

Abstraction in Amagansett

Science, art, and costume design will keep kids in kindergarten through sixth grade busy at the Amagansett Library this week. Representatives of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center will help kids abstractly express themselves during a drip-painting workshop on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. On Sunday and again Oct. 25 at 2 p.m., kids can work on elements of a Halloween costume. This week, they’ll be making tails, next week sashes and shields.

A Science in Motion program on Tuesday and Oct. 27 will have young inventors learning some physics basics at 4 p.m. This week, they’ll work on spinning wrestlers. On Oct. 27, it’ll be racing ramps.

More Library Programs

Children 6 to 10 can create their own mini terrariums during a program on Sunday at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor. From 2 to 3 p.m. kids will use rocks, plants, soil, and any other natural elements they want to add to make a tiny environment they can take home.

At the Montauk Library, those excited for Halloween may want to stop in on Tuesday for a zombie hand-casting workshop at 4 p.m. Participants will make plaster casts of their own hands that they can use as spooky decorations.

Halloween Comes Early

Halloween will come early to the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton, which will celebrate with a costume party on Friday, Oct. 23, from 4 to 6 p.m. There will be treats, a costume contest, and crafts best for ages 6 and under, but the museum promises “plenty of fun for older goblins, too.”

The party costs $10 and is free for museum members. Advance registration has been suggested, as it often sells out.

In a stirring ceremony in the Amagansett School’s gymnasium on Friday, a ribbon was cut to celebrate the arrival on Sept. 19 of the original Amagansett schoolhouse, built in 1802 by Samuel Schellinger and donated to the district by Huntington and Adelaide Sheldon, on whose property it sat for decades.

With students, teachers, members of the East Hampton Town Board, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., and the district’s school board on hand, the spirit of community was strong as speakers emphasized the past as a guide to the present and future.

The one-room building was originally on “Amagansett Street,” now Montauk Highway. It was moved to the west side of Atlantic Avenue, at what is now the southern part of the East End Cemetery, in 1864, and moved again in 1881, when it was auctioned to Marcus Hand. Mr. Hand sold it to Capt. Joshua B. Edwards, who moved it across the street to his backyard, which is now part of the Sheldon property. There, the building was filled with fishing nets, a dory, and flensing knives, which were used to cut whale blubber.

Capt. Edwards’s son, Dr. David Edwards, arranged the sale to Mr. Sheldon’s mother, Magda Sheldon, in 1936 or ’37. The building’s last public use was for Girl Scout meetings in the late 1940s, Mr. Sheldon told The Star last year.

“It has traveled around the town over the past two centuries,” Eleanor Tritt, the district superintendent, said, “and has finally landed at the spot where it best belongs.” She told the student body that “under the gifted guidance of your teachers, you will be able to develop understanding about where it all began. . . . You can transport yourselves back to a time when your ancestors learned reading, writing, and arithmetic in a one-room schoolhouse, unheated, un-air-conditioned, with other students of all ages and abilities. And sometimes, they had to leave school to help their parents earn a livelihood, either through harvesting the bounties of land and sea, or from producing oil from captured whales.”

“As you peer through the paneled windows, you can wonder if those students had any idea of what education would be like for you today. As we compare our two schools, representing education in the same place but separated by centuries, we have a wonderful tool for exploration.”

The superintendent invited the community to contribute an item to a “treasure chest” that will be locked for the next 40 years. “Children, will you be here with your children to unlock the treasure chest?” she asked. 

Ms. Tritt introduced East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, a graduate of the Amagansett School, who spoke of the “emotional rush” he experiences each time he returns. “This is about the sense of place,” he said, “and how people care so much about the community, care so much about the history, and are willing to hang on to a sense that this building was important, that it shouldn’t be changed, that someday it might become a gift back to Amagansett and be a public place.”

The schoolhouse, Mr. Thiele said, “is one more gem added to that collection of what makes Amagansett great.”

Hugh King, the East Hampton town crier and another graduate of the Amagansett School, spoke of other historic structures that have been preserved, including the 1902 Life-Saving Station, nearby on Atlantic Avenue. “It’s important to study history,” Mr. King said, “because if you don’t know where you’ve been, you might not know where you’re going. But as Yogi Berra said, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, you may go someplace else.’ ”

“Isn’t it good,” Mr. King asked, “that the Amagansett 1802 schoolhouse has not gone someplace else?”

As the students rang bells to signify that class was once again in session, the ribbon was cut. The ceremony concluded with the students’ singing John Howard Payne’s “Home, Sweet Home.”

“We can best chart our path to tomorrow by having ready access to our past,” Ms. Tritt said. “We are all so fortunate that our community preserves and cherishes its past as a heritage for today’s students, and those yet to come.”

CMEE’s 10th

The Children’s Museum of the East End will celebrate its 10th — that’s right, 10th — birthday with a big party on Sunday from 10 a.m. to noon. Rockets, mini golf, drip painting, lava lamps, food, games, and music are promised for the free event. The museum is on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton.

Fall Festival

An inflatable slide, face painting, and a petting zoo are in store for families who attend the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter’s fall festival on Saturday. The fun will be going on from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Gingerbread Lane center.

