A shared special education program being developed by the East Hampton, Amagansett, Springs, and Montauk School Districts is slated to be open for the 2026-27 school year on the Springs campus, according to Nancy Carney, that district’s superintendent.
The topic was discussed last month as superintendents gathered at an Eastern Suffolk Board of Cooperative Educational Services meeting to discuss ongoing regionalization efforts. Joshua Odom, the Montauk principal and superintendent, and Adam Fine, the East Hampton superintendent, presented the idea to their respective school boards last month. Right now some children with special needs ride the bus all the way to the BOCES programs in Westhampton Beach. “This can often be a 90-minute bus ride in each direction due to traffic,” Ms. Carney said by email Tuesday afternoon.
The program could be housed in the Springs Youth Association building on the Springs campus, now used for the district’s prekindergarten program. “We are currently in the planning phase,” Ms. Carney said.
The district’s prekindergarten students could be brought into the main school building for the 2026-27 school year, a move made possible because enrollment in the perennially crowded district is “decreasing a bit,” Ms. Carney said.
An enrollment report presented at a school board meeting on March 11 shows the school population down slightly over all. On March 21, 2024, for instance, there were 724 students in the district, whereas on March 7 of this year there were 624.
Last year there were 60 children enrolled in the school’s pre-K program, and as of March 7 of this year that number had decreased to 37.
Also according to the report, enrollment has decreased among the first, second, third, sixth, and eighth grades, while it has increased for the current kindergarten, fourth, and seventh grades. It has remained steady in the fifth grade since last year.
The S.Y.A. building is also used for East Hampton Town’s summer recreation program, but Ms. Carney said the district and the town are looking together at the best place to rehouse that program. “Using our building would be a possibility,” she said.
Developing the new local program will be quite the undertaking, but it is something that Mr. Fine said he and Cindy Allentuck, East Hampton’s director of pupil personnel services, have been hoping could happen for years.
“The goal would be to have them [the students] included as much as possible into Springs School,” Mr. Fine said at a meeting last month, “and Nancy has been absolutely wonderful over there about creating opportunities for them.”
At the same meeting the board and administrators discussed how a more local program would make it easier to find special education staff as well. “It’s better if you have a full-time position rather than a part-time position,” Ms. Allentuck said, highlighting the idea that being able to offer the specialists a full schedule would make the position more desirable and travel times for a potential staffer coming from the west more worthwhile.
“Superintendents, special education staff, and BOCES staff will meet on a regular basis throughout the 2025-26 school to continue the planning process,” Ms. Carney said. “We have already met on several occasions and are excited about the possibility of bringing a program for our students closer to home.”