School News

Bridgehampton

Hayground School in Bridgehampton will hold its eighth annual artisanal food and craft bazaar, “Homegrown for the Holidays,” Saturday, December 7, from 10 AM to 4 PM. The bazaar will feature the work of more than 50 local artists, food purveyors, and vendors.

Vendor fees support Hayground School’s academic programs, and sales at the event directly support local artists and business owners. For more information, contact HomegrownForTheHolidays@gmail.com.

East Hampton

East Hampton’s Wells Woolcott participated in the National Association for Music Education 2019 All-National Honor mixed choir. Wells was one of the 557 students selected from across the nation, and is the first student from East Hampton High School to achieve the recognition.

The mixed choir was directed by one of the most prominent conductors in the United States, Tesfa Wondemagegnehu, from St. Olaf College in Minnesota. The ensembles spent the weekend rehearsing some of the most challenging repertoire in the field.

Eleanor Whitmore

An educational discussion on “Parenting in the 21st Century,” presented by the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in partnership with the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation and East End Pediatrics will take place Wednesday, November 20.

Learn how greater knowledge of early childhood development can provide important insights and methods for successful parenting.

It is part of a seven-session lecture and discussion series for parents, grandparents, and caregivers of young children from birth to age five. The sessions will take place at the center in East Hampton from 6 to 7 PM. Admission is free and childcare will be provided.

Each session will be presented in both English and Spanish, with English sessions to be held on Monday nights and Spanish sessions on Wednesdays.

The presenters will be Dr. Julio Gonzalez of SUNY Old Westbury and Arlene Pizzo Notel, the center’s program director.

The next sessions will be December 16 and 18, on helping children through difficult moments.

Hampton Bays

The Hampton Bays High School Class of 2021 will host a pancake breakfast with Santa Saturday, December 7, from 8 to 10:30 AM at Hampton Bays High School.

The event is being held for families and children in grades K through five and will feature a pancake breakfast, pictures with Santa, and arts and crafts. The cost is $10 for adults and $5 for children 10 and younger.

Walk-ins are welcome and all advance payment for tickets is due by November 25 to Christina Facini at Hampton Bays High School. Pre-order forms can be found on the district’s website.

In continuing its mission to honor a local veteran each month of the school year, the Hampton Bays School District is paying tribute to U.S. Navy veteran Leigh Penny by flying an American flag in his honor throughout November.

“The district is proud to honor Mr. Penny for his bravery and service to the United States,” said Superintendent of Schools Lars Clemensen.

The recognition was part of the district’s annual Veterans Day breakfast and ceremony, held November 8 at Hampton Bays Elementary School. Fourth-grade students read Penny’s biography, spoke about the importance of Veterans Day, and sang the songs of the armed forces’ five branches.

A native of Hampton Bays, Penny was born at Southampton Hospital in 1946. He attended Hampton Bays High School, where he participated in track and basketball.

In June 1965, Penny graduated high school and joined the U.S. Navy in May 1966, attending basic training at the Great Lakes Naval Station outside of Chicago. He was assigned to the U.S. Navy Seabees and sent to California for training as an electrician. Subsequent training was conducted in Rhode Island with the Navy’s Mobile Command Battalion One, and then it was on to Camp Lejeune, NC, for final training and integration with the U.S. Marines. In 1967, Penny received his orders and shipped out for Vietnam.

In 1968, Penny was rotated back to the states and assigned to Construction Battalion Unit 201 at the South Pole — Antarctica — for Operation Deep Freeze. He was at McMurdo Sound for the summers of 1968 and 1969. McMurdo Sound was a research facility for the study of astrophysics, biology, geology, glaciology, and ocean climate systems.

Penny married his high school sweetheart, Lyn, in 1969. He lost her to pancreatic cancer in 2014. After his discharge from the Navy Seabees in 1972 as a construction electrician, he worked for three years as a special police officer for the Town of Southampton and then for New York Telephone, from which he retired in 1998. He went on to work part-time at Hampton Bays High School and then took on a full-time assignment for 10 years with the Hampton Bays Fire Department.

Montauk

Most Montauk School sixth-graders were successful in their escape rooms. They also attended a showing of the new movie, “Harriet.” Members of the Montauk Fire Department gave a presentation to students about fire prevention and safety, and using some of the techniques learned from a conference with the faculty at the Springs School, brought new modes of teaching to students.

The torch of compassion was given to the student council for its fundraiser for the Ellen Hermanson Breast Cancer Center at Southampton Hospital. The presentation was made at the spirit morning assembly for super hero day, where second-graders celebrated the books read to their schoolmates by Ms. Kleinberg.

