It’s Back! “The Magic Garden”

    WPIX’s “The Magic Garden,” one of the country’s most successful locally produced children’s television shows from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, will be recreated by the original stars at the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead on Saturday at 2 p.m.

    As they did back in the day, Carole Demas and Paula Janis will stage the show in a colorful garden setting, where they will share stories, songs, games, and lessons. This event will be presented jointly by the East Hampton Library and seven other local libraries. Organizers have requested advance registration as seating is limited.

Jump Into Fall

    The Child Development Center of the Hamptons, a charter school, will celebrate the changing seasons on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with pumpkin decorating, face painting, bouncy castles, and games. Toys, books, and baked goods will be for sale. The free event will be held at the school, which is at 110 Stephen Hand’s Path in East Hampton. The rain date is Sunday.

Family Fun

    The annual Halloween Family Fun Day will return to American Legion Post #419 in Amagansett on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pony rides, pumpkin painting, a scavenger hunt, food, and fun for all are in store. The hall is at the corner of Montauk Highway and Abraham’s Path.

    On Tuesday night, Robert Tymann, assistant superintendent for the East Hampton School District, held a presentation on the district’s annual professional performance review plan, required under a revised teacher and principal evaluation law passed earlier this year. Earlier this week the district sent the plan to the state for approval.

    The district plan was outlined in an initiative, called “Race to the Top,” whose purpose is to make high school graduates “college ready” and “career ready.”

    “At the heart of the change is the idea of evidence,” Mr. Tymann said. “Students will have to prove they’ve learned what the teachers have taught them.” He added, “It’s not good enough for a teacher to say that fractions were taught; what is the evidence?”

    State and local test scores, student portfolios, and observations are other factors likely to be considered in the yearly teacher and principal evaluations, according the plan outline. “Teachers used to reward students who adapt to their way of thinking and teaching,” Mr. Tymann said. “Now, what students learned is a part of the equation.”

    Principals, teachers, and their lesson plans will be assessed using 77 interconnected factors, and rated as “ineffective,” “developing,” “effective,” or “highly effective.”

    The plan also expects to achieve goals established in a nationwide, state-led initiative, called Common Core Standards, which sets standards for math, English language arts, history, science, and technical subjects.

    “We will shift to text-based answers in English language arts, with a focus on increasing students’ academic vocabulary,” Mr. Tymann said. “In math, we will focus more on problem solving and deep understanding of the material taught.” He said teachers will be encouraged to reduce the amount of topics they teach in exchange for delving into more complex matters.

    Data inquiry teams will monitor and assess teaching and learning based on “evidence of district, school, classroom, teacher, and student yearly progress towards goals.”

    During the current school year, teachers and administrator will be trained on the new methods. The district has submitted its professional performance review plan in plenty of time for state approval. Under the new evaluation law, districts must have an approved plan in place by Jan. 17, 2013, or they will lose their share of this fiscal year’s education aid increase. The application review process may take up to six weeks.

    The Amagansett School Board discussed a number of positive developments at its meeting on Tuesday.

    Eleanor Tritt, the superintendent, projected a spreadsheet summarizing Amagansett students’ state Regent exam results as of June 2011 and June 2012, and comparing the test scores of the district’s students with those of students in the entire Town of East Hampton. The purpose, said Ms. Tritt, is to ensure that the school’s curriculum program is adequately preparing students for secondary school. “You can see that the results are consistently very good,” she said, noting that 100 percent of students from Amagansett had passed most of the Regent exams. This is consistent with past results, she added. “Students across the board do extremely well. We get reports of the students feeling very comfortable when they get to seventh grade. They feel well prepared, very confident in their work, but we like to actually see the test results to confirm that that carries through.”

    The board also formally accepted the independent audit report and management letter for the 2011-2012 school year as prepared by the independent auditors Markowitz, Fenelon, and Bank. Mary Lownes, a board member, reported a positive meeting about the audit with Mary Kohlroser of the school’s accounting firm, Cullen and Danowski. “It’s probably the cleanest report that I’ve seen since I chaired the audit committee. Our district does not have, currently, any legal issues going on,” a rarity among school districts, Ms. Lownes said.

