South Country Central School District

The South Country Central School District is a district of approximately 16 square miles (41 km²) located in southern Brookhaven Town, in Suffolk County, New York, United States. It primarily serves the Village of Bellport and the Hamlets of North Bellport and Brookhaven. It also serves small parts of East Patchogue, Yaphank, and Medford.

The district maintains Bellport High School, Bellport Middle School, Frank P. Long Intermediate School, and three primary schools, Brookhaven Elementary (which has the highest special education capability of the three), Verne W. Critz Elementary, and Kreamer Street Elementary. In addition, the district maintains a preschool named the South Haven Early Childhood Center, which briefly housed the Southaven Academy, an alternative high school for challenged students, before being repurposed as the sole preschool in the district. Brookhaven Elementary used to house a handful of preschool classes, but they needed extra classes as they were facing minor overcrowding for the 2015–2016 school year, so South Haven was converted. The Administrative Offices are located in East Patchogue on the campus of the Verne W. Critz Primary School.

On March 8th 1963, at the then Bellport High School, at 1:55 PM, there was a tremendous fire. 900 students were evacuated from class at the time, and over 40 students, faculty, and firefighters were sent to the hospital. The Bellport community rallied and assisted the Bellport Fire Department in putting out the fire. Miraculously, no one passed away. This is in part due to a makeshift tarpaulin chute put together and a combined effort from firefighters, students, faculty, and the community alike. According to The Long Island Advance, there was at one point a memorial plaque dedicated to the fire in Bellport Middle School, which was Bellport High School when the fire took place. It thanks God for sparing everyone and also states that the students greatly appreciated the efforts of the community.^[1]

On January 16th, 1970, the district had to close Bellport High School for a day due to extreme racial tensions. There were repeated fights between white and black students both inside and out of the High School and also a sit-in protest. The New York Times even deemed it important enough to be in their paper, as they interviewed assistant principal Robert Gardner and the story made the January 17th, 1970 issue. These tensions caused the High School to hire several black staff members and have interaction between white and black students to attempt to ease tensions.^[2]

The following is a table of all the current schools used by the South Country Central School District^[3]

• The South Country Central School District Website
• New York State Comptroller's Audit Report