The following is a list of early dismissals and school closures. The list will be updated throughout the day as they are announced:

• The Amagansett School will close early on Monday at 11:30 a.m. Classes are canceled for Tuesday.

• Bridgehampton School students will be dismissed at 12:45 p.m. on Monday. The school will be closed on Tuesday, as well.

• East Hampton schools will have an early dismissal on Monday. East Hampton High School students will be dismissed at 1 p.m. East Hampton Middle School students will be dismissed at 1:15 p.m., and the John M. Marshall Elementary School will be dismissed at 1:45 p.m. In addition, the district be closed on Tuesday, with all classes canceled.

• The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in East Hampton will close at noon on Monday, and will also close on Tuesday. 

• Nursery students at the Green School in Sagaponack are being picked up early at 1 p.m. Classes have also be canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday.

• Montauk School students will be dismissed at 11:30 a.m., while prekindergarten students will be dismissed at 11 a.m. The school will also be closed Tuesday. Jack Perna, the district superintendent at Montauk, also noted that buses transporting students taking Regents exams at East Hampton High School would continue running so long as the high school remains open.

• Pierson Middle-High School students in Sag Harbor will be dismissed on Monday at noon and Sag Harbor Elementary School students will be dismissed at 12:45 p.m., with the afternoon prekindergarten class canceled. All after-school and evening activities are also postponed. Classes are canceled for Tuesday.

• At the Ross School, Upper School students will be dismissed at 11:30 a.m., with Lower School students dismissed at Noon. Classes are cancelled on Tuesday.

• The students at the Sagaponack School will be let out at 12:30 p.m., and it will stay shuttered on Tuesday.

• Springs School students will be dismissed at 11:30 a.m., with classes canceled on Tuesday.

• In Southampton, all students will be dismissed early today. Southampton High School will be dismissed at12:30 p.m., Southampton Intermediate School will be dismissed at 12:45 p.m., and Southampton Elementary School will be dismissed at 1:30 p.m. All schools will be closed on Tuesday

• The Wainscott School will send students home at 11:45 a.m. Classes are canceled on Tuesday.

Driving in the Town of Southampton is illegal after 7 p.m. on Monday, according to a state of emergency order issued by Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst ahead of the blizzard the South Fork is expecting.

The townwide state of emergency will go into effect at 7 p.m. East Hampton Village and Town are also under states of emergency, effective at 4 p.m., but those declarations didn't go so far as to prohibit driving, though avoiding roads was recommended.

In Southampton Town, however, driving other than in "emergency circumstances" will be illegal. "All vehicles must remain off all state, county, and town roads. No vehicles may be left parked on public or private streets," a press release from the town said. There was no immediate word on when the driving ban would be lifted.

Supervisor Throne-Holst also recommended that residents in low-lying areas or those without an adequate alternative to heat should consider evacuating their houses before the storm becomes a full-blown blizzard Monday evening. Southampton Town residents with special medical needs were asked to call 631-728-1235 before 5 p.m.

The non-emergency phone number to reach Southampton Town police is 631-728-3400. 

Meanwhile, Southampton Town Hall and other town facilities closed at 2 p.m. on Monday and will remain closed on Tuesday.

For additional information visit the town website at southamptontownny.gov or the town's Facebook page.

The Breakwater Yacht Club, somewhat of an institution in the Village of Sag Harbor, may have to fight more than wind to keep its sails up.

Village Mayor Brian Gilbride intimated that he thinks the club, a not-for-profit community sailing center founded in 1988, is in violation of its lease with the village, and that the club’s attempt to renew its lease may not be a simple process. Olaf Neubert, the club commodore, sent a letter to the board dated Dec. 23 informing the village that the club is electing “to exercise its option to renew its lease” for an additional 10 years as of June 1. The lease is for underwater and upland property, once owned by the Mobil corporation, and next to village property that was leased by the Sag Harbor Yacht Yard until recently. The yacht yard vacated that property when negotiations with the village broke down over a threatened lease increase.

The Breakwater Yacht Club leases its underwater and upland properties for a combined $3,000 a year, Mr. Gilbride said yesterday.

“I think that there are things in that lease that have to be looked at, and I don’t know that the village should enter into a 10-year agreement,” Mayor Gilbride said when Bruce Tait, a member of the club’s board of directors, approached the board on Tuesday night to ask why the lease was even up for discussion.

“I don’t think you have the right for that,” said Mr. Tait. A former chairman of the village’s harbor committee, he has butted heads with the mayor and was not reappointed to the position last year. He has since resigned from the committee.

