The Hunt is On

    Tomorrow at 3:30 p.m., children in grades K through 6 have been invited to a monster hunt at the Amagansett Library. The children’s search is sure to take them all through the shelves and many Dewey-decimal destinations.

    Starting on Saturday, those same grades can attend a series of art workshops sponsored by the Parrish Art Museum. In the 11 a.m. workshops, which continue on Nov. 10 and Nov. 17, children can create art in mixed media inspired by the museum’s permanent collection, including works by William Merritt Chase, Fairfield Porter, and Roy Lichtenstein. A fourth session will be held on Dec. 1 at the Parrish’s new home at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. That visit will include a tour of the galleries and time to create a work of art in the museum’s Open Studio.

    The workshops are free, but space is limited and advance registration is required.

    Next Thursday, all have been invited to meet in the field behind the library at 7 p.m. for stargazing. Joe Malave, a local teacher and guest astronomer, will point out constellations, binary stars, and planetary nebular. The rain date is Nov. 15.

Family Fiesta

    A family fiesta will be held at Guild Hall on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m., called “Cuentos: Tales From the Latino World,” featuring David Gonzalez, a storyteller, from 3 to 4 p.m. and crafts throughout the afternoon. Refreshments will be served.

Pumpkin Decorating

    Kids ages 8 to 12 will have the opportunity to decorate pumpkins on Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton. Organizers say the event is not appropriate for children with peanut allergies.

    Through Sunday in the young adult department, seventh graders and up will be making Thai string dolls during library hours.

Stories About Turtles

    Crystal Possehl and her puppet, Lodo the River Otter, will tell stories about turtles to kids ages 3 to 5, Saturday at 10 a.m. at the South Fork Natural History Museum on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike in Bridgehampton. The museum has requested registration in advance.

    Meeting on Election Night, the East Hampton School Board considered how to make up for the five days the school was closed because of Superstorm Sandy. Rather than hold classes on holidays, the board seemed more in favor of making school days longer.

    District Superintendent Richard Burns said legislation might be proposed in Albany lowering the required minimum 180 days of school due to the storm.

    Mr. Burns thanked the grounds crew, maintenance, custodians, and other school employees who “were terrific during and after Sandy.” When he visited the school immediately after the storm, he said, “I could barely tell a storm came through.”

    The high school will continue to offer hot showers to the community from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. daily as needed, the superintendent said.

    Jackie Lowey, a board member, praised Mr. Burns himself for his response to Sandy. “He was here day and night,” she said.    

    Earlier in the meeting, Ms. Lowey expressed disgust that the district has a budget item to pay for seventh and eighth grade students to attend the Hamptons International Film Festival. She said the $3,580 charge “rubs me the wrong way. I’m surprised that a nonprofit is charging us for a community event.”

    Noting that students miss classes to attend the festival, she said that “we should take a close look at this in the next budget.”

    Toward the end of the meeting, Ms. Lowey suggested that in subsequent years the board not meet on Election Night.

    When Julia Tyson, a junior at East Hampton High School, heard about the Sept. 29 suicide death of David H. Hernandez, an alleged victim of bullying at the school, she was saddened, but not surprised. According to Julia, bullying is a fact of life for many students, even in her honor-track classes.

    Julia, 16, an honor student and a junior at the school who is starring as Eliza Doolittle in the school’s production of “Pygmalion” this weekend, is in the preliminary stages of work on a documentary about bullying.

    It is, she said, a familiar topic for her and “one that I thought was a good fit. I’ve seen many films about bullying. ‘The crusade for justice.’ That is all well and fine. I’m not sure how practical it is. I want to focus on bullying and the more practical aspects of it, from the victim’s point of view. Not like, ‘Bullies are this and must be smoked out.’ ”

    Julia, who was herself a target for bullying in lower school and, to a lesser extent, in middle school, is critical of the rationalization that adults frequently make in such situations: “(Maybe) they are friends. Maybe they didn’t mean it. Maybe it was this; maybe it was that. Yeah, the kid really wants to be my friend, that’s why he shoved me off the playground,” she said.

