The Ross School’s Innovation Lab, an academy for high school students focusing in science, math, engineering, media, and technology, has announced a new marine science program that will begin in January.

    Participants will conduct genetic diversity surveys, learn how to remotely control technology such as drones and robotic submarines, track marine organisms, and share ocean data with a global scientific community. In addition, students will collaborate with researchers around the world and pursue independent projects mentored by top professionals in the field, while also traveling to research stations in French Polynesia to learn from climate science and marine biology experts.

    The school will offer up to three full-tuition merit-based scholarships for local students. Applications, which are available online, are now being accepted. An open house is planned for this evening from 6:30 to 8 at the Upper School campus on Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton. The director of the innovation lab, current students, and members of the admissions team will be on hand to answer questions.

    Advance registration is requested by either e-mailing [email protected] or calling 907-5400.

“Frankenstein Follies”

    The young actors of Stages, a Children’s Theatre Workshop, will present “Frankenstein Follies,” a Halloween-themed musical review this weekend at the Bay Street Theatre.

    The musical, which is directed and choreographed by Helene Leonard, will feature monsters, ghouls, and a cast of 39 young performers, with evening show times tomorrow and Saturday at 7:30 and matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2.

    Each show will also include a party with face painting, a fake tattoo parlor, a fortune teller, and a tasty treat bar. Tickets are $15, which include both the show and the party. Tickets are available through the theater’s box office.

Ragamuffin Parade

    Sag Harbor’s annual Ragamuffin Parade will have the village filled with costumed kids on Sunday afternoon. The parade begins in front of the Sag Harbor Launderette at 1 p.m. and continues up Main Street to the Custom House, where the Pierson Middle and High School drama club will host a family-fun event.

    Next Thursday, on Halloween, many village businesses will participate in a trick-or-treating pumpkin trail between 3 and 5 p.m. Pumpkin faces in storefronts on and off Main Street will indicate which business are participating.

Pumpkin Carving Contests

    The East Hampton Presbyterian Church will sponsor a pumpkin carving and decorating contest for all ages — open to children, parents, and grandparents — on Saturday morning from 10 to noon on the church lawn. In case of rain, it will be moved to the Session House. The church will provide carving tools and markers. Cider, donuts, and popcorn will also be available.

    On Monday, the Bridgehampton Lions Club will host its annual pumpkin-carving extravaganza starting at 5 p.m. at the Bridgehampton Community House. Creations should be completed before the event in categories such as Compost Zombie, Mythic Monstrosity, Frosty the Glow Man, Evil Exoskeleton, Pulp Politico, and Classic Jack, among others. Rules can be found on the club’s Web site, bridgehamptonlionsclub.org.

    There will be cash awards for winners, a puppet show by Liz Joyce and a Couple of Puppets, and cider and doughnuts provided by the Milk Pail.

    In addition to the usual age divisions, this year the club is adding a Master Blade and local restaurant division. Those wishing to enter these categories have been asked to get in touch with the Lions Club at 324-6766 by tomorrow.

More Halloween Fun

    A Halloween party for younger revelers will be held tomorrow at 4 p.m. at the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton.

    The party, for kids 6 and under, will include Halloween games, a bounce house, trick-or-treating for healthy snacks, and, of course, prizes for best costume. The cost is $13, but members will get in free.

    Early sign-up is encouraged, as it often sells out.

    Guild Hall in East Hampton will host a pumpkin decorating workshop for kids 6 and older on Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon. The cost is $12 per child or $10 for Guild Hall members. Space is limited and advance sign-up is recommended.

    Down the street that day from 2 to 4 p.m., the Ladies Village Improvement Society has invited children in prekindergarten through third grade to a Halloween Party. There will be crafts, bingo, a story time and scavenger hunt, and goodie bags for all.