“I think you’re wrong. Let me tell you something, I know you’re wrong,” Mr. Gilbride said. He warned Mr. Tait, “Before you get Breakwater in too much hot water I would stop right there, my friend.”

Mr. Tait said he was speaking as a resident of the village and not on behalf of the board of directors, though he urged the board to uphold the lease because the club, he said, has proven itself to be an integral part of the community, teaching thousands of kids how to sail over 20 years.

But, Mr. Gilbride seemed more interested in the use of the facility for non-water activities. “Who do they lease that place to?” Mr. Gilbride asked. Mr. Tait said the indoor space is rented out for memorials and weddings.

“If you deem Breakwater Yacht Club has broken its lease at any time, you could go after them any time,” Mr. Tait told him.

There was no discussion on the village board about the lease, and Mr. Gilbride said it would be discussed later, after Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney, reviewed the lease.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Gilbride said he wants to see the club continue to operate there and thinks it serves a good purpose. “My job is to protect the village,” he said, adding that a 10-year rider on a 20-year lease doesn’t protect the village. He would prefer to see two-year extensions, and if Breakwater has taken “certain liberties” and made money off the space, he wants to see that shared with the village.

A long-awaited project to bolster much of the downtown Montauk shoreline could be completed in two phases, with the first starting in the spring and the second perhaps delayed until 2016.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is seeking the East Hampton Town Board’s views on which part of the job to tackle first. The options are to either start with about 1,200 linear feet of sandbags at the eastern side of the eroded downtown section and work west to South Emerson Avenue or to protect the most vulnerable central area first and return to complete the east and west ends of the project later.

“This is going to be a work zone,” Kim Shaw, the town’s director of natural resources, told the town board during a meeting at the Montauk Firehouse on Tuesday. “There is a lot we have to work out if we are going to do a phased project,” she said.

The Army Corps plans to solicit bids for the work on March 1, with the contracts being awarded two weeks later, Ms. Shaw said.

Work on the Montauk beach would end by May 22 in time for the Memorial Day holiday, a town requirement that forced the project to be planned in stages.

The total budget for the 3,100-foot-long undertaking is now $8.9 million. East Hampton Town and Suffolk County would be responsible for maintainance costs, though Ms. Shaw said that just what that would entail has not been spelled out.

On Tuesday, Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby expressed doubts about the Army Corps’s request. “Why aren’t they recommending? They said that they had the best coastal geologists they could have. I want to hear the recommendation from their coastal engineers,” she said.

Ms. Overby asked whether estimates of the town and county’s expected costs to keep the sandbags buried might rise. “What risk do we have of it going away or to our taxpayers?”

“This is a big decision, and it’s a lot of money. Is the money going to change? Are we in for more money?” Ms. Overby asked.

Councilman Fred Overton said he could see a slight advantage to starting with the eastern side of the project first, as beaches tend to rebuild in the spring and summer. However he said he was conflicted and unable to make a recommendation.

In the end, the board did not offer an opinion on the options Ms. Shaw presented.

After a November storm, the Army Corps’s estimates for the scale of the work increased. While the 3,100-footspan did not grow, the volume of sand that would be needed did, rising to 76,000 cubic yards purchased at an upland mine to fill 14,000 plastic fabric bags and another 26,000 cubic yards stockpiled from an on-site excavation that would be used to cover the sandbags.

The Army Corps has estimated that the annual cost to the town and county would be $157,000 once the entire project is complete.

The corps characterized that yearly cost as relatively high because the sandbags would have to remain covered to protect them from degradation from sunlight, vandalism, and debris impact that could tear the fabric. In addition, it said in a project document, “Unlike typical beachfill projects, the dune is not protected by a wide design berm. As a result the dune is vulnerable to erosion during storm events.”

According to the Army Corps, the cost for mined sand is about $35 a cubic yard. If the town and county had to pay to replace all of the 26,000 yards of sand to keep the bags covered, the material bill would be about $910,000 alone.

More costs could come later, because the town and county would be responsible for removing the sandbags and disposing them without releasing the roughly 71,000 cubic yards of fill within into the environment, according to an Army Corps project description. No estimate for this has been publicly discussed, however, the effort has been characterized as temporary, pending the beginning of work on the far larger Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Project.

A Suffolk legislator, Al Krupski, who represents the North Fork, has expressed his opposition to the cost-sharing plan. In a Dec. 29 letter to the Suffolk Department of Public Works he called for specifics about the project from the Army Corps. He was the sole legislator to vote against the arrangement when it was authorized in October.

