Award-winning classical music students from high school and college programs will share their talents in a concert at the Bay Street Theatre on Sunday to benefit the Katy’s Courage Fund.

This is the sixth year that young local musicians have joined together to celebrate Katy Stewart of Sag Harbor, who died at the age of 12 of a rare form of liver cancer, and to raise money for the nonprofit established in her memory to support scholarships, counseling, and pediatric cancer research.

Ten musicians will perform — seven from local high schools and three from the South Fork who are studying music at the college level. Ellen Johansen and Alvin Novak, local professional musicians, will accompany them.

Participating from East Hampton High School will be Leo Panish on violin and Georgia Bennett, a singer. Tristan Griffin, a Ross School eighth grader, will play piano. Joining them will be Emmanuelle Bernard and Christopher Ritter from Pierson High School on piano and, from Southampton High School, Benjamin Pereira on violin and Kivlan King on cello.

Matthew Maimone, who is studying piano at the Juilliard School, Maxfield Panish, a violin student at the Manhattan School of Music, and Christopher Beroes-Haigis, who studies cello at Bard College, will also perform.

The concert starts at 4 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $10 for tickets.

Family Nature Movies

    On Saturday at 7 p.m., the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton will present the first in a series of family nature movies.

    “Winged Migration,” a film that follows a variety of birds across 40 countries and seven continents, was called “a movie miracle” by Rolling Stone magazine. Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for children, and free for members of the museum.

    The museum is on the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike.

Pizza and Politics

    New York State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Bonnie Cannon, executive director of the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center, will help introduce kids in 6th through 12th grades to some of the ins and outs of politics on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton.

    There will be pizza to eat while kids chew over the big issues.

    At the East Hampton School Board meeting on Sept. 20, Kevin Seaman, the new attorney for the district, gave a quick surmise as to where the district stands in the long-running and money-consuming legal battle with Sandpebble Builders.

    The firm initially sued the district, after its construction contract was canceled in favor of another builder, for $3.75 million. Over the past four years, both sides have fired accusations back and forth, and the attorneys’ bills have climbed. At last count, the district had spent more than $2.3 million on the case.

    “But there’s one very significant question,” Mr. Seaman said, returning to a point that may have been initially overlooked. “Did Sandpebble file a notice of claim within the required three-month period? Did they bring a timely action?”

    The Melville law firm of Pinks, Arbeit & Nemeth has replaced the firm previously employed to handle the lawsuit, which is now scheduled to be heard by an appellate court in Brooklyn at 10 a.m. on Oct. 17.

    “The court will see if the [Sandpebble’s] motion can be reversed. If not, Sandpebble wins,” Mr. Seaman said.

    “The court will have to determine when the starting date actually was,” he continued. “Was it when they [Sandpebble] knew they wouldn’t be paid, or when they were formally terminated?”

    “If they lose this case, they’re going to have a tough time proceeding with the claim,” he said.

    In a different but related matter, Mike Guido, the architect, is expected to attend the board meeting on Tuesday to discuss what has and has not been finished at the schools. That meeting will take place at the district office at 7:30 p.m.

    “So the players are all going to sit down at a table and work it out until it’s finished, so we can close the bond issue?” asked Patricia Hope, a school board member.

    Mr. Seaman assured Ms. Hope that that was the intention.

Harvest Festival at Ross

    On Sunday, the Ross School will host its annual harvest festival at the Center for Well-Being on Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton.

    Offering an indoor farmers market featuring produce and organic products from local purveyors, live music by Caroline Doctorow and Job Potter, with food, games, and more, the family festival is free and will be held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

    Prior to the fun and games, there will be an admissions information session at 10 a.m. for parents interested in sending their children to the school. Reservations with the school have been requested for this session.

Find Your Inner Buccaneer

    David Engel’s Pirate School — which has been featured in New York magazine’s “Best of New York: Kids,” and has performed extensively around the world — will drop anchor at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton on Sunday as the museum hosts a Family Pirate festival from 1 to 4 p.m.

    Touted as a “one-man seafaring vaudeville that spoofs the Golden Age of Sail,” David Engel will follow the 1 p.m. performance with an “academy” where eager pirates-in-training can learn the fine and ferocious pirate arts of swashbuckling and gathering doubloons, and engage in art activities, face painting, and more.

    Admission is free and no advance registration is required. The pirate festival will take place rain or shine.     

    Kids having their lunch money taken is a well-worn cliché since time immemorial. But it’s not so often that it happens to a school.

    Whitsons Culinary Group, the food provider for East Hampton, Bridgehampton, East Quogue, and Hampton Bays schools, has to pay back $807,000 for “illegally overcharging” 30 school districts, according to New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman.

    That’s a lot of bologna sandwiches.