    Also on Saturday, from 1 to 6 p.m., “Ghostly Pirates and Ghastly Ghosts,” a Halloween program for schoolchildren, will take place at the Marine Museum on Bluff Road in Amagansett. Parents must accompany their children on this guided, haunted tour of the museum. 

    And from 4 to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, the Springs School PTA is sponsoring a haunted house at Duck Creek Farm on Three Mile Harbor Road. The party will include cider, doughnuts, games, music, and prizes for the best mask. Children in grades prekindergarten through eighth grade will be welcomed.

Library Happenings

    The Hampton Library in Bridgehampton will host a pumpkin-themed craft program for all ages, tomorrow beginning at 4 p.m.

    A Halloween story and craft time Saturday morning at 10, will be followed by trick-or-treating down Main Street.

    At noon Saturday, teens have been invited to a monster movie marathon. Pizza will be served and classic monster movies will be shown. Finally, on Friday, Nov. 1, at 4 p.m., children ages 8 to 12 have been invited to create sugar skulls, a traditional Day of the Dead folk art practice from southern Mexico.

    The John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor will host a Halloween costume party on Saturday from 11 to 11:45 a.m. Spooky stories, games, dancing, and goodies are planned. No registration is necessary.

    The Montauk Library has invited kids of all ages to paint gourds and pumpkins on Saturday afternoon from 2:30 to 4 p.m. And on Wednesday night, the library is hosting a mini trick-or-treat night from 5 to 7 p.m. Costumes are optional. All ages are welcome.

    The East Hampton Library will host a spooky dessert-making workshop in celebration of Halloween on Tuesday afternoon, from 4 to 5. Sign-up is required. The workshop is for kids 7 to 10.

Readings for Kids

    George Held will give a poetry reading for kids from his two recent books “Neighbors: The Yard Critters” and “Neighbors: The Yard Critters Too” on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Dodds and Eder in Sag Harbor.

    After the reading, Mr. Held, who has published 17 volumes of poetry and lives in New York and Sag Harbor, will sign books. Refreshments will also be served. Dodds and Eder is at 11 Bridge Street.

    On Saturday afternoon, from 1 to 3 p.m., Susan Verde will sign copies of her latest book, “The Museum,” at the Wharf Shop on Sag Harbor Main Street. The book was inspired by her own children’s experiences at an art museum. At the Stony Brook Southampton Writers Conference, she met Peter H. Reynolds, a children’s author and illustrator, whose watercolors accompany her words. The picture book is recommended for ages 3 and up. The first 60 customers will also receive a gift with purchase.

Play With Food

    On Saturday morning, the Children’s Museum of the East End will host a chicken noodle soup and sweet potato pie workshop at 10:30.

    Kids 2 and older have been invited to take part, but adult assistance will be required. The cost is $25, $15 for members. Reservations are suggested.

Wind and Salt Marsh

    The South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton will have three sessions on “immersive listening” for kids 5 to 10 on Saturday.

    Barbara Blaisdell will lead participants as they explore the field behind the museum, becoming aware of the sounds near and far and figuring out where they come from. Sessions are planned from 10 to 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and from 1 to 2 p.m.

    Also on Saturday, Crystal Possehl, a nature educator, will lead families with kids 5 and older on a walk in Hampton Bays from the a pitch pine forest to the salt marsh. Children will be invited to make leaf rubbings, do drawings, and take pictures along the way, if they like.

    The museum will provide clipboards, crayons, markers, pencils, paper, field guides, magnifiers, and other tools. Reservations have been asked, and water, a snack or lunch, and hiking attire have been suggested.

Day of the Dead

    At the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton and La Fondita in Amagansett, children can take part in festivities marking the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead, a colorful celebration and remembrance of the deceased that takes place the day after Halloween. The library has invited kids 8 to 12 to make sugar skulls, a typical folk art associated with the holiday, tomorrow at 4 p.m. Reservations have been requested.

