Fire Island Union Free School District No. 14 is a school district headquartered in the Town of Islip and on

Fire Island Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York. Occasionally, the name is used to refer collectively to not only the central island, but also Lo ...

, in New York. The school is adjacent to but not in Ocean Beach. The district includes, portions of Fire Island west of Ocean Beach Estates. This means, in addition to Ocean Beach: Saltaire, Fire Island Beach, Great South Beach, Kismet Park, and Point-O'-Woods. The district includes areas in the

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

of Babylon, Brookhaven, and

Islip Islip may refer to: Places England * Islip, Northamptonshire *Islip, Oxfordshire United States *Islip, New York, a town in Suffolk County ** Islip (hamlet), New York, located in the above town **Central Islip, New York, a hamlet and census-d ...

. It includes Woodhull School, grades Kindergarten to Six. It is named after Richard Woodhull, a principal and teacher in the period 1935 to 1962. Within the community it is known as the "Fire Island School". Students who graduate from Woodhull can choose to go to either the

Bay Shore School District Bay Shore Union Free School District or Bay Shore Schools is a school district headquartered in Bay Shore, New York. In 2015 Joseph C. Bond became the interim superintendent; he previously was superintendent of the Brentwood Union Free School Dis ...

or the

Islip School District Islip Union Free School District, also known as Islip Public Schools, is a school district in Long Island, New York. Its headquarters are in the Administration Building in the hamlet of Islip in the Town of Islip. The school district's mascot i ...

for secondary levels. The respective high schools are

Bay Shore High School Bay Shore High School is a public high school located in Bay Shore, New York. The school serves about 2,000 students in grades 9 to 12.Islip High School Islip High School is the public high school in Islip, in Suffolk County, New York on the South Shore of Long Island. It is a part of the Islip School District. the principal is Lara Gonzalez. The complete lists of current and past graduates, Rege ...

History

Mina A. Woodhull, the mother of the namesake of the current school, opened the first school of the district in 1918 in a private residence rented by Fire Island UFSD. The district itself was designated on November 18, 1902 with a re-designation on July 24, 1916. In 1925 a permanent

one room school One-room schools, or schoolhouses, were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries, including Prussia, Norway, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Spain. In most rural and s ...

facility opened. At one time the district had a separate school in Kismet Park. It was consolidated into a single Ocean Beach school that opened in 1954. Woodhull received its current name in 1978. Wendell Chu became the superintendent of the district in 2001 and served as such until 2008, when he became superintendent of the

East Islip School District East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