    At the high school, she said, “I’ve given up on the teachers and the administration. . . . They drag us into the auditorium and give us a vague talk. ‘A certain person in this class is feeling threatened,’ ” she said they are told, followed by what she views as equally vague solutions.

    In her classes at school, she said, “there is a boy who is very smart, he is very quiet, and he is emotional.” That, said Julia, makes him an inviting target. When the boy answers a question in class incorrectly, the boys seated around him moan, mocking him. “They heckle him. It is rude.”

    Teachers usually don’t say anything, she said. “There is a kind of ‘boys will be boys’ attitude about it: ‘They’re just teasing him.’ There is a very fine line between bullying and teasing.”

    She said the aggressive behavior toward her began in preschool. “A lot of the stuff was fairly subtle. I’d sit down at a table and everybody would get up. Or I’d be reading a book and somebody would grab it out of my hands.”

    Her mother, Lori Marsden, has painful memories of that time. “She used to come home crying. When they’re little, you know how they would have to sit in a circle? No one would want to sit next to her.”

    Ms. Marsden is critical of the training teachers receive for such situations. Citing as an example having children partner themselves, allowing for some children to be deliberately omitted. It is at that point that the teacher has to step in and not repeat the same exercise, she said.

    As children grow older, the aggressive tactics of the bully are refined. “A little more sophisticated,” Ms. Tyson remembers. “They’d jokingly invite me to do something, then say, ‘We’re just kidding. We didn’t want you to come along anyway.’ ”

    Things began to improve for Julia at the beginning of her fifth grade year. She’d lost more than 40 pounds over the summer, weight she’d put on because she is diabetic. “No matter what people say, they do judge by appearances,” she said.

    Another change for her that year was discovering theater. “I decided to try out for [the school] musical. I did it and I loved it.” She performed in the school play, and has been auditioning and performing in her school plays ever since.

    And, she said, “I started to get my own group of friends.”

    The self-confidence she gained is the key, she feels, to ending bullying. Asked if she is ever bullied anymore, she paused. “I’m sure things have happened that would have driven me over the edge in the past.”

    The local council of the Girl Scouts of America have approved her documentary project for consideration for the Scouts’ Gold Award, the highest honor the Girl Scouts of America bestows. It is given for completion of a project that requires a minimum of 80 hours of work and can benefit the larger community.

    She has to complete the project by next fall for it to qualify.

    As for her longer-term plans: “I’d like to go into acting,” she said, but allowed that directing was ossible career path.

    On Monday night, at the second Springs School Board meeting of the fiscal year, tensions quickly erupted as a packed house argued against the elimination of the sports program that seventh and eighth graders have enjoyed at East Hampton Middle School. 

    Last year, 39 students participated in the combined program, which included football, cross-country, track and field, wrestling, and lacrosse, which Springs could not provide by itself, according to Kathee Burke Gonzalez, president of the board. The program cost $19,562, plus an additional $14,000 for transportation.

    The school had previously budgeted for the program. But since the imposition of a 2-percent cap on any increase in property taxes, all that has changed.

    Districtwide, adhering to the tax cap resulted in a 30-percent cut, or nearly $800,000 in the 2012-13 budget. Besides the cut for the combined sports program, the board eliminated five teachers, two teaching assistants, and an educational summer school, among other things.

    “With all of the cuts we were making across the board, everything was on the table. At the time, $120,000 for middle school sports was more than we could afford,” said Ms. Gonzalez. The $120,000 figure includes the roughly $34,000 for the combined sports program and another $86,000, which remained in the budget, for sports on campus, such as after-school tennis, volleyball, basketball, soccer, softball, and baseball.