    On Saturday from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at La Fondita, a Mexican restaurant, kids 5 and older can decorate skulls and play games with instructors from the Golden Eagle art store in East Hampton. Treats from La Fondita’s kitchen will help set the mood. The event costs $10, which will benefit the Springs School’s visiting artists program. Space is limited, so advance reservations with the Golden Eagle at 324-0603 have been strongly suggested.

The Fun Continues

    The C.D.C.H. charter school’s annual fall festival, complete with bounce castles, carnival games, face painting, arts and crafts tables, and more, will be held on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the school, which is on Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton. Tickets cost $5, and those under 2 will get in free.

Goat Reopens

    The Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre in Sag Harbor, which had its space flooded in September, will reopen on Monday for puppet play groups, a Tot Art program, and a puppet club. Puppet play groups for kids 3 and under are held Mondays at 9:30 a.m. The Tot Art program is for kids 2 to 4 and meets Mondays at 10:45 a.m.

    The puppet club, for 4 to 6-year-olds, is from 3:30 to 5 p.m., also on Mondays. The cost is $200 for nine sessions, during which kids will make puppets and create their own puppet shows. Saturday puppet shows at the theater will resume on Nov. 30.

Parrish in Amagansett

    The Parrish Art Museum of Water Mill will hold a two-part art workshop in collaboration with the Amagansett Library on Saturday and Nov. 9. This week at the library, kids in kindergarten through sixth grade will look at the work of William Merritt Chase, then paint their own watercolor landscapes. The program will begin at 3:30 p.m.

SATs, Apple Pie

    The Hampton Library in Bridgehampton is offering a free two-part SAT/A.C.T. prep program for high school students on Saturday and Nov. 16. Participants will take a practice exam Saturday between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. They will receive their scores and learn test-taking strategies from a Kaplan professional on Nov. 16 from noon to 1:30 p.m. Parents have been invited to the second session.

    Also at the library, 8 to 12-year-olds can fashion rubber band bracelets during a craft program on Wednesday at 4 p.m. Teen chefs will make apple pies on Friday, Nov. 8, at 4 p.m. Advance registration has been requested for all programs.

A Bee, a Flower, Music

    Spelling whizzes in second through fourth grade can learn how to compete in a Scripps-style spelling bee on Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m. at the East Hampton Library, and then compete for prizes in a practice bee.

    A Music Together music and movement program for toddlers 1 to 3 years old will be held at the library next Thursday from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. Also that day, from 2 to 3 p.m., kids in kindergarten through third grade can plant amaryllis bulbs with an educator from the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons, then learn about how to take care of them as they grow. Sign-up ahead of time has been requested for all.

Young Filmmakers

       Young filmmakers will meet at the East Hampton Library on Sunday from 12:30 to 2 p.m. for a screening of projects some worked on last month and to collaborate on a new project.

       The program is for 6th through 12th graders. Those who attend should take a smartphone, iPad, Flip camera, or other video camera. Advance registration is requested at the library or via e-mail to [email protected].

       Children 7 and older will make their own kaleidoscopes at the library next Thursday from 4 to 5 p.m. Participants are asked to sign up in advance.

About Amaryllis

       Thinking ahead to the holidays, children 5 to 11 can plant amaryllis bulbs with the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons next Thursday at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor.

       Participants will learn growing tips during the program, which runs from 3:45 to 4:30 p.m., and will be able to take the plants home with them. Space should be reserved in advance.

Children’s Art Classes

       The Sag Harbor Fine Arts Center will begin two series of children’s art classes on Monday.

       Peggy Leder will teach a class for 3 to 5-year-olds on Mondays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Classes for 6 to 11-year-olds will be offered on Mondays or Saturdays from 3:45 to 4:45 p.m. A six-week session costs $250. Registration is at the center or at [email protected].

Family Craft Time

       Peace is the word, or it will be on Saturday during a story and craft time for families at the Amagansett Library.

