Education

Fall on the East End means apples, pumpkins, corn, and sunflowers are in season, and there are plenty of ways for kids and families to enjoy them.

Ron White, the former president of the Bridgehampton School Board who also served as the varsity boys basketball head coach for six years, is stepping down from the board, according to a meeting agenda put out by the school on Wednesday afternoon.

The Journalism Club is back in session at the Springs School, and a new assistant principal has arrived: Springs students report the news.

Every morning, thanks to a new policy enacted for the start of the academic year, pupils at Pierson Middle and High School slip their cellphones into pouches that are then magnetically sealed, preventing the students from using their phones during the school day. “Yondr appears to be cutting down on the number of distractions to learning,” said Anthony Chase Mallia, the president of the faculty union, the Teachers Association of Sag Harbor, during Monday's school board meeting. Students are “getting more done in groups” and are “actually talking to one another again in the hallways and lunch room.”

The A&G Dance Company has returned to the Southampton Cultural Center for another year of dance and art education. Plus: a baby-gear swap at CMEE, art and STEM projects, kids' movies, and more.

On Tuesday afternoon, the United States Department of Education announced that the Amagansett School has been named a National Blue Ribbon School, a prestigious and difficult-to-obtain honor that is based largely on students’ academic performance. Though there was applause, the announcement did little to ease the tension in the room at a board meeting later in the day, as it quickly became apparent that parents and teachers had come prepared with pointed questions about how school operations have been running lately.

One of the most popular events of the year at the Children’s Museum of the East End, Big Truck Day, is planned for Saturday, Sept. 30. Space is limited and early registration is encouraged online at cmee.org. Plus: book clubs, reptiles visiting the library, theater performances, arts and crafts, and more.

The Springs School is having trouble attracting and retaining teaching assistants despite the entry-level qualifications, and despite a $200-per-college-credit bonus, paid to teaching assistants who choose to pursue higher education.

An audit released Friday by the New York State Comptroller's office identified potential areas of weakness in the East Hampton School District's information technology practices, noting that a potential "risk of unauthorized access, lost data, and inability to recover from a network disruption" could occur. District officials, who agreed with certain parts of the auditors' findings and disagreed with others, said Monday that they welcomed the analysis and are viewing it through a constructive lens.

The latest new offering from Project Most is an early-childhood educational program designed for 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds, running for three hours each weekday at the Most Holy Trinity School in East Hampton beginning Sept. 18.

Joining the anonymous donor who gave $54,500 last month so the cash-strapped Wainscott School could restore art, music, gym, and technology classes, several more community members have stepped up, collectively giving about $23,000, also anonymously, so the district can add field trips back to the curriculum.

The John Jermain Memorial Library has two reading challenges for young patrons. Plus: tons of arts-and-crafts sessions, story time, movies, and more for kids and teens.