“This is not a financial liability the county needs to attach itself to because the future costs are immeasurable,” Mr. Krupski wrote.

Mr. Krupski also expressed opposition to the characterization of the sandbag project as a benign “soft” solution to the erosion problem there. “I believe Suffolk County should not endorse a project that hardens the shoreline. This is a project that one, is sure to fail and cause accelerated erosion to adjacent properties, and two, puts the maintenance on the shoulders of the taxpayers of the entire county,” he wrote.

A key easement agreement with a private condominium owner that is required for the beach project to move forward has yet to be finalized, said Alex Walter, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell’s assistant. He expected that the documents could be completed by a Feb. 1 deadline.

At their first meeting of 2015, East Hampton Town Trustees pondered whether to transfer the lease of a tenant at Lazy Point, Amagansett, whose house is threatened by erosion, as well as larger questions about Lazy Point leases. The trustees, who own and manage common lands in much of the town on behalf of the public, picked up where they left off last year as the issue of Susan Knobel’s Shore Road house was revisited.

Ms. Knobel is seeking to move her house to a nearby site, also on the waterfront side of Shore Road but at a significantly higher elevation than her present lot. The move would require a natural resources special permit and variance relief from the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.

Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, gave a qualified thumbs-up to the proposal. “If this application came in for a natural resources special permit, the Planning Department would not object to the relocation from where the house is now to these lots,” he said, adding, however, that “it is a sensitive area” andthat there “probably are” more suitable locations.

There are wetlands to the north and south of the proposed relocation, Mr. Frank told the trustees, and it might be wise to modify the proposed placement of a new septic system. “It is absolutely a sensitive area,” he repeated. “It’s a poor candidate for more intense development than a house. Despite elevations, because of the proximity of wetlands, it’s a bad lot to do that, but considering where things are now. . . .”

The shoreline in front of Ms. Knobel’s house is fortified by sandbags and rocks, but the house is dangerously close to water even when the seas are calm. “Obviously, sea level is rising,” Mr. Frank said. “It’s going to affect this area over time.”

Some trustees remained skeptical of the move, voicing concern about disturbing a new area along the eroding shoreline. Moving the house, however, would allow the restoration of Ms. Knobel’s present lot to its natural state. Difficult management decisions lay ahead, Mr. Frank said. “Those are the Planning Department’s comments. You’re welcome to ignore them as much as the zoning board does.”

Ms. Knobel, who has attended most of the trustees’ meetings over the last year, asked Diane McNally, the clerk, if the trustees now had enough information to render a decision. “We are thinking about it,” was the reply. “Okay, Sue, we’re going to take the information we got tonight and mull it over.”

Brian Byrnes, a trustee, said a decision could come as soon as the body’s next meeting.

As it was their first meeting of the year, the trustees debated whether to update fee schedules for moorings, docks, fish traps, duck blinds, vessel permits, and other structures and activities on land under their jurisdiction. Also debated were terms of the Lazy Point leases. Presently, tenants pay $1,500 per year per for their waterfront lot.

Ms. McNally suggested calling a meeting of a committee that includes trustees and Lazy Point residents to consider potential increases to lease rates. Deborah Klughers, a trustee, said “the whole community should weigh in,” as the land is public property, “and the public entails people all the way from Montauk to Wainscott.”

With that, the trustees voted to rescind a resolution they had just passed authorizing the clerk and assistant clerk to execute ongoing leases with Lazy Point residents. The Lazy Point committee, Ms. McNally said, will determine any new rules and regulations and submit them in writing to the tenants and public.

“We will table Lazy Point leases for the purposes of this motion,” said the clerk. Any new terms will have to be decided upon by March, when new leases, with rules and regulations, are sent to the tenants.

Stony Brook University Hospital and Southampton Hospital are moving forward with long-awaited plans to merge, following a unanimous vote on Monday by the board of trustees of the State University of New York in favor of enabling the hospitals to work together more closely. The hospitals had signed a non-binding letter of intent to affiliate in August of 2012.

Although several regulatory hurdles remain to be cleared, which are expected to take six months to a year, administrators will now be able to focus on fund-raising for a planned $225 million hospital at the Stony Brook University Southampton campus. Its completion is estimated to be at least three to five years away.

Robert S. Chaloner, Southampton Hospital president and chief executive officer, said by phone Tuesday that the merger is “not just about that hospital. It’s really about building a network of services across the region.”

Mr. Chaloner said the average patient might not notice an immediate change, but that Southampton’s medical staff would be strengthened as its 125-bed facility integrates with Stony Brook.