       The fun begins at 3:30 p.m. and advance registration has been suggested.

Fall Leaves at CMEE

       The colors of fall will be the inspiration for a watercolor leaf mobile workshop at the Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton on Saturday.

       Children will listen to a reading of Lois Elhert’s “Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf” and then get to work on their projects. The class begins at 10:30 a.m. and costs $20 including museum admission, or $7 for members.

       With the recent plunge in the temperature, some Springs students and staff members have taken to dressing in layers — indoors as well as out.

       “I’d like to know what’s going on with the heat. Our kids are wearing coats. Teachers are layering up. My room is registering at 50 degrees,” said one teacher during Monday night’s school board meeting. “It’s cold, and we keep being told that they’re working on it. It’s a fair statement to ask to come to work every day and be comfortable.”

       She declined to give her name after the meeting adjourned, saying she feared retaliation, but said students in her class had been shivering and that repeated requests for space heaters had gone unmet.

       John Finello, the district superintendent, said an independent contractor has been working to fix the boilers. In a follow-up conversation on Tuesday, Elizabeth Mendelman, the board president, said a broken circulating pump was actually to blame. She was adamant that the heat would soon be running full force.

       Zachary Cohen, who chairs the East Hampton Town nature preserve committee, spoke about opening up local trails and preserves as shortcuts and safety measures for students traveling to and from the school, while remarking that the idea was not without its challenges.

       “Some of the members of the committee won’t go into the woods anymore,” said Mr. Cohen. “I’ve had Lyme disease three times. Others avoid the woods for six months of the year.”

       But the challenges, said Mr. Cohen, were not insurmountable. He envisioned organizing hikes or bike rides home, with parents participating, and students walking or riding to collect their neighbors.

       And if rehabilitating the trails fails to elicit much enthusiasm and support, Mr. Cohen said that another alternative would be to take some of the 20-acre Springs dog park and construct a loop where children could freely bicycle without fear of cars.

       “When we first met as a team, we said it would be great, instead of having to build concrete sidewalks and curbing, to look at alternate ways of connecting kids to the school,” said Ms. Mendelman, referring to the Safe Routes to School committee. “It’s the beginning of looking at alternate ways of getting people to school, instead of children being on roads with no shoulders and no sidewalks.”

       In other news, Mr. Finello said the school had recently conducted its annual lockdown drill. Eric Casale, the principal, updated the school’s enrollment numbers: Springs now enrolls 724 children in grades pre-K to 8, down two students.

       Thomas Primiano, the treasurer, said the board had accepted the assessed valuation of $24.4 million from the office of the town assessor to establish the tax levy for the 2013-14 school year. The tax levy has been set at $23.3 million.

       During public comments, Dennis Donatuti, a Springs resident and former East Hampton school administrator, cited a New York State Education Department regulation stipulating parent involvement in school-based planning and decision making.

       “I think you need to open up a little bit more. It’s a concept that does not get greeted with a great deal of applause by administrators and board members,” said Mr. Donatuti, who ran unsuccessfully for the school board in 2012. “There’s less and less participation, less and less dialogue from the community. To me, it seems like you’re taking a step back from community involvement.”

       In response, Mr. Casale said the school had recently made an increased effort to correspond with its Latino population, which now numbers more than half. “All of our correspondence and presentations go out in Spanish. Even our e-mail blasts go out in English and in Spanish.”

       But Mr. Donatuti and another parent continued to make a case for a site-based management team, made up of parents who would help make decisions related to conduct policies, textbook selection, and use of technology, among others.

