The first day of school for Bridgehampton students is now Monday, Sept. 14, after the school board voted this week to alter the calendar.
"That's giving us more time to prepare for the opening," Robert Hauser, the Bridgehampton superintendent, said this week.
To accommodate the change, a staff conference day originally planned for November was moved to Sept. 10 -- which was to have been the original start of classes -- and a previously allotted inclement weather day will be exchanged for a day off on Sept. 11.
Bridgehampton's students in kindergarten through sixth grade will return to school in person this year, with a remote option, while students in grades seven through 12 will learn virtually. Depending on the completion of the district's expansive renovation and construction project, Mr. Hauser said, children in the seventh and eighth grades may return after Oct. 1 if five of the new classrooms are finished.
"We're managing by finding every little nook and cranny, so to speak, for staff to work plus classroom space. We're fine, kindergarten to sixth," Mr. Hauser said.
Construction crews are now working night shifts in the main Bridgehampton building so their work and noise do not interfere with teaching and learning.
The district has also abandoned a plan to erect five tents after the New York State Education Department handed them a list of requirements including full electricity and handicap access for each tent. "For those two things alone, the cost was prohibitive," Mr. Hauser said. "We don't even think we have the electrical capacity to run separate power to five tents. We made a decision to not do that."