Education

Liz Joyce, the founder of the nonprofit Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre, is getting ready to launch new programs in the spring. With help from fellow puppeteers, she’ll be able to take the show on the road to bring the art of puppetry to a wider audience.

Sewing, textile printing, and rope jumping are among the fun activities on tap this week with Project Most at the Neighborhood House in East Hampton.

"When a child doesn't know how to read, we teach them how to read," Christine Cleary, the Springs School principal, said during Tuesday's school board meeting. "When a child doesn't know how to multiply, we teach them how to multiply. When a child doesn't know how to behave, we punish them. We have to teach them how to behave."

Children on the autism spectrum or who have sensory processing disorders will get a special welcome at the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton on Saturday morning.

Now that children 5 to 11 are eligible to receive Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine — the first that has been approved for pediatric administration in the United States — medical professionals and government officials here and across Long Island are quickly putting plans in place to meet families' needs.

At a Nov. 3 school board meeting, Adam Fine, the district superintendent, announced that student enrollment numbers were up in all three of the schools.

Middle schoolers interested in taking on some babysitting work can learn about the job and the skills needed to do it responsibly during a three-hour course at the East Hampton Library on Saturday.

Cullen and Danowski, an accounting firm that reviews finances for many school districts in New York State, has given the Sag Harbor School District the highest possible rating — called an "unmodified opinion" — on its audit of last year's operations.

With pandemic restrictions easing up for schools, students have begun taking field trips once again. For Springs School kids, that meant trips to Louse Point and Landing Lane for A Day in the Life of the Peconic Estuary on Oct. 22 with the Peconic Estuary Partnership. The annual outing returned after a Covid-19 hiatus last year. Students took part in various water quality testing activities. They measured environmental data such as wind speed and categorized marine life they found in the shallows.

Having previously raised questions over changes to a nearly $23 million renovation and expansion project, the Springs School Board heard some good news on Tuesday night.

A project at least two years in the works, further delayed by Covid-19, the brand-new library media center has finally come to fruition.

For more than 30 years, children at the Sag Harbor Elementary School have started their days with "morning program" — a spirited schoolwide assembly featuring music, birthday shout-outs, presentations, and news of their peers' achievements. The daily tradition fell by the wayside during the pandemic, but it has now returned in a modified format.

Halloween is two days away. From traditional trick-or-treating to library events and festivals, kids and teens have plenty of fun things to do.

The Springs School Board has moved its monthly meetings and work sessions from Monday nights to Tuesday nights. The first meeting reflecting the change will be this week.

Russell Huber, who has refereed scholastic athletic contests in New York State since 1969, has always preferred that the players, not he, get the attention. But at the Springs School on Sept. 27, it was the other way around.

East Hampton High School's athletics program has been recognized by the Aspen Institute's Reimagining School Sports Initiative as the winner of the small suburban schools category. The award comes with a $20,000 grant, the district announced.

In a move expected to save money and solve problems created by construction delays, the East Hampton School District this week reached a new lease agreement with the owners of the property at 41 Route 114, where the district has had its bus depot for more than a decade.

Fire trucks, payloaders, ambulances, dump trucks, tractors. These will be some of the stars of Big Truck Day at the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton on Saturday.

The Springs and Amagansett School Districts have earned good grades on their finances from the EFPR Group, an independent auditing firm that evaluated both over the summer.

It's happening now in local public schools: Dismayed by their long eastbound commutes and other issues, teachers and other key employees have been resigning from their jobs, leaving schools strapped for the help they need to cover classes and keep things running smoothly.

The 80 children in fourth grade at the Springs School will once again write, produce, and perform the annual opera, which was canceled last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A student who brought a BB gun to East Hampton High School on Thursday was "immediately removed" from campus by administrators and a town police resource officer.

Of the 281 cases of Covid-19 reported by East End public schools from the start of the school year through Oct. 8, about 81 percent have been diagnosed in students, according to the School Covid Report Card, an online database that tracks cases in schools.

However, some school officials reported this week that there is no evidence that those students are contracting the virus in the classrooms, cafeterias, or hallways, and that the local communities’ vaccination rates, which are higher than in other parts of Long Island, are having a noticeable impact.

For high school students and their families looking toward college, virtual programs to be offered through local libraries on Wednesday evening are aimed at understanding and navigating the admissions and merit scholarship application processes.

Coming up for kids and teens: seasonal fun, sports and dance activities, movies, and ways to enjoy the great outdoors.

Having closed its doors in June after the Sag Harbor School District expanded its prekindergarten offerings to a full-day program, the Rainbow School has now donated its furniture, books, arts and crafts supplies, and other learning materials to the school district. The Quogue Wildlife Refuge, Goat on a Boat Puppet Theater, and the Hamptons Art Camp also received a portion of the donations.

Small sums are adding up to big worries at the Springs School, where a major construction and renovation project has been getting glowing reviews from many people amid its final stages of work. On Monday night, however, "many" did not include the members of the school board.

The Ross School has appointed as its interim head of school a veteran administrator whose previous employment at a private school system in Chicago was marked by a no-confidence vote by the faculty he led.

The East Hampton School District has passed its annual audit with flying colors. During a school board meeting on Tuesday, its auditor, Jeffrey Jones of the EFPR Group, said the district had earned an "unmodified opinion," the best possible outcome.

School spirit will be on display next week at East Hampton High School, where Spirit Week festivities begin on Tuesday.