Making Maracas and More

       Sticks, reeds, gourds, and other things found in nature will be the raw materials for a workshop on making musical instruments at the South Fork Natural History Museum on Saturday. Tyler Armstrong will lead kids 7 and older as they create maracas, claves, flutes, and drums from local finds, then play a song. The program begins at 10 a.m. In addition to museum entry, a $3 materials fee will be charged. In a family program that afternoon at 2, Darlene Charneco, an artist, will ask people to remember a special outdoor environment and the experiences they had there, and then have them “map” those memories in “personal, unique works of art.” Ms. Charneco’s own mapping series of artworks “looks at animals, people, plants, homes, and communities as part of a larger organism,” according to the museum’s website. This workshop, too, requires a $3 materials fee. Registration in advance has been requested for both programs.The museum is on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton.

T for Turkey, P for Potpie

       Across the street at the Children’s Museum of the East End on Saturday, youngsters can learn a recipe that will come in handy post-Thanksgiving. After listening to a reading of Tanya Lee Stone’s “T Is for Turkey,” they’ll make their own turkey potpies. The program runs from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. and costs $25, or $15 for members. Advance registration has been requested.

Autumn Tales, Amaryllis Bulbs

       Robin Bady will lead an autumn folk tale storytelling session for kids of all ages on Saturday at the Montauk Library. Participants will hear stories about fall, winter, and the changing seasons from 3 to 4 p.m.

       Representatives of the Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons will stop in at the library on Tuesday to help first through third graders plant amaryllis bulbs, which should bloom just in time for Christmas. The program runs from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sign-up in advance is required, as only 15 children can be accommodated. Members of the alliance will also pay a visit to the Amagansett Library on Saturday for a bulb-planting session for kids in kindergarten through sixth grade. The start time is 3:30 and reservations are required.

Holiday Cards for Soldiers

       The children’s programs at the East Hampton Library this week will look ahead to the coming holidays. On Sunday, kids in 8th through 12th grades can drop in between 2 and 4 p.m. to make holiday cards for veterans and active-duty soldiers. Not only will participants be working to brighten someone’s day, but they will also be able to earn community service credits for their efforts. Thanksgiving will be the theme of a story and craft time for kids 4 to 6 on Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m. The library has asked for registration in advance.

       A noche para la familia, or family night, aimed at building a bridge between the Spanish and English-speaking communities in East Hampton, will be held in the East Hampton High School auditorium on Friday, Nov. 22, at 6.

       “There’s no trust between our community and the authorities,” said Oswaldo Palomo, a pastor with the Vida Abundante New York church in Wainscott, who is one of the organizers. “We have to build trust.”

       Organizers plan to honor East Hampton Town Police Chief Eddie Ecker Jr., who will retire at year’s end, and Isabel Sepulveda, a community leader and publisher of Voz Latina, a bilingual newspaper. Mario Castro, a former Costa Rican government auditor who works with Focus on the Family, an evangelical nonprofit, on its outreach in Latin America, will also take to the stage.

       Representatives from the East Hampton Town Police, East Hampton Fire Department, East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department, MetLife Insurance, and East Hampton High School plan to attend. A panel of speakers will discuss community issues, and there will be food, music, and dancing.

       Though the conference will be conducted in Spanish, portions of it will be translated into English should a considerable portion of English speakers attend, Mr. Palomo said.

       This will be the first of three planned conferences, with the other two taking place early next year. In later months, Mr. Palomo hopes to tackle such issues as bullying and suicide prevention. Issues related to poverty and immigration will also be discussed.

       “The aim is to give them the resources so they can be healthy families,” said Mr. Palomo. “That’s our main goal.”

       “Over-testing” in general, and including what are called field tests — trial questions that may be used on future exams but on which students are nopt graded — continue to concern educators, Eleanor Tritt, the Amagansett School superintendent, told the school board at its meeting Tuesday morning.

       Mentioning a letter from John B. King Jr., the state commissioner of education, and a document from an organization called EngageNY, which helps the state assess reforms, Ms. Tritt said she had significant concern about the state wanting “to eliminate stand-alone field testing” and to further incorporate field-test material in regular tests. “They give the same field-test questions to children at different grades,” she said. “For kids in lower grades, it’s too hard for them, it’s frustrating, it takes time away. They spend an inordinate amount of time, and skip through questions that count.” Furthermore, she said there was no way to determine which field-test questions a child was exposed to.

