New security procedures went into effect yesterday in the Sag Harbor School District, according to an announcement posted on the district’s website.

“To proactively ensure the safety of our students, faculty, and staff and to create the best new building safety plan, we brought in a series of companies to audit our security systems and procedures,” the announcement reads. “Using their recommendations and our own research, we built on our existing security strengths and have been working to complete several safety upgrades to each of our buildings over the summer and into this fall.”

Upon their first visit to the school, visitors will now be asked for photo identification, and a security system will store the information. Upon subsequent visits, people will only have to give their names to receive a visitor’s tag. Large events, such as sports games or theater performances, will not require this check-in process.

About 70 more security cameras have been installed throughout both school buildings, and the school administration has also developed an “enhanced lockdown system” for use in both practice drills and real emergencies. The system “provides an added level of protection and incorporates an array of tools to safeguard our schools from outside dangers,” according to the district. It can be activated through alarm buttons that have been installed in various places, and through a cellphone app used by administrators, and it generates public address announcements and emergency instruction messages for students and staff members.

More water, temperature, and carbon monoxide sensors have also been added.

“Our children are safest when everyone complies with and supports the procedures we have in place,” the district said in its announcement

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.

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.”

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.”

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.

A backlog in the New York State review process for school district capital projects has already caused delays in Sag Harbor and now threatens the ability of East Hampton and Springs to get new projects off the ground in a timely manner.

The New York State Education Department recently announced that the process is up to 40 to 42 weeks for engineering reviews. The state needs to sign off on projects before schools can break ground.

According to Jeanne Beattie, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, the state reviews approximately 2,000 school projects per year, all of which are completed by three engineers. Those engineers tackle issues such as fire code compliance, electrical safety, emergency lighting, public address, heating and ventilation, and plumbing.

“The engineering review is currently causing the backlog,” Ms. Beattie said in an email. “We are taking internal steps to address this, and we are also looking to increase engineering staff from the current three employees to a total of eight for long-term reduction of the backlog. We did receive additional funding in the last budget for this purpose and currently have approval to fill two engineering positions, with more expected to follow.”

In Sag Harbor, Jennifer Buscemi, the business administrator, said projects originally slated to begin this past summer have been pushed down the road until such time that the state is able to complete its review. As of Sept. 8, the last time she checked the status of Sag Harbor’s project application, there were still 90 applications ahead of it.

The capital project, which is to include, among other things, a turf field, an updated auditorium, a bus parking lot, and reconfiguration of the shop and kitchen at Pierson Middle and High School, was approved by voters by referendum in November 2013.

“When the vote passed, the review time was about 20 weeks. I believe by the time we submitted, it had climbed to 26 to 28 weeks,” Ms. Buscemi said in an email. She added her reaction: “Very frustrating!”

The Springs School District is facing the possibility that it could soon submit a project to the New York State Education Department for an architectural and engineering review. The district is coping with a shortage of space for students. Its facilities committee on Monday recommended adding modular or portable classrooms by the start of the next school year, reported elsewhere in The Star this week. That kind of work still requires approval from the state.

“For us right now, we still have a little bit of a way to go, so it’s kind of hard to predict that far into the future because that backlog could be a temporary backlog,” Liz Mendelman, the Springs School Board president, said recently. “Hopefully, by the time we do our project, the state will be adequately staffed and resourced.”

The East Hampton School District is mulling an energy performance project that would add solar panels to all three of its buildings, a natural gas co-generator system at the high school, and 12 other energy-related improvements. These, too, would require state approval.

“That’s the cold reality. It’s somewhere around a year that they’ll pick it up and review it. . . . This could be a two-and-a-half-year process,” said Danny Haffel, the executive director of energy solutions for the Long Island operation of Johnson Controls Inc., who presented the energy proposal to the East Hampton School Board on Tuesday.

Rich Burns, East Hampton’s superintendent, said it’s a lengthy process. The district only recently received approval for a security-related project — the details of which were not released due to its sensitive nature — that caused it to have to delay the project a whole year, from the summer of 2015 to the summer of 2016, because the work cannot be completed while students are in school.

“Would we want it to be a more timely process? Sure,” Mr. Burns said. “As superintendents, we all complain to the state. . . . We take care of what we can take care of. These are things that are really out of our control.”

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.

The Family Service League is opening a resource center in the Montauk School. Starting next Thursday, it will be open from 7 to 8 p.m. for Montauk families and from 8 to 9 p.m. for parents only.

The resource center will offer support, information, and links to other services for families struggling with emotional or mental health issues. It will provide resources to help strengthen the bonds between parents and the school, while also offering help with food, heat, housing, and toys at the holidays.

It will be staffed by a social worker, Ronit Reguer, who will screen children for emotional wellness, which involves a questionnaire with 17 questions that will help the service guide families in the right direction. The center offers educational workshops on parenting and community concerns. There is no fee.

Last year, the Family Service League opened a center in the Springs School that has been very successful and has proven to be a useful tool in the community, said Donna Altonji, the program director.

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.

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.