     According to a press release from Mr. Schneiderman’s office, “The Suffolk County-based Whitsons Culinary Group received savings from food vendors it worked with, but did not pass on those savings to customer schools, resulting in more than $800,000 in illegal charges. Whitsons must now pay $1.6 million to the state and affected school districts, and comply with a series of reforms to improve transparency in its contracting and service.”

    The Whitsons case was pursued under the New York False Claims Act. The Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act allows the state to collect triple damages from corporations or people who defraud the government, or violate their obligations to pay government entities or, in this case, school districts.

    Richard Burns, interim superintendent of the East Hampton Union Free School District, said that the total refund due to East Hampton is around $3,900. The money will be allocated to the school’s cafeteria fund to help pay for any future shortages.

    Seventy-five dollars will be coming back to Bridgehampton, and East Quogue will get a check for $5. Hampton Bays will not receive a refund as it was not included in the settlement.

    The school districts range from Long Island to Manhattan to Ulster County, with the bulk of them in Westchester, where 13 districts were affected.

    Holly Von Seggern of Whitsons, which is based in Islandia, said the overcharges were unintentional. She pointed to a confusing law put into effect in 2003, governing the allocation of rebates, “but it was not clarified and adopted by the [United States Department of Agriculture] until late 2007, when it became federal law.” The refunds are coming from that four-year period.” Whitsons revisited its rebate accounting procedures in 2007, when the law was clarified,” she said in a statement.

    “Whitsons remains committed to ethical business practices and maintains strong partnerships with its clients. The company is proud of its reputation for integrity, high quality, and excellent service and continues to lead the industry with its innovative programs and strong focus on nutrition and education.”

    Whitsons is not alone. Last year the international food provider Sodexo paid back $20 million to the New York Attorney General’s office to resolve an investigation into its rebate practices.

Tristan Vaughan and Morgan Duke Vaughan will begin a six-week course in Shakespeare at Guild Hall on Monday. The class is open to ages 16 and up, and will concentrate on sonnets, monologues, mask work, and scene work, culminating with a presentation in conjunction with the Naked Stage at the John Drew Theatre on Nov. 28. The classes will be held from 6 to 9 p.m., and cost $300, or $275 for Guild Hall members.

Morgan Vaughan was recently selected by the East End Arts Council as the new coordinator of the Teeny Awards, which honors local school productions with a red-carpet night reminiscent of the Tony Awards. In her new position, Ms. Vaughan plans to highlight past Teeny winners who have gone on to successful careers other than in the arts, showing the importance of drama programs in schools to help kids with confidence and team-playing.

    The Hayground School in Bridgehampton has announced the receipt of a $208,000 educational grant from the Leon Levy Foundation, a philanthropic foundation created by the estate of Leon Levy, co-founder of Oppenheimer and Company. It is the third grant Hayground has received from the foundation.

    “This is a very important year for the school,” it said in a statement. “As a result of the continued support of the Leon Levy Foundation, we will begin our endowment campaign. This is essential to maintain our mission of economic diversity.”

    “In the spring of 2012 we will complete the expansion of Jeff’s Kitchen, Hayground’s professional kitchen and community meeting space. With the support of the Leon Levy Foundation and plans donated by Deborah Burke, this expansion will allow us to increase classroom space for the school, accept more children in our camp program, have an expanded space for our growing Hayground Forum, and upgrade the kitchen equipment to highest health department standards, allowing us to rent the space to professional chefs and organizations. This is all part of our short and long-range goals to create a sustainable future for Hayground School and its organic gardens, farmers market, and camp.”

    Eric Casale, the Springs School principal, gave a presentation on Monday night on the new common-core learning standards being adopted in 48 of the 50 states, which will hold schools “to the same bar of accountability — teaching for mastery rather than just covering topics.”

    “There has been such an emphasis on reading and writing, we forgot about literacy, social studies, science, and more,” he said, referring to the education system as a whole.

    The importance in developing a consistent assessment system would show first in students  moving to new schools. “A student from Florida could go to Wyoming and would be held to the same standards,” Mr. Casale said. “There will be data systems to monitor growth, and principals and educators will be evaluated according to how students are performing.”

    These standards will not go fully into effect until 2014, but are beginning to be phased in even now. Luckily for Springs, said Mr. Casale, “we’re ahead of this process. The change for us will not be so drastic.”

    The principal acknowledged that he was “passionate about this” and looked forward to “ramping up expectations,” adding that new scoring systems will be “more rigorous. Right now students are graduating high schools after being told they were proficient since third grade, and then when they get to college, they are being told they’re remedial.”

    The new common-core learning standards are actually a return to old school, so to speak, the tenets of “reading to learn instead of learning to read,” said Mr. Casale, with a more philosophical approach to education.

    Part of the equation includes using a “staircase of complexity” to measure benchmarks along a student’s path of learning.

