The Sag Harbor School District introduced a full-day prekindergarten program for the first time this year, receiving a glowing report card this week from school board members, educators, administrators, and parents.

“It’s so well rounded. It’s incredible,” said Jakki O’Neill, a mother of two, in a phone interview. She said her daughter, Lilah, is getting a solid foundation in letters, numbers, and other skills, and that she is thriving in general there. “The program that they are presenting is just phenomenal.”

Shortly before the school board voted to hire Kathy Masterson as its new athletic director, Joe Vas, East Hampton’s current athletic director, handed her a maroon-and-gray Bonac baseball cap — a symbolic passing of the torch.

A deep dive into expenses and revenues over the last four months culminated Tuesday night in the East Hampton School Board’s adoption of a $76.5-million budget plan for the 2022-23 school year.

The proposed budget adheres to New York State’s rules for tax-levy increases, with a 1.75-percent increase, for the tenth time over the 11 years that the tax cap has been in place. The district will need a simple majority of voter approval on May 17 for the budget to pass.

At precisely the moment last Thursday when the United States Senate voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, about 45 female students from nine East End high schools were gathered in the cafeteria of the Stony Brook University Southampton campus to learn about the roles of female elected officials in politics.