“Things should be easier in terms of numbers of doctors,” Mr. Chaloner said, pointing to the periodic shortages and challenges Southampton has faced in recruiting and retaining medical staff.

He said the Southampton Hospital board wants to increase and strengthen services in the Town of East Hampton, pointing to the need for a bigger satellite facility or “a more robust urgent care facility” with more radiology and lab testing. The existing East Hampton Urgent Care facility doesn’t offer CT scanning or M.R.I. (magnetic resonance imaging) services. “I live in East Hampton myself, and I know what people are feeling out there,” he said.

“I really envision a core facility and then a series of smaller facilities,” he said. “We can then scale the hospital here appropriately.”

Some integration has already begun. A family practice residency program, for example, was introduced at Southampton after Stony Brook and Southampton signed the letter of intent.

Southampton Hospital will operate under Stony Brook’s state operating license, and Southampton’s employees will continue to work under their current labor agreement.

There are advantages to being a partof a bigger health care system, Mr. Chaloner said. His hope is that some Southampton patients, like those experiencing a stroke, who may have had to be transferred to Stony Brook for more advanced care, will now be able to be treated closer to home as clinical expertise rises.

“For a little community hospital to stand alone going into the future with technology and regulatory pressures, it is going to be increasingly difficult,” he said.

Correction: Southampton Hospital will operate under Stony Brook’s state operating certificate, and Southampton Hospital's employees will remain Southampton's employees. An earlier version reported the hospital would not operate under Stony Brook's license, and that Stony Brook would employ Southampton's employees.

Update, 2 p.m.: Amagansett School's lockout was just lifted. 

Originally, 1:30 p.m.: Three schools to the west are dealing with threats on Thursday. While East Hampton police have been made aware of the situations in Southampton and Riverhead, Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said there are no threats in East Hampton. 

However, Amagansett School went into lockout mode on Thursday, it would appear as a precaution. Calls there were not immediately returned.

The Southampton Village Police Department informed East Hampton police officials of a lockout situation, and they were also notified of reported bomb threats made at Bishop-McGann Mercy High School in Riverhead and in the Riverhead School District, Chief Sarlo said. "We notified all schools in the town of the situation and as of now we have not been notified of any specific threats here in East Hampton," he said.

The East Hampton School District office said that no added precautions were being taken Thursday.

Scott Farina, the superintendent of schools in Southampton, posted a notice on the district's website after a threat was phoned in to the high school earlier Thursday. The three school buildings were put on lockout status, meaning no one could go in or out, for the rest of the day, and police closed down roads around the school to block access to the building. High school students were to be dismissed just after 2 p.m. "In addition, out of an abundance of caution, all after-school and evening activities districtwide are canceled," Mr. Farina wrote.

RiverheadLocal reported that no bomb was found at Mercy High School Thursday afternoon, and that police are investigating the bomb threat at Riverhead High School. Mercy also received a bomb threat on Wednesday. Students have been dismissed early.

With Reporting By Amanda Fairbanks 

Business owners and their representatives spoke out against proposed amendments to the East Hampton Village lighting code during a hearing on Friday.

Among the changes would be limits on commercial interior lighting and outside "wall washing" by upturned spotlights.

In his first meeting since taking a leave of absence for medical reasons in November, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., along with his colleagues on the board, listened as one merchant after another complained about what they said were onerous rules that would compromise safety and security and be a financial burden.

The changes were drafted to address light trespass, eliminate lighting deemed needless, maintain the village's rural character, and save energy through new technology and reduced use. But Monte Farber, the first person to address the village board during Friday's hearing, spoke for most of his peers when he said, "From every aspect as store owner, I am against this motion."

Mr. Farber, who owns the Enchanted World Emporium at 8 Main Street, next to Rowdy Hall restaurant, worried about what he said would be "a safety issue in our little mews there. It's hard enough to walk there already. Someone's going to get mugged." As a jewelry store owner, he also worried about a break-in that would not be detected.

"I'm also worried for you all," Mr. Farber told the board, "because if somebody falls and the reason is because there's no light, and it can be shown that there was no light because of this motion, they're going to come after the village."

David Eagan, an attorney, spoke against the law on behalf of Ben and Bonnie Krupinski, who own several restaurants and retail properties. His clients, he said, thought that the concept of unnecessary lighting was extreme. "Slow down, reassess it, come up with a more balanced process," he advised the board.

