Positive Trends at Amagansett School

    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.