    In other news, the school received a petition with the required 55 names to add back a bus stop for students who live on certain portions of Sandra Road, Glade Road, and Woodbine Road. In a child safety zone study, the area had been judged less than a mile from the Springs School, and therefore ineligible for a bus stop. However, the school accepted the petition and has reinstated the stop.

    Lisa Matz, the president of the school’s parent teacher association, reminded the crowd that the next P.T.A. meeting would be held on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Halloween Revue

    Stages, a Children’s Theater Workshop will present “Frankenstein Follies,” a Halloween-themed musical revue for families, at the Bay Street Theatre tomorrow through Sunday.

    The cast includes 39 young local performers. Showtimes will be at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday with matinees at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

    Tickets cost $15 and include a carnival party following the show featuring face painting, a fake tattoo parlor, a creepy fortune teller, and a sweet treats bar.

Bash at CMEE

    The Children’s Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton will host a Halloween Bash tomorrow from 4 to 6 p.m. for kids 6 and under.

    There will be an indoor pumpkin patch bouncy castle, a glitter tattoo station, a mask-making workshop, scary stories, and treats for the kids, who are encouraged to go in costume. The party costs $17, but is free for members of the museum.

Calling All Ragamuffins!

    Costumed marchers will fill Main Street in Sag Harbor on Sunday during the annual Ragamuffin Parade. The parade will begin at 1 p.m. in the parking lot behind BookHampton and head down Main Street to the Custom House, whether there will be refreshments. The Whaling Museum, transformed into a “wailing museum” for Halloween, will be open for children’s tours later in the afternoon at a cost of $5.

    On Monday, kids can trick-or-treat along the “pumpkin trail,” on Main Street. An orange pumpkin face in a store window indicates that it is a participating business.

Open House

    The Ladies Village Improvement Society will host a Halloween party and open house for costumed kids on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. There will be candy treats and prizes, and the affair will be held rain or shine.

Boo, Too!

    Watch out for goblins on Saturday in Bridgehampton. The annual parade for children of the hamlet will start at the Hampton Library at 10:30 a.m. and proceed along Main Street. Parents have been asked to take only children who are 4 or older.

    According to the experts at Tuesday night’s East Hampton school board meeting, it’s going to cost somewhere in the vicinity of $100,000 to replace the ceilings in five classrooms and another small room at the middle school, where more problems came to light, literally, as ceiling tiles came crashing down during a mid-July weekend brownout.

    Brendan Broderick of the environmental firm J.C. Broderick and Associates explained to the board that heat and humidity caused some tiles affixed to the plaster by “glue dollops,” which contain asbestos, to loosen. They landed on the suspended ceiling, causing those tiles to fall as well.

    “All air samples came back clean,” said Mike Guido, the middle school architect, who spoke with Mr. Broderick. “The only thing hot is the glue, but it is not friable and does not readily come out.” Mr. Guido heads his own firm.

    Since the glue dollops contain asbestos, by law they have to be handled by a certified asbestos removal company, and that puts the cost of replacing the ceiling in those six rooms at approximately $71,000, with additional expected necessary work bringing the total to “just under $100,000,” said Eric Woellhof, the plant facilities administrator.

    The work would be performed by Branch Services - D.K.I., which offered the lowest bid to the board through the Board of Cooperative Education Services.

    “This would come out of the $320,000?” Alison Anderson, a board member, asked Isabel Madison, the district’s business administrator, referring to the reserve fund. Ms. Madison concurred, noting that an additional $650,000, part of the budget vote in May, would remain in the reserve.

    Also at the meeting, the board discussed a ceiling of another kind, the abolishment of the position of head clerk when Geri Fromm retires in mid-September. If that happens, then, for the time being, the highest position in the district would be principal clerk.

    The board reluctantly agreed to approve the superintendent’s recommendation. Initially, both Patricia Hope and Alison Anderson were opposed to the motion, “out of respect for the position,” said Ms. Anderson. Ms. Hope agreed. “It’s not a lot of bucks we’re talking about,” she said of the salary differential between principal clerk and head clerk.

    “Adam [Fine, the high school principal] has faith in this decision, we should respect it,” said Jacqueline Lowey, a board member. George Aman agreed. “This is a case of micromanagement,” he said. “This is a reasonable recommendation, it’s not gross mismanagement.”

    It was explained that keeping the civil service denomination of principal clerk while jettisoning head clerk would allow the board to hire from within the district, since there is currently no one locally who would be able to step into Ms. Fromm’s position. And, the board agreed, time is of the essence, so that Ms. Fromm can lead someone new through his or her paces before she retires on Sept. 19.

    “I know there are some bad feelings among the staff about this,” said Ms. Anderson, but she and Ms. Hope changed their votes after hearing that the job of principal clerk would allow them to “hire from inside,” said Kerri Stevens, the district clerk.