The Man Behind Eloise

Hilary Knight, a children’s book author and illustrator whose titles include the “Eloise” series and some 50 other books, will sign copies on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the East Hampton Library. Mr. Knight, who lives in East Hampton, also brought to life such classics as “Where’s Wallace,” by several decades a seek-and-find precursor to the “Where’s Waldo” series.

In other children’s happenings at the library this week, “Planes” will be shown this afternoon at 4:30. Next week’s family movie, at the same time, will be “Maya the Bee.” A squirrel story and craft time is planned for Tuesday at 4 p.m. for kids 4 to 6. On Wednesday from 5 to 6:45 p.m., in honor of the new “Goosebumps” movie, the library will screen episodes of the “Goosebumps” series for kids in grades six through eight.

A music and movement program for babies up to age 3 will be offered on Friday, Oct. 16, from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m.

Witches and Pumpkins

Wild witches and playful pumpkins will swoop into the Montauk Library on Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m. Kids will be guided through paper-folding and collage techniques to create their own giant Halloween characters. Advance registration with the children’s room has been requested.

The Springs School Board hired a district treasurer at its meeting Monday. She will work two days a week in tandem with the recently appointed business administrator. Previously, the district’s business administrator also served as its treasurer. 

In making the appointment, the administration clarified that the business administrator, Carl Fraser, works three days a week, earning $750 a day. The new treasurer is Annette Savino, a certified public accountant, who will work at $65 an hour.

Explaining the decision to hire a treasurer, Mr. Fraser said it was “impossible to complete all the work that is required in the business office” in three days. Mr. Fraser also said that two positions would be more efficient and would put more checks in place to make sure business is done properly.

John J. Finello, the Springs superintendent, said Ms. Savino was one of four candidates interviewed. He also said he had queried other local school administrators about sharing a staff member as treasurer, but said it was not possible at this time.

The Bridgehampton School’s new athletic director, Mike Miller, has been busy brainstorming since his appointment in August. On Sept. 30, he pitched a big package of sports and fitness-related ideas to the school board, hoping to find support for initiatives such as an athletic Wall of Fame, a Booster Club, and a concussion management program.

Mr. Miller outlined a number of possible additions to the physical education and athletics programs that he said would help students improve their fitness and at the same time help build and reinforce school spirit.

The proposed Wall of Fame would feature photos and list specific accomplishments of the top athletes to graduate from Bridgehampton over the years. It would be set up on a wall outside one of the entrances to the school gym.

“We need something in place that we don’t have right now to commemorate the exceptional athletes who have graced these hallways for many years now,” Mr. Miller said, adding that he believed it would have “a lasting impact on the school in a positive way.”

His suggestion was to form a committee, to include administrators, a teacher, a local politician, and community members, that would choose former standout Bees to recognize not just for outstanding sports accomplishments but also great individual character.

Mr. Miller also addressed the championship banners hanging in the gym, saying there is no space to add the latest three banners the school has earned, including the boys basketball team’s most recent New York State Class D title.

His suggestion was to order new, digitally produced vinyl banners that are sturdier and less expensive. Alternatively, he said if the district preferred to stay with the felt banners it has used in the past, then a redesign to make them smaller in size would be appropriate so that there would be room for all past banners and more in the future. The school board subsequently asked him to get price estimates for both types of banners.

“I want to make sure everyone gets their banner and the respect they deserve,” Mr. Miller said.

He went on to discuss adding a concussion management program for student athletes in grades 7 to 12. Students would start the program by taking a computer test that would analyze cognitive and memory skills and establish a baseline level of performance. If a student suffers a possible concussion, he or she would re-take the test, and any differences in the results could help doctors identify whether there were concussion-like impacts affecting that student’s performance. Each test costs $1 per student for the first test and $4 per student for the second one.

“I’m in favor of this for every kid” and not just the athletes, said Jennifer Vinski, a school board member. She said her children have experienced concussion-like symptoms in the past.

In delivering the results of an athletics and physical education survey given to the high school students, Mr. Miller said, “The big word in education right now is student voice.” Those voices requested a weight room — favored by the boys — and more Zumba classes — favored by the girls.

Mr. Miller also pitched setting up a Booster Club that would specifically support the athletics and physical education programs. He envisioned it getting tax-exempt status, which would save the district money, and said it would ultimately need to unite the school and business community as well as local municipalities in order to be successful. The idea was not met with enthusiasm across the board, however.

“With the small numbers here, everybody is spread pretty thin,” Lillian Tyree-Johnson, the school board vice president, said. “Maybe we could find a way to do it. I would love to have it.”

Kat McClelland, another school board member, suggested that there might be too much overlap between the Parent Teacher Organization and a potential Booster Club. “We’d be almost competing against one another.”

The school’s team nickname was also briefly discussed. The school board generally agreed that since no one had formally objected to the use of the word “Killer” in “Killer Bees,” the school should continue to say it that way, but uniforms and new padded wall coverings in the gym would instead say only “Bees.”

Lois Favre, the district superintendent, ultimately directed Mr. Miller to get together a committee that would formally explore a Wall of Fame and a Booster Club.