Education

At the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, students in Julie Fanelli's class of middle learners, who are between 6 and 11 years old, have been busy imagining and building "Covid-19 inventions" to eventually share with the community.

The Board of Regents, which oversees public education in the state, will meet in December to plan out graduation requirements for those high school students who were counting on taking the January exams to graduate.

Justine O'Mara Limonius, a graduate of East Hampton High School who now has two children attending the John M. Marshall Elementary School, has been appointed to fill the vacant seat on the East Hampton School Board.

School districts are using online surveys to gauge how their families are feeling about school attendance and whether they prefer in-person, remote, or hybrid learning. Their answers will help shape the coming months.

The East Hampton and Springs School Districts have opted into a Suffolk County program meant to improve bus safety for students, administrators said on Tuesday.

Two local libraries are helping kids say "thanks" to essential workers and others, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Project Most activities, a makeup class for teens and adults, family art activities, and more.

The John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor has an online college essay workshop planned for tomorrow from 4 to 5 p.m., promising tricks and tips for writing college admissions essays.

By Monday morning, South Fork school districts had reported three more cases of Covid-19 diagnosed since Friday. The affected districts are Montauk, Sag Harbor, and East Hampton.

Two entire classrooms of children at the John M. Marshall Elementary School are in quarantine through Nov. 19 after two cases of Covid-19 were confirmed among fifth-grade students this week. Additionally, two more cases have been diagnosed among East Hampton High School students, and one among the support staff at the Wainscott School.

The Springs School Board on Monday approved two resolutions to address a $2.3 million budget surplus leftover from the 2019-20 school year.

Jennifer Buscemi, a previous full-time business administrator for the Sag Harbor School District who later became a consultant to the district, will return in a full-time capacity starting Dec. 1.

Guild Hall's Teen Arts Council is partnering with The East Hampton Star on a new publication called TIC-TAC-TOE: A Teen Zine, that will be produced by and for teenagers and will be published three times next year.

The Greater East Hampton Education Foundation, which provides grants to local teachers for equipment and activities not covered in school district budgets, began selling tickets for its Winter Cold Cash Raffle this week.

If all 400 tickets are sold, the grand prize will be $2,500. A $1,000 prize for second place and two $250 prizes for third place will also be drawn. Ticket sales end Nov. 10, and the drawing will take place on Dec. 16.

A week ago there was just one known case of Covid-19 among East Hampton High School students, but that number has since risen to six and all of them are connected to a single recent indoor gathering, school officials said this week. The district's John M. Marshall Elementary School also reported a new case in a fifth grader.

Charlotte Egerton-Warburton has been busy during the Covid-19 pandemic with a project that helps the world in two ways. Charlotte, 10, makes and sells beaded necklaces that are handy to keep one's mask around the neck. She is using the sale as a fund-raiser for research into ADNP syndrome, also known as Helsmoortel-Van Der Aa Syndrome, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder that affects her younger brother, Rowland.

Springs School District officials on Monday announced that the school will soon start offering in-person instruction to larger groups of students four days per week instead of two, and in the interim will begin live-streaming classroom lessons.

On-camera audition class at Bay Street Theater, Legos return, and art books all around.

In an email to parents on Monday, James Crenshaw, the East Hampton High School principal, said that the number of confirmed positive Covid-19 cases had risen to six. High school students will have classes online at least through Friday.

Late in the morning on Halloween, East Hampton High School’s principal put out a call for students and families to “please be safe” after two more cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in students within the past 24 hours, bringing the school’s total to four cases.

Halloween will look a little different this year because of the pandemic, but there's still plenty of fun to be had.

The Bridgehampton School on Friday afternoon announced that a staff member had tested positive for Covid-19 earlier in the day. That staff member was most recently at school on Thursday, according to a message from Michael Miller, the school's principal.

East Hampton School District officials informed parents on Friday of a second confirmed case of Covid-19 at the high school. The school's first case was reported on Thursday, and school was closed for in-person instruction on Friday. With the news of a second case, the school is to remain closed for in-person classes until Thursday, Nov. 5.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will host a youth leadership and environmental justice listening session next Thursday.

Bonnie Michelle Cannon, the executive director of the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreational Center, donned a hard hat on Saturday and pulled a plank of siding off the old farmhouse that was originally part of the center. The symbolic moment kicked off a nearly $3 million project to erect a new building for the ever-evolving child care program.

Students in the Bridgehampton School's seventh through 12th grades have been learning remotely since March 16, when schools here first closed because of Covid-19. Now there's a plan in the works to bring those students back into the building.

Bridgehampton School District officials on Tuesday closed the school midday after a parent reported early in the day that their child had tested positive for Covid-19. Ten adults and 10 students will have to quarantine.

The East Hampton School District on Tuesday announced it will add in-person school days for students on Wednesdays at the middle and high schools, and said it is exploring a plan to resume full-time in-person classes for all middle schoolers starting in January as long as infection rates here stay low.

Lucia Beeton, a senior at Pierson High School in Sag Harbor, has earned recognition as a "commended student" in the 2021 National Merit Scholarship Program. This honor means she placed among the top 50,000 scorers on the PSAT in her junior year, out of 1.5 million total test-takers.

At a Springs School Board meeting, parents demanding more instruction from teachers on remote days clashed with educators, who said they are simply doing the best they can. School administrators, who said late in the summer that they would revisit the district's hybrid learning plans by the 10th week of school, are nearing their self-imposed deadline to do so.