Education

East Hampton School District administrators and board members continued poring over their proposed 2020-21 spending plan on Tuesday, deciding to add some new, one-time expenses for the middle school.     

Educators, parents, students, employers, and community members have been invited to a series of regional meetings hosted by the New York State Board of Regents, which oversees public education, as part of the board’s new review of high school graduation requirements.  

The John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor is offering Mandarin lessons for children ages 5 to 8 beginning on Saturday.

The New York State Education Department has postponed making a final call on new rules that would give public schools more oversight into the educational offerings of private and parochial schools after thousands of people across the state criticized the proposal.     

Lily Mongan, a graduate of the Amagansett School, has spent most of her high school career abroad, learning languages and dreaming of one day being accepted at Oxford University in England. Her dream has come true.       

Tomorrow at 4 p.m. for Black History Month, the library will show “A Ballerina’s Tale,” a documentary about Misty Copeland, the first African-American to be named principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre.

The show opens on Friday, Feb. 28, with other performances on Saturday, Feb. 29, at 7 p.m., and on Sunday, March 1, at 2 p.m.

Guild Hall has named the high school competition winners of its annual student art show, which this year had a theme — “made by water” — for the first time.

Schools may be closed next week, but that doesn’t mean parents get the week off. With that in mind, East Hampton Town, the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, Project Most, and Bay Street Theater each have school break offerings to keep kids busy for at least part of the workday.     

East Hampton School Board members agreed this week that a number of badly needed renovations should be included in the 2020-21 school budget, which the board officially began discussing on Tuesday night.     

The pediatric flu season this year is shaping up to be an intense one, with local schools reporting dozens of confirmed cases of sick children being kept at home.

Brandon Broderick, a geologist and the president of a company that tested soil at the Sag Harbor Learning Center, put to rest school board members’ worries over arsenic contamination during a Jan. 27 meeting of the board.

In East Hampton, educators are getting ready to expand a pilot kindergarten program in which half the school day is taught in English and half in Spanish, citing success better than they could have projected.

Samantha Prince has been named the East Hampton High School class of 2020 valedictorian, and Wells Woolcott has been named the class salutatorian.

The South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton will introduce children to some of their interesting insect neighbors during an arts and crafts program on Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

Milton Creagh, a motivational speaker and the author of the book “Nobody Wants Your Child,” has some life lessons to share.

The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in East Hampton is about to celebrate a milestone, and to help tell its story the center is searching for people who were involved in its very early days.

Too many financial factors were up in the air for the Springs School District to be able to present a draft during a 2020-21 budget workshop on Monday, school officials said.

The Amagansett School is building its 2020-2021 budget around the possibility that 30 new students will arrive — 15 in the school itself and 15 older children in the East Hampton School District — once the Gansett Meadow affordable housing complex just down the road is completed.     

Monday through Friday, Feb. 7, has been designated the first Waste-Free Lunch Week at the East Hampton Middle School. Students in the school’s Surfrider chapter and student government club are encouraging their peers to trade single-use plastics and packaging for reusable versions when they take their lunches to school.

The goal, according to Charlie Soriano, the principal, is to experiment with “making small changes over the long term.” He called it “an excellent idea on their part.”

A first draft of the Bridgehampton School District’s proposed 2020-21 budget is about $700,000 over what New York State’s cap on tax levy increases would allow, according to information released during a Jan. 22 school board meeting.

Katy Graves, whose last official day as the Sag Harbor School District superintendent was Jan. 6, has been named as the new executive director of the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in East Hampton.

It’s been two years since the Bridgehampton School established a career and technical diploma track in agriculture, and students in the program now hope to hatch a new animal science program to go along with it.

With a plan they have dubbed “the Hen Hive,” the students want to build a coop and raise chickens.

From curious third graders taking their first steps into science to seasoned seventh and eighth graders winning ribbons with sophisticated experiments, the Montauk School’s annual science fair on Friday was a journey into the minds of children.

The Wait Until 8th effort is banking on parents signing on and spreading the word. “By banding together, this will decrease the pressure felt by kids and parents alike over the kids having a smartphone,” it says.

Project Most, the nonprofit that has partnered with the East Hampton Neighborhood House to expand its after-school activities for children, will have open house hours at the Neighborhood House today and Sunday to familiarize parents and kids with its programs.

Project Most runs after-school programs at the Springs School and John M. Marshall Elementary School and this month began offering Saturday programming at the Neighborhood House for children in prekindergarten through fifth grade.

The Hampton Music Educators Association’s annual high school music concert will be held Saturday night, bringing together hundreds of talented students at the Eastport-South Manor High School. More information is online at hamptonmea.org.

Katy Graves, whose last official day as the Sag Harbor School District superintendent was Jan. 6, was named as the new executive director of the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in East Hampton.

A group of parents of Sagaponack School students spent the last several years lobbying the school board to add Bridgehampton as a choice for children in prekindergarten and in fourth grade and up. Their campaign has yielded the outcome they had hoped for.     

“Let’s get together as one, support each other, and create action plans so we can move forward and have an impact on our community,” Bonnie Michelle Cannon, the executive director of the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center, told a crowd of more than 200 people before a screening of “Just Mercy” on Saturday at the Regal Cinema in East Hampton.