Southampton

In recognition of Veterans Day, the Southampton High School Mariner Patriot Club hosted its annual veterans’ appreciation dinner November 5.

The honored guests were treated to a buffet dinner and dessert served by the Patriot Club. Entertainment was provided by members of the high school’s performing groups. Southampton Elementary School student council members also assisted with the event. They greeted each guest and provided laminated placemats that they had designed for the tables.

Southampton High School senior Grace Carter is recognized by the Rotary Club of Southampton as the student of the month for November.

Carter earned the honor for her dedication to her studies and school community. She is vice president of the National Honor Society, co-president of student council, and a member of her school’s natural helpers peer-mentoring program. She is also an AP scholar with distinction student, designated with a National Merit Scholarship commendation, is a member of the Tri-M music and Spanish language honor societies, and is a candidate for the Seal of Biliteracy presented by the Spanish Embassy.

When not studying, Carter is performing, practicing, and teaching violin. She performs with Harmony Healing, a group that visits and performs for patients in health care facilities, as well as with her school’s orchestra and pit orchestra. She has performed with the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra, the Long Island String Festival Orchestra, and the East End Arts Perlman Music Program.

Fourth-grade students at Southampton Elementary School recently designed wampum belts as part of an interdisciplinary study on the tribal nations of American Indians. Using blue and white beads, they created intricate designs that imitated the woven beaded belts once produced by American Indians.

Third graders were thrilled to receive dictionaries November 7 from the Kiwanis Club of Southampton. Upon receiving them, the students explored their wordbooks, noting all the ones they have yet to learn.

With the changing of leaves serving as an inspiration, preschool students have been learning about trees this fall. Transferring the lesson to their art classes, they have used a variety of media to display their knowledge of trees while exploring their artistic abilities.

Springs

The sixth-annual turkey trot was held Monday, November 11. The walk/run helps raise money for the PTA’s swim program at the YMCA. The day was also a half-day for students as parent-teacher conferences were held in the afternoon.

Last week, Mrs. Amicucci’s seventh-grade math classes celebrated “Mathgiving,” a food feast where students act as waiters and diners in a restaurant and have to calculate their bills, including tax and tip.

Also for Thanksgiving, kindergartners will be celebrating by performing the song and dance, “Albuquerque Turkey” in front of parents and enjoying a traditional Thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cornbread, and apple and pumpkin pie. School will be closed next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for Thanksgiving break.

Tuckahoe

In late September, Tuckahoe School’s third-grade classes ventured to the Bronx Zoo to enhance their study of Africa. While there, they visited the Congo, Madagascar, and the African Plains in search of species native to Africa. Students took detailed notes about each animal’s habitat, diet, predators, and adaptations. Students will be writing persuasive essays arguing whether or not a zoo is a good home for animals in comparison to living in their natural, wild habitat.

Westhampton Beach

Westhampton Beach High School students participated in several Red Ribbon Week activities, organized by the school’s youth-to-youth club during the week of November 4.

All activities were based on the themes of saying no to drugs, making positive choices, and team building. Youth-to-youth members shared awareness messages with their peers throughout the week, distributed silicone bracelets, placed red ribbons on seniors’ cars, and sponsored a crashed car session, during which school resource officer Andrew Kirwin spoke to students about the dangers of drinking and driving.

Science research and environmental science students recently participated in a clam reseeding and research cruise on Weesuck Creek in East Quogue.

Held aboard a Stony Brook Research vessel, the trip taught studenst about local waterways as they planted thousands of clams in the spawner sanctuary to help replenish depleted clam beds. For some, it was also an opportunity to further their own research projects. Sophomores Val Finke and Maddie Donahue collected macroalgae for their alternative fuels project, while senior Danielle Freda collected shellfish and surface water samples to quantify microplastic particle contamination.

The trip culminated with a tour of the Stony Brook Southampton Marine Station, where students learned about ongoing Stony Brook University research projects and had the unique opportunity to feed an octopus.

Dr. Dianna Gobler’s science research students learned more about careers in cardiothoracic surgery while touring Southside Hospital in Bay Shore November 12.

The students explored the hospital’s operating rooms and met with three surgeons, one of whom did the first heart transplant on Long Island, as well as an anesthesiologist and several cardiac physician assistants.

Selected students have been invited back to the hospital to shadow some of the professionals they met and to watch a live heart surgery.

Westhampton Beach High School students in Korey Williams’ History of Long Island class visited the Westhampton Beach Historical Society on November 7. During the adventure, the students viewed the society’s 75th anniversary D-Day exhibit and examined local contributions from World War II, including photos, uniforms, and medals.