    “Mary [Kohlroser] has been an enormous help, particularly in the area of needing to project expenses, because there are so many issues that are unknown and beyond our control,” said Ms. Tritt.

    Ms. Kohlroser, who attended the board meeting, concurred that the audit report was “very clean. Having an unqualified opinion is the best opinion that an auditor can give when they do an audit. Congratulations to the business office and to everyone that helps make the school run so smoothly.”

    Ms. Tritt also offered congratulations to the newly elected student council officers for the 2012-2013 school year, Kurt Matthews as president, Grace Myer as vice president, Ethan Pratt, treasurer, and Emily Hugo, secretary.  

    After two years of negotiations, the Springs School Board called a special meeting on Monday night to announce a settlement with the Springs Teachers Association on a new contract.

    Last Thursday the teachers, who had been working without a contract since 2010, okayed changes made to the previous five-year agreement. The board unanimously accepted the new contract, which will expire in 2015.

    “I’m so glad that we’ve come to this point,” Maryellen Farrell, a Springs School teacher whose three children graduated from the school, told the board. “It’s very positive that we’re able to move on. I’m so glad Mr. Mucci is our superintendent. He’s brought a lot of positive energy, I’m hearing it from everyone. Mr. Casale and Mr. Mucci seem to make a good team.”

    Quality education was the top priority, said Margaret Garsetti, who teaches English as a second language. “I just want to thank all the board,” she said. “We’re all a team now. Morale is so great, I feel so happy again.”

    Teachers agreed to increase their contribution to health insurance to 15 percent of premiums effective July 1, 2014, and will receive a salary increase totaling 3.75 percent over the life of the contract. They had not had an increase since 2010, when the last contract expired.

    The board and the teachers association also agreed, according to a release, to “more rigorous professional development criteria for salary advancement, decreased insurance buyouts; and a mutual restructuring of non-teaching time.”

    In May, Springs approved the district budget, the first to come under the newly imposed, state-mandated 2-percent property tax cap, by a vote of 434 to 139. The $24.63 million budget reflected over $700,000 worth of cuts imposed by the school board to stay under the cap.

    For several years now, the Montauk School Board has been trying to get specific numbers and test scores for students from the Montauk School District. Members wanted to know how the students were doing compared to their counterparts and how many were dropping out of high school before graduation.

    Adam Fine, the East Hampton High School principal, visited the board on Tuesday to help. Armed with a 12-page booklet outlining performance assessments from 2011, he said there are now 925 students attending the high school, 150 of whom are from Montauk.

    He said that the state’s 2-percent cap on property tax increases that went into effect last year prevented the East Hampton district from replacing several teachers who retired. “We’re bursting at the seams right now. I’m not looking forward to the budget this year,” he said.

    With the exception of earth science and trigonometry, Montauk students are doing well on testing. In algebra 2-trigonometry, 56 percent of Montaukers passed their Regents exams, in comparison to 60 percent over all at the high school. “We’re making a huge push to improve this,” the principal said.

    In earth science, 59 percent of Montauk students passed, versus 73 percent overall. In geometry, 87 percent of Montauk students had passing grades, compared to 79 percent schoolwide. Last year was the first that the school made an effort to push the students into geometry, Mr. Fine said. “Your scores are good, very good. We’re still acclimating them.”

About Dropouts

    The dropout rate has decreased to what Mr. Fine called a very minimal amount, he said in response to a question from Patti Leber, a Montauk School Board member. The problem with some of the district’s students is that they want to start working on fishing boats right away, he said. But he discourages that, he said, and tries to explain the value of getting at least a two-year college degree.

    “That’s my battle with some of the Montauk kids. I tell them there is an inherent value in getting a degree. It’s a hard sell,” Mr. Fine said.

    When asked how Montauk students perform socially and athletically, the principal said they were fine. All students have some way of identifying their hometowns, he said, and even if he doesn’t know where the students come from, it’s easy to tell from the sweatshirts and other apparel they wear, which are often plastered with “Montauk.”

    “They maintain their hometown identities, but the bottom line is once they’re here, they’re all Bonac,” he said.

    A cautious approach to content on the school’s Web site is advisable, members of the Amagansett School Board agreed at its Tuesday meeting. Eleanor Tritt, the district superintendent, said that, because of privacy, security, and copyright concerns, students will not be permitted to publish Web pages on the school’s Web site, aufsd.org, and teachers must get permission to develop a blog.

