Recent Stories: Education

    Two candidates are running for one five-year term on the Montauk School Board. The open seat is being vacated by Therese Watson after 29 years. The candidates, Lee White and Honora Herlihy, both have children in the school.

    Despite months of haggling over line items in East Hampton School District budget workshops — and more than $1 million in cuts — Tuesday night’s public hearing on next year’s $64.2 million budget was docile. Though the school board normally convenes in the district office, the hearing was relocated to the high school library in anticipation of a larger crowd, but few members of the public turned out. Even fewer spoke up.

    The Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has selected nine graduate students as Andrew Sabin International Environmental Fellows, with each to receive up to $40,000 for postgraduate work.
    The Andrew Sabin Family Foundation created the Sabin Fellowship program at Yale in 2011 to provide scholarship support for students from developing countries, and to provide additional postgraduate awards to those students returning to their home countries. 

    The Sag Harbor Elementary School will have an open house on Monday at 6:30 p.m. The evening, whose theme is “a celebration of our children,” will include classroom visits and tours of the school’s gymnasium, computer room, music room, art room, science lab, and library.

    Student-led instrumental and vocal groups will provide entertainment. Guides will be available and tour groups will assemble for school district residents whose children do not currently attend the school.

    The three-member board of the tiny Wainscott School voted unanimously last week to adopt a $3,458,857 budget for the 2013-14 school year. No members of the public were present.
    The proposed budget includes a $45,603 decrease in spending from last year’s $3.5 million. The proposed tax levy is $2,706,957.

    Since the East Hampton School District suspended three bus drivers and two mechanics in February, rumors and accusations have run rampant. Now, with two of the bus drivers opting for public disciplinary hearings, which began Tuesday, the district’s reasons and counter claims are coming out.

   The Montauk School Board learned on Tuesday that Lee White and Honora Herlihy have filed the required petitions to run for five-year terms on the board. Each is a parent of two young children.
    Ms. Herlihy is the former owner of the Montauk Carriage House, which she recently sold. Mr. White is a member of the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals and has worked at the Harvest on Fort Pond restaurant for many years.

    It’s budget season, and the Springs School Board has voted unanimously to adopt a $25.4 million budget for the 2013-14 school year.
    Next year’s proposed budget includes a tax levy increase of 1.3 percent and a projected tax rate increase of 3.37 percent over last year. By comparison, last year’s $24.6 million budget included a 2.97 percent increase in the tax levy and a 3.19-percent increase in the tax rate, based on the previous year’s budget.

   After weeks of tears, tension, and tumult, Tuesday night’s meeting of the East Hampton School Board seemed tame.
    Following months of line-item budget workshops, during which board members sparred over the cost of sheet cakes and field trips, all seven of them voted to adopt a $64,238,501 budget for the coming school year.

    All this week, students in grades three through eight at the Montauk School will be taking part in the newly controversial state assessment tests. In his weekly newsletter, Jack Perna, the district superintendent, asked teachers to go easy on homework assignments. “Please!” he wrote.
    The school board has been considering becoming part of a larger, statewide effort by teachers, other schools, and parents to boycott the testing, saying it was too much for the students and not a good gauge of their knowledge.

    The East Hampton School Board is looking to slice nearly $1 million from the 2013-14 district budget it first reviewed this year, but despite the cuts, the proposed $64.2 million budget as it stands would represent a 2.21-percent increase over this year’s and would include a proposed 5.53-percent tax-rate increase.
    The 2012-13 budget, by comparison, brought a tax-rate increase of 3.18 percent.

    After two years of legal back and forth, more than two-dozen employees at Springs School have a collective bargaining agreement with the district. It was approved unanimously on Monday at a meeting of the Springs Board Education. Each member of the Civil Service Employees Association had similarly voted in favor of passage.