Education

The Springs School’s upcoming budget vote was the focus of an April 28 school board meeting, but before talk turned to that, the Journalism Club wanted to talk to the board and the community about how important the club is to them and why it matters so much.

Test scores unveiled Tuesday by East Hampton School District administrators show that in 2023, students in the Advanced Placement program made up for, and even surpassed, the decline in performance that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic, posting results that on average also surpassed their peers across the U.S. and the world.

The Amagansett Library and East Hampton Library have programs coming up for kids curious about wildlife. Plus: A grandparents play date at CMEE, junior lifeguarding, baking lessons, skateboarding, and more coming up for kids and teens.

Small class sizes, extracurriculars, and sports are potentially in danger of being lost at Springs, the South Fork school district that stands out for shouldering an unusually heavy burden, as home to a large concentration of school-age kids while simultaneously having a pinched tax base and fewer taxable businesses. Its 2024-25 spending plan, carrying an over-the-tax-cap increase, needs at least 60 percent voter approval to pass — and there's a lot at stake.

Myriad rising costs are impacting the bottom line in the East Hampton School District, where, for the first time in a decade, and only the second time in the history of New York State’s cap on tax-levy increases, the district is seeking voter approval for an over-the-tax-cap budget plan.

School districts in Bridgehampton, Wainscott, and Sagaponack have formally adopted spending plans for the 2024-25 school year, paving the way for community voting on May 21 and public hearings next week and the week after.

Adriano Rangel, a junior who was East Hampton’s delegate to the Angelo Del Toro Puerto Rican/Hispanic Youth Leadership Institute in Albany, is also one of just seven delegates chosen to attend a similar program, the Somos Conference in Puerto Rico, in November.

“I’ve definitely had to answer questions” about the 2024-25 school budget proposal, Joshua Odom, Montauk’s superintendent, said in explaining the strange situation the district came up against this year — the discovery, by a school board member, that taxpayers were accidentally overcharged last year by approximately $56 per thousand dollars of assessed value. The solution? A tax credit for Montauk homeowners.

The Montauk Library will cut the ribbon Saturday on its new tween room, a space devoted to the needs of students in fifth through eighth grades. Plus: coding for kids, community service events, book clubs, crafts, movies, and more for kids and teens.

Taking risks can be scary and overwhelming, but Emily O’Reilly, the eighth-grade English teacher at Springs School, showed students that taking risks can be worth it. Recently, she “walked the walk,” so to speak, when she entered a poetry contest she saw posted in a local newspaper.

Public hearings have been scheduled in each school district ahead of the May 21 budget vote. See when your district's hearing is.

The unexpected resignation of Kevin Warren, who was appointed to fill a board vacancy in October 2019 and was elected to a full term last year, means that a school board race that would have been contested is now technically uncontested in Amagansett.