    Names and photos of students will also be limited on the Web site, said Ms. Tritt, who pointed out that in a hamlet as small as Amagansett, even identifying students only by first name effectively reveals their identity. She added that a committee meets regularly to examine how the school uses technology.

    Also, the board approved the appointment of additional substitute teachers to the previously established substitute list for the 2012-13 school year. They are Jennifer Barra, Kelley Bailey, Heather Carasiti, Valerie Gilday, Kameron Kaiser, Janet McKenzie-Bardong, Debbie Silverblank, Lynn Stewart, and Laura Stone. The board approved the appointment of Austin Keyes, who will serve as multimedia arts assistant on an as-needed basis, at a rate of $51 per hour.

    Last spring, facing a 2-percent cap on property tax increases, the East Hampton School Board sliced more than $2 million from its annual budget. Joan Carlson, who oversaw the district’s adult education program for more than 20 years, was among the handful of employees suddenly out of a job. The fate of the program has hung in the balance ever since.

    Going forward, the adult education program will continue to exist — but with far reduced and limited offerings. “Because of these difficult economic times, we’re hoping things run fairly the same, and that courses are cost-effective,” Richard Burns, the district superintendent, said in a conversation this summer.

    In the absence of Ms. Carlson, Phillip Pratt, the assistant principal at East Hampton High School and Middle School, will oversee the program.

    The district will continue to offer classes that are “educational and self-sustaining,” according to a statement. While computer courses, defensive driving, and English as a second language will continue to be offered, “we have eliminated taxpayer subsidized recreational classes like yoga, dance, and zumba, which are offered locally by small businesses.”

    According to Bridget LeRoy, communications consultant for the district, all classes will be held on weekdays from 6 to 8 p.m. at the high school starting in mid-October.

    “Nothing is set in stone right now, except for a one-time prelicensing class for adults, taught by Tina Giles — with maybe a few surprises thrown in,” Ms. LeRoy said. She added that the forms for the adult education program have always stipulated that classes can face cancellation as a result of insufficient registration.

    “This year the district will be taking that seriously, to save taxpayer dollars,” said Ms. LeRoy. “As wonderful a program as it has always been, it has run in the red. The goal will be not only to bring interesting educational opportunities to the public, but also to create a self-sufficient program that can continue to expand in the years to come.”

    Ms. Carlson, who oversaw the program from 1991 until last spring, said she witnessed a program that “grew and grew and grew.” But with courses that ranged in price from $65 to $100, the numbers dwindled in recent years, likely because of the bad economy.

    From cake decorating to fiction writing, she described the adult education program as popular with senior citizens but also as a vital and badly needed resource for single mothers and the working poor.

    “I was very happy there. I never would have quit that job,” said Ms. Carlson, who lives in Sag Harbor. “I will help however I can to make sure it continues.”

Act Now!

    Fall after-school workshops run by Stages, a Children’s Theatre Workshop, started last week, but space is still available for serious young thespians looking to polish their skills.

    A performance workshop for kids 8 to 18 years old will be held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. through late October at the Southampton Town Recreation Center. It will culminate in a performance of “The Frankenstein Follies” at Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor on Oct. 26, 27, and 28. The cost is $475.

     For younger actors, mature 6-to-9-year-olds, Stages offers a creative drama workshop at Bay Street on Tuesdays from 4 to 5:30 p.m. through Nov. 13. The class is designed as an introduction to acting. A presentation of a short play will be held on the final day of the session. The cost is $285.

     Helene Leonard, director and co-founder of Stages, directs both programs. Stage parents or guardians may register or get further details from her at [email protected].

Express Yourself

    On Oct. 7, from noon to 4 p.m., Kate Mueth and the Neo-Political Cowgirls will present Choreographing What You Care About, a workshop at the Hampton Ballet Theatre School in Bridgehampton in which girls direct and choreograph one another to convey their personal stories through dance theater.

    In this class, designed for girls ages 8 to 18, participants will begin by journaling what’s on their minds and will be led through exercises and improvisation to adapt words into gesture, movement, and dance. The session will end with a dance performance. The cost is $60; scholarships are available on a first come, first served basis. Registration details can be found at neopoliticalcowgirls.com.