Anthony DeVivio, the managing director for Halstead Property at 2 Newtown Lane, told the board that his building had been vandalized on Sunday evening when two or three people had accessed the roof and written "Satan is Waiting" on the building's exterior wall. "And now you're asking us to turn all the lights off in the village," he said. "This is an absolute security risk."

Mayor Rickenbach, along with Village Trustees Richard Lawler, Bruce Siska, and Elbert Edwards, said that nothing has been decided. "The board supports the general intent" of the proposed legislation, he said, "but you folks here today, mostly in opposition, have raised some valid points."

"Nobody's trying to blindside anybody," Mr. Lawler said. "We have to have some sort of a template. Obviously, quite a few people are unhappy with that." The legislation, he said, was a work in progress.

Mr. Rickenbach said that the hearing would remain open and public comment on the proposed lighting rules changes will be accepted until the board's Feb. 5 work session.

Two people were injured when the driver of a Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle fell asleep and it struck two poles on Route 114 on Sunday morning, Sag Harbor Fire Chief James Frazier said.

The Fire Department and Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps were called to the area of 765 Route 114, near the Forever Bungalows, at 6:21 a.m. Chief Frazier said the S.U.V. did not roll over, but there was "quite a bit of damage to the right front" of the vehicle. The airbags had deployed.

The driver and passenger were taken to Southampton Hospital. Their conditions were not yet released.

The Mercedes had been headed toward East Hampton from Sag Harbor, Chief Frazier said. The road was closed for a short period of time. One of the poles was destroyed, and it was being replaced midmorning. 

Late last week, New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced an agreement with East Hampton and six other school districts in Suffolk and Westchester Counties intended to expand access to educational opportunities for English language learners.

In Suffolk County, the Amityville, East Hampton, Greenport, Hampton Bays, Patchogue-Medford, and Riverhead School Districts have agreed to implement new policies and procedures aimed at increasing communication between parents and school officials. In Westchester County, the Mount Vernon City School District pledged to make similar changes.

In February of last year, in response to complaints from parents and immigrant-rights advocates in Suffolk County, the attorney general's civil rights bureau opened an inquiry to examine policies and procedures at several school districts enrolling the highest percentages of English language learners. Elizabeth DeBold, a spokeswoman for Mr. Schneiderman, declined to discuss specific complaints related to each district, but said that all served significant English language learner populations that made up 12 to 16 percent or more of the student bodies.

According to the 2012-13 New York State Report Card (the most recent available), 43 percent of East Hampton's roughly 1,800 students, were Latino. On Friday, Richard Burns, the East Hampton superintendent, said that more than half of the current freshman class at East Hampton High School is Latino.

"Because we're over a certain threshold, they want to make sure our procedures are in place," explained Mr. Burns. "It makes it seem like we had a corrective action, but that wasn't the intent."

Last fall, Long Island saw a surge of 2,500 unaccompanied immigrant children enrolling in public schools, with dozens barred from enrolling due to insufficient documentation. According to Mr. Burns, so far at least, such unaccompanied minors have not enrolled in East Hampton.

Still, ensuring equal access has proved an ongoing concern, particularly as the number of Latino children has risen in recent years.

"Our schools must provide students with the tools and resources to succeed regardless of English proficiency or where they came from," Attorney General Schneiderman said in a statement. "My office is proud to work collaboratively with school districts to ensure that language barriers will not stand in the way of students obtaining a quality education, and that students and their families understand the services that are available to them."

According to recent United States Census data, approximately 2.5 million New Yorkers speak a primary language other than English. Such changing demographics of student populations have caused English language learners to face barriers when accessing school services, including the denial of timely screenings and appropriate services.

Going forward, such districts will be required to comply with certain procedures. Such students must be properly screened for language ability when registering, with parental notifications provided in the family's native language on issues related to student placement, bilingual programs, and special education services. In addition, parents must be offered the use of interpreting services during school functions, with translated materials also available on each district's website. Finally, beyond those guidelines set by the State Education Department, families cannot face barriers to entry when attempting to enroll their children in school.

Each district must also supply periodic updates to the Attorney General's office regarding the implementation and strengthening of each policy, as well as the training of staff members and district personnel.

Cheryl Keshner, coordinator of the Long Island Language Advocates Coalition, a nonprofit dedicating to combating unequal access, applauded such changes. "When schools fail to meet the language needs of limited English proficient students and parents who are unable to read documents and important materials regarding their education, students are denied meaningful educational opportunity."

Ms. Keshner urged parents experiencing any difficulties to contact the attorney general's complaint line at 212-416-8250. Online complaint forms are also available.