    A few weeks ago, the new Springs School superintendent, Dominic Mucci, was told by the school’s attorney that, legally, the district would not be able to fund the program season by season and that busing would be mandatory. The fate of the program apparently now rests on whether $35,000 can be raised privately.

    Earlier this summer, Janice Vaziri and Mary McPartland, Springs parents, started a booster club to raise the necessary funds. Ms. Vaziri said that while they have already raised around $8,000, with less than three weeks to go until the start of school, the clock is ticking — and not necessarily in their favor.

    Ms. Vaziri remains cautiously optimistic. Her older son, who now plays football at East Hampton High School, had previously participated in the combined sports program. Her younger son, who will soon enter the eighth grade, hopes to resume football practice come fall. Mostly, she sees the program as helping to bridge the gap between the two communities.

    “It’s hard enough as a Springs student to go into high school because you’re always considered an outsider,” Ms. Vaziri said. “This program helped make for an easier transition.”

    But Tom Talmage, who sat on the Springs School Board for six years, disputed the need for a booster club. In forceful language, he said the money could be found in the budget.

    “I know the money is there, but it’s now just a matter of them deciding whether or not to spend it,” Mr. Talmage said. He has three children in the Springs School, one of whom is about to enter seventh grade and is hoping to play football.

    “They’ve eliminated a program as essential as athletics during an era when children are becoming more and more sedentary and getting less and less physical activity at school,” Mr. Talmage said. “It’s crazy. And it’s especially crazy when the money is just sitting right there in the school budget.”

    As talk of money continued, a handful of parents openly bristled at the announcement of Springs’s new assistant principal’s salary. At $120,000 plus benefits, Dr. Katherine Byrnes will assume a three-year probationary post later this month. One parent intimated that had she been paid less, the combined sports program might have escaped the chopping block.

    Later in the evening, one parent wondered why waivers could be used to send students on field trips with parents but not for private transportation for after-school sports. After hearing that busing by the district would be mandatory, another member of the audience said Montauk parents had shuttled their children back and forth to practice and games privately for a long time.

    While the nearly three-hour meeting remained contentious at times, Ms. Gonzalez urged for a more balanced perspective.

    “Depending on who you are and what grade your child is in, different things and different priorities change your perspective,” Ms. Gonzalez said. Her daughter is also set to begin seventh grade at Springs.

    “It’s been a heart-wrenching year, and we’ve had to make some difficult decisions,” she said. “We’re balancing the needs of the students with the pocketbooks of the taxpayers. These are challenging times.”

    The Sagaponack School Board appointed Lynn Schwartz of Miller Place as the district’s part-time superintendent on Aug. 14.

    Mr. Schwartz began his job the following day, at an annual salary of $43,000.

    The Sagaponack School District serves grades one through four in one of the last remaining one-room schoolhouses in the state. The district has tuition agreements with the East Hampton and Sag Harbor School Districts for its students in kindergarten and 5th through 12th grades. There are 12 students enrolled at the school, with an additional 25 attending the East Hampton and Sag Harbor School Districts.

    Mr. Schwartz, formerly of the Westhampton School District, where he served as superintendent for 10 years, replaces Lee Ellwood, who retired last month.   

    Slow Food East End, thanks to the Joshua Levine Memorial Foundation, has been able to fund three interns who currently work as school garden coordinators in the area.

    In addition, grants are now available to fund specific needs, such as the purchase of garden tools, supplies, and materials. Those who wish to apply must be a non-profit school or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization working in partnership with one or more schools; have an established school garden project, and be a member of the Edible School Garden Group and Slow Food East End Chapter.

    Applicants must also be able to manage grant funds responsibly, and must demonstrate that their garden project has strong participation from stakeholders within the school.

    Applications can be e-mailed to [email protected] before Sept. 15. Questions about the application process can be sent to jcfayyaz@ gmail.com. Questions about membership can be addressed to Anne Howard, Slow Food East End membership chairwoman, at [email protected].