       “The school is required to adhere to state mandates, and children are required to take state tests,” Ms. Tritt said after the meeting. But the state had adopted the Common Core for standardized tests without involving educators, she said. “Superintendents are asking the state to actually have a plan to implement the process in a way that would be more effective for the children. We all agree that raising standards is always a good thing and are always trying to improve.”

       “The curriculum modules are being released by the state this year, yet they’re not being organized and giving teachers lead time to implement and be trained on modules before they teach it,” she said. “It’s not an educationally  sound way to implement new programs.”

       Ms. Tritt referred to an article in Education Week titled “Demand for Testing Products, Services on the Rise.” Like all school districts, Amagansett is “bombarded with people trying to sell products to prepare children for tests,” she told the board. The commercial aspect of test preparation “is really pushing and lobbying for more of the testing. . . . There’s a tremendous market.”

       The superintendent also referred to another article in Education Week, which emphasized the importance of teaching social problem-solving skills, self-regulation, and honesty. “We should be proud of the character-development program we have, which is infused throughout our program,” she said. Children “are reminded in every way, every day, how important it is to have self-confidence but to be respectful of others.”

       As if to illustrate her point, the meeting had begun with a video presentation featuring students praising the board in song. In recognition of School Board Appreciation Week, members of the board were also treated to gifts presented by Jason Hancock, president of the Amagansett Teachers Association, and Kathy Solomon, the association’s vice president.

       “Everyone really appreciates you being the unsung heroes who devote so much of your time and energy,” Ms. Tritt told the board members. “At the same time, you balance our need to be mindful of the impact on the community. . . . You have to make some really hard decisions, and we appreciate the time and effort you put in. We want to thank you very much.”

Parents and teachers interested in the new Common Core curriculum, assessments, teacher evaluations, and student privacy may want to pull up State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle’s website Tuesday, when a forum with the New York State commissioner of education, John B. King, will be live-streamed from 6 to 8 p.m. from the Eastport South Manor Junior-Senior High School in Manorville.

Senator LaValle is soliciting questions and comments from people in his district, which includes 30 school districts. These should be no longer than 2 minutes. Those whose questions or comments are chosen will be notified ahead of time and will have the opportunity to speak at the forum.

The auditorium where the forum will be held seats 1,000 people, with seating made available on a first-come, first-served basis. Should it be necessary, an overflow room will be provided, with proceedings broadcast on a closed-circuit television.

      Voters in the Sag Harbor School District on Nov. 13 approved two bonds, totaling $9 million, for renovations to Pierson High School, its athletic fields, and the Sag Harbor Elementary School.

       A $7.4 million bond earmarked for renovating the Pierson auditorium, adding music instruction rooms, refurbishing shop and technology classrooms, and adding storage space to the elementary school gymnasium passed easily by a margin of 740 votes to 369.

       A $1.6 million bond calling for the installation of a turf athletic field and walking track behind the high school faced a tougher test, passing 585 to 507.

       The work, which will include renovations of the Pierson kitchen, plumbing, electrical and heating upgrades, energy conservation measures, and work on the elementary school parking lots and Pierson bus parking lot, will begin next fall and is expected to be wrapped up by fall 2015.

       John O’Keefe, the district’s business official, said this week that “the district is very excited” that both measures passed.

       If they had not, he said, many of the proposed upgrades would have to be handled in a piecemeal basis with money provided out of the district’s annual operating budget, a prospect, he said, that would have delayed the outcome and likely resulted in higher costs.

       A bond calling for similar upgrades was defeated in 2009.

       District officials have estimated that the two bonds will result in a tax hike of approximately $126 a year for a house valued at $1 million on the East Hampton Town side of the district and about $120 a year for a house of that value on the Southampton Town side.