At CMEE

    The Butter Lane Art Academy will offer art classes for kids 2 to 4 on Wednesday mornings at the Children’s Museum of the East End Museum starting this week.

    Classes, which are at 9:30 or 10:30 a.m., will begin with story time followed by a related art project. Children will be introduced to different methods of expression such as construction, printmaking, watercolor, ceramics, and collage. Hilary Helfant, an artist and Butter Lane Art Academy founder, will be the teacher. The cost is  $150 plus a $25 material fee for all six sessions, or $35 for an individual class.  Advance registration is required.

Feeding Time at Sofo

    The South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton is home to a variety of animals ranging from frogs and turtles to crabs and starfish, and on Saturday at 10 a.m., a museum staffer will teach kids and biology buffs about the animals’ diets and evolutionary feeding strategies. This interactive experience will feature an opportunity to feed crabs, get up close and personal in the “touch tank,” have a meet-and-greet with a painted turtle, and watch how those zany blowfish chew their mussel meal.

    The museum is on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike.

Family Fun

    A Family Fun Fair on Saturday at the Sag Harbor Elementary School will benefit the East End Special Education Parent Teacher Organization. There will be a petting zoo, bounce house, face painting, food, and games from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. In addition, families can learn about local resources for children with special needs and take their chances in a paper raffle to raise money for a scholarship fund.

For Parents and Kids

    Our Sons and Daughters School in Sag Harbor will offer Waldorf-based parent-child classes for children 18 months to 3 years old and after-school storytelling and art workshops for kids 7 to 10, both on Tuesdays starting this week.

    The parent-child classes, in the morning, will serve as an introduction to the school’s program and philosophy. Parents and their children will participate in morning circle and seasonal verses, songs, stories, and puppet shows. Fresh bread, fruit, and tea will be provided. The program runs for 10 weeks.

    Later in the day, from 3:45 to 4:30 p.m., Andi Pisacano, a Waldorf educator, will share selections from fairy tales, fables, myths, and legends, and then kids will create works of art inspired by the stories with chalk and pastels, beeswax crayons, wet-on-wet watercolor painting, and beeswax modeling.

    The school is now in a new space at the Sag Harbor Methodist Church on Carroll Street. Those who wish to register for either program have been asked to e-mail [email protected].

    Christopher Merkert is no stranger to innovation.

    Mr. Merkert, who heads the East Hampton Middle School’s science department, will take part in Google’s Teacher Academy in New York City early next month. He’s one of 50 educators chosen from around the country.

    Launched in 2006, the academy is a professional development program designed to improve the K-12 experience by introducing teachers to innovative technology. This is the first of its conferences to focus exclusively on educational leaders.

    Run by Computer-Using Educators and WestEd, California-based nonprofits, it give educators a chance to experiment with Google’s latest products in the company of their peers.

    For the past 17 years, Mr. Merkert, 40, has taught at the Middle School. A resident of East Hampton, he is married with three young children. As a “Google Certified Teacher,” the hope is that when he returns home, he will share his new knowledge with colleagues.

    Whenever possible, Mr. Merkert already uses technology in the classroom.  Last year, the Science Teachers Association of New York State named him Suffolk County’s science teacher of the year for his use of “flipped teaching.” Instead of lecturing during valuable in-class hours, Mr. Merkert made short videos or podcasts of the material, which students could later watch at home.

    “The days of kids making a PowerPoint are antiquated,” he said last week.

    When teaching earth science, rather than relying solely on textbooks, Mr. Merkert prefers Google’s Chromebooks. Students use them to collaborate and work on group projects, communicate back and forth, and make videos.

    Mr. Merkert is particularly excited about the opportunity to network with other educators from around the country and around the world.

    “We’ve already had a few Google Hangouts and gotten to know each other,” he said. “There were teachers from California, Indiana, Texas, Singapore, and Ireland.”

    Mostly, he’s anticipating what promises to be an exhilarating couple of days. “I’m looking forward to effectively using technology in the classroom in order to best leverage my contact time with my students,” said Mr. Merkert, before dashing off to class.