Pony Up

    This year’s Kids Day at the Hampton Classic Horse Show in Bridgehampton will be on Saturday. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., activities will include circus acts by the Bellini Family Circus and Friends, a magic show by the Amazing Zola, free pony rides, the music of the Laughing Pizza Family Band, face-painting, a petting zoo, a birds of prey demonstration, and more. Admission is free for kids under 12.

Go, Suzi!

    A reminder: Suzi Shelton, a Brooklyn singer-songwriter who has dubbed herself an “all-around children’s rock goddess,” will give the final performances of the season at the Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre in Sag Harbor. Today, tomorrow, and Saturday at 11 a.m., Suzi and friends will treat audiences to interactive dance and music from the CDs “No Ordinary Day” and “Simply Suzi,” which have catchy tunes like “Scooter Boy” and “Gone on a Road Trip.”

Teen Esteem

    Starting next Thursday, a teen theater troupe, Act T.W.O., will perform short plays about problems adolescents face every day. The esteem-building performances aim to teach teenagers about social awareness, mental and physical health, positive relationships, and how and where to seek help when confronted with a difficult situation. Performances will be on Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Hampton Bays Community Center. Registration will be ongoing. The troupe has requested that those interested get in touch with the Southampton Youth Bureau.

    The coming of Labor Day also means the coming of a new school year, and in East Hampton Town, classes at most schools begin next week.

    The Wainscott School will be the first to open to students, on Tuesday. Classes at the John M. Marshall Elementary and East Hampton Middle and High Schools, as well as the Montauk, Amagansett, and Springs Schools, and the Ross Lower and Upper Schools will begin on Wednesday. East Hampton’s prekindergartners will have orientation next Thursday at the East Hampton Day Care Learning Center and will begin classes on Friday, Sept. 7. At the Amagansett School, prekindergarten classes will not start until Sept. 10.

    The Hayground School in Bridgehampton will have its first day of classes on Sept. 12.

    The Ross School will start this year’s Adult Learning @ Ross program on Wednesday. Residents can enroll in a variety of courses — painting and drawing, bridge, ceramics, creative writing, sewing, jewelry design, journal writing, poetry, foreign languages, media, defensive driving, feng shui, belly dancing, and hypnosis, among other offerings. The courses cost from $35 to $750.

    The adult classes will be held on weekday evenings or Saturday mornings at the Upper School campus in East Hampton this fall — with some sessions continuing into January and February.

    The school will begin another of its programs, Afternoons @ Ross, on Sept. 17. Students ages 5 and up can enroll in classes that include art, dance, gymnastics, noncompetitive athletics, theater, robotics, and more. Under the direction of the school’s faculty and other instructors, the courses will convene during after-school hours at the Lower School campus in Bridgehampton as well as the Upper School. Many of the classes, which range in cost from $240 to $725, can be taken in the fall or the winter.

    More information can be had by calling 907-5555 or visiting ross.org/community.

    With a new school year under way, the Child Development Center of the Hamptons has appointed a new leader. Patricia A. Loewe, who has more than 20 years of combined classroom and administrative experience, replaces Maria A. Taliercio as the school’s education leader. For the past eight years, Mrs. Loewe worked for the Montauk School District, where she was the director for pupil personnel services. She lives in Springs.

    Dawn Zimmerman founded the school in 1997 after her son was diagnosed with autism. For many East Hampton Town residents, the school’s Wainscott location is a welcome alternative to daily bus rides west to the Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

    A charter school, C.D.C.H. now enrolls 130 children from preschool through grade five. Besides children with autism, the school also provides services to special education students and gifted students.

    “I am very excited to have joined C.D.C.H. and look forward to working closely with the students and teachers to enrich the educational experience for each child,” Mrs. Loewe said in an e-mailed statement. “I am so impressed by the academic excellence that C.D.C.H. has achieved over the years, and I am committed to implementing teaching strategies that continue to result in successful outcomes for every student at C.D.C.H.”