Education

About a year ago this month, researchers published a study on “summer learning loss,” the phenomenon in which children, over summer vacations, lose some of the skills and knowledge they worked so hard to build during the school year.

Parents who previously opted their children out of routine vaccinations for religious reasons will no longer be able to claim that exemption for school enrollment purposes come September.

Bay Street Theater’s summer programs for kids in the coming weeks include a puppet camp for little ones, musical theater, Shakespeare workshops, and master classes and musical immersion for teens.

The Sag Harbor and Sagaponack School Districts have renewed a contract to share busing services again come September, but the agreement looks a bit different from the one signed about a year ago.

At the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, an award-winning dance ensemble from the Edge School of the Arts in Queens will perform classical ballet, jazz, African, tap, and hip-hop selections in a family program on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.

From notebooks and pencils to binders and scientific calculators, the Montauk School’s got all school supplies covered this coming school year.

The mound of earth behind the Bridgehampton School is one of the biggest John Daniels has seen in his lifetime on the East End.

Some 10 feet tall and four or five times as long, it’s not just any old pile of dirt. It is Bridgehampton loam, and it might as well be a pile of gold.

“It’s the best soil in the whole country,” Mr. Daniels, the school’s maintenance mechanic, said this week. “You can’t find soil like this anywhere else.”

Parents and community members called upon the Sag Harbor School Board on July 1 to weigh “diversity and inclusion” among the criteria when seeking out the district’s next superintendent.

Guild Hall’s KidFest summer series of performances and workshops will begin on Wednesday at 5 p.m. when Teatro SEA presents “La Cucarachita Martina,” a bilingual puppet show about a little roach looking for love. Described as a “live-action Latin puppet show rock ’n’ roll musical mash-up,” it is appropriate for children of all ages.

Teachers in the East Hampton schools will get a 1.75-percent pay raise next year — their largest in five years — according to a new contract that school officials say was “amicably” negotiated.

For those interested in learning what home schooling entails, an informational session called Homeschooling 101 will take place at the East Hampton Library on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. 

Teresa Loos, who leads Homeschooling 101 classes at libraries across Long Island, will give an introduction to the rules and regulations, paperwork, samples of learning materials and transcripts, programs, and resources. 

Kwame Yirenkyi, left, completed the BOCES audio recording program, then celebrated his graduation from Bridgehampton High School with his father, Kwadwo Yirenkyi, last month.

Hannah Tuma, Pierson High School’s valedictorian, urged her classmates to continue taking risks. Emily Hallock, the salutatorian, called on the seniors to be passionate and set a good example for others. And Carl Bernstein, the veteran investigative journalist and keynote speaker during Saturday’s graduation ceremonies in Sag Harbor, had a lot of his own wisdom to share.

“Seek out the best information, the best obtainable version of the truth.”

“Don’t be too polite, cause some trouble if you think it’s the right kind of trouble. Courageous trouble, adventurous trouble.”

The Springs School broke ground Monday on its long-awaited, pollution-reducing, new septic system, which will take about two months to complete and is expected to improve the health of local waters.

The Mannix Studio of Art will lead family tours and action-painting workshops at the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs on Thursdays and Fridays through Sept. 6. After learning some background on the Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, participants will have a chance to paint a canvas in Pollock’s style.

East Hampton High School's class of 2019 graduated on Friday, and this group of seniors, according to Adam Fine, the high school principal, is particularly well equipped to deal with the challenges life brings them next.

The John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton and the Amagansett School are the only two South Fork schools to make the New York State Education Department’s list of 562 “high achieving and high progress” schools throughout the state, the department announced last week.

Fourth graders at the Springs School are sailing into the summer with their own mini-sailboats, thanks to the East End Classic Boat Society. On Monday, members of the society held an educational workshop at the school to help kids build sailboat models and get them excited about boating. The program, now in its second year, began at the Amagansett School and expanded to Springs.

Kids’ Nights Out

Teens and preteens entering 6th through 10th grades can once again enjoy fun on the beach three nights a week starting tomorrow at Long Beach in Noyac. Sponsored by the Youth Resource Center of Sag Harbor, the free program is open to young people no matter where they live and takes place on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. through Aug. 14.

The East Hampton Town Recreation Department’s multitude of summer programs for kids, from swimming to sailing to basketball and tennis, begin this week at locations across the town.

East Hampton Town’s plan to build some form of affordable housing on Route 114 in the Wainscott School District is still in its infancy, but residents of the district found a flier in their mailboxes this week posing an ominous question: “Is the end in sight for the Wainscott School?”

Anna Bernasek, who had previously been appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Amagansett School Board, was formally elected to a full three-year term in Tuesday’s run-off vote.

Ms. Bernasek edged out William (Hank) Muchnic by one vote, 17 to 16.

The 17 members of Bridgehampton High School’s class of 2019 left “the Hive” in style on Sunday, with tears and cheers from family members, awards for all, words of encouragement and gratitude aplenty, and even, for one student, family members celebrating with posters of his face.

East Hampton School District officials have reached a compromise with the Suffolk County Board of Elections that will allow the school's fifth-grade moving-up ceremony to proceed as planned on Tuesday, by moving primary voting out of the John M. Marshall Elementary School's all-purpose room for this election only.

Michael Henery, the Springs School’s business administrator, began a presentation Monday by citing studies showing that “well-maintained facilities posit­ively impact student achievement” and “every dollar spent on maintenance will save $4 on capital spending later on.”

Strawberries will be the sweet inspiration for a story time with crafts and snacks for kids 4 to 7 on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at the Amagansett Library.

They took gifts for the villagers — soccer balls, Frisbees, Slinky toys, Uno — symbols of friendship and appreciation for their host families. But they got something so much greater in return.

A group of East Hampton High School students who traveled to Nepal several weeks ago to work with the organization buildOn, laying the foundation for a new school in a rural village, told the East Hampton School Board recently how the trip had changed their lives.

On Tuesday, the same day residents head to the polls to vote in the local primary contests, the Amagansett School District will hold a run-off election between two school board members who emerged in a tie in May.

East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, and Springs have all hired construction crews for capital projects meant to improve the school facilities.

For the second time this year, the New York State comptroller's office has come down hard on the Wainscott Common School District in an audit that school officials questioned as flawed.