Education

The East Hampton School District officially broke ground last week on its new transportation hub at the town's former scavenger waste site on Springs-Fireplace Road. The 10,800-square-foot facility will serve as a parking, maintenance, and fueling depot for most of the district's 37 school buses. It will also feature classroom space for a new student program in auto mechanics.

Eric Casale, who was principal of the Springs School for 15 years until his resignation in December, received a settlement worth $300,000 from the district last month following a leave of absence that began in August.

Michael Henery, the Springs School's business administrator, announced this week that the district will adhere to the state-imposed cap on tax levy increases in its 2021-22 spending plan, rather than push to pierce the cap with a supermajority of voter approval of the budget in May.

The Bridgehampton School District last week unveiled a rough draft of next year's school budget. Having been heavily affected by the pandemic, the district now has a lot of homework to do, school officials said.

Students in the Bridgehampton School's film and media class have produced a video tour of the newly expanded school, which has more than doubled in size since the start of the district's $29.4 million construction project last year.

The Eastern Long Island Academy of Applied Technology, which is operated by the Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, will have online open house days for high school programs on Wednesday and next Thursday.

Jeff Nichols, the Sag Harbor School District superintendent, reported Thursday that there is actually evidence of school-related transmission in these two cases — an unusual finding given that that has not been the case in most other school districts on the South Fork.

The New York Hysterical Society will host another round of comedy classes for children ages 10 to 16 in February through the Southampton Cultural Center.

The Montauk School Board took action on Tuesday on two fronts: an ongoing building project that will see its decades-old portable classrooms replaced with new ones, and setting up the potential to use the school as a Covid-19 vaccine distribution site.

The pandemic, the 2020 election, the former President Trump's impeachments, Supreme Court appointments, the Capitol riot -- these events are the kind of stuff that history textbooks are made of. But today's students aren't waiting for it all to be written down before they study it in the classroom. Many are watching and learning as history unfolds before their eyes, often in a controversial way.

In collaboration with the John Jermain Memorial Library, the donation allowed the school to buy more than 125 books promoting "a better understanding of people, how others live, and cultures other than our own," said Betty Reynoso, the assistant principal, who co-chairs the school district's diversity and inclusion committee.

Costs are rising for retirement plans, Medicare reimbursements for current retirees, and compensation for employees who opt out of the district's health insurance plan, according to Jennifer Buscemi, the school business administrator.