A Sense of Urgency

The fallout from the announced resignations of Springs School Principal Christine Cleary and Assistant Principal Joshua Odom — both will leave the district on June 30 — resulted in an emotional Springs Board of Education meeting late last month. Longtime, beloved educators raised issues that have been simmering in the district for some time now, including concerns about a lack of communication between the board, its administration and the school community, and reductions in programming even as the school enjoys its new building for a second year since it flung open those renovated doors.

It is rare to see educators stand up at a school board meeting and question the path forward, but that is exactly what happened on February 28. Faculty discussed being understandably appalled to learn about their administrators’ departures via a districtwide email sent just a day earlier. In reality, the planned departures of both Cleary and Odom were made public before that email was sent — it was visible on the School Board agenda that morning, several hours before the email.

Parents and teachers quickly transitioned to other problems facing the district. They complained of poor communication, an inability to retain staff, and diminished student services that, teachers said, are hurting hundreds of students in kindergarten through eighth grade. “It’s a completely different place from when I started here just eight years ago,” one teacher commented. “It doesn’t feel good, and it trickles down to the children.”

Board President Barbara Dayton said that in the last five years, 73 staff members have left the school, which includes the retirement of eight teachers, six teaching assistants and six other personnel. Of the 53 remaining resignations, only five were tenured teachers; two moved out of state and two took positions in their home districts, she said. Additionally, 20 of the resignations were new teachers who were not given tenure. The remaining include five teaching assistants, three of whom moved away, and various support staff who left for a variety of reasons. Thirty-six of those resignations were in the last three years.

In addition to concerns about staff turnover, educators and parents alike also have questioned rollbacks in programming. Art and music are limited at best, and while a Spanish curriculum was long a part of elementary education at Springs School, a second language is not being offered to many of the younger students right now.

With the school’s principal and assistant principal leaving in a few short months, and with Superintendent Debra Winter having announced her departure following the 2024 school year, the school community is relying on every member of the Board of Education — Dayton, Timothy Frazier, Patrick Brabant, Emma Field and Erik Fredrickson — to find concrete ways to improve communication and collaboration with its teachers and staff, and services for the children of Springs.

In fairness, this is a School Board that has already committed itself to improving communication; following the February board meeting, it’s off to a good start, particularly when it comes to the search for a new administrative team, with a public timeline already set for that search. On the agenda for this week’s meeting were resolutions to increase staff as well, and the district also has launched a new website, in the hopes of offering parents and students better online resources.

But perhaps it’s also time, three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and two years after the district opened the doors to a long-overdue expansion, that the district take a fresh look at its priorities, engaging faculty, staff and the community at large in a long-view discussion about the future.

Springs School has been the heart of that hamlet for generations. For a long time, teachers were largely local to the community, and families and staff alike enjoyed a strong sense of school spirit and pride in one of the last working-class communities in East Hampton, one that is steeped in history and art.

Despite its successes, the district has struggled financially, largely due to the hamlet’s lack of commercial properties to support a property tax base that funds one of the larger elementary and middle school populations east of the Shinnecock Canal. At the same time, the district pays the East Hampton School District a significant amount of money per student to send children to high school. And, like all of the small school districts on the East End, it carries high administrative costs just to operate.

The community is looking for a fresh start and is looking to the School Board to demonstrate some urgency in improving a district that once was considered a school district to envy on the South Fork. The talent is there — in its dedicated teachers and support staff, on the board, and in the students who are proud to call themselves Ospreys and wear green and white. But that talent needs more support. Opening the lines of communication in a more robust way is a very first and critical step. It also remains incumbent on families in the school district to become more involved, whether through serving on committees or simply by just attending School Board meetings and becoming a part of the process.

Springs School remains the beating heart of the hamlet it serves. The community needs to come together now to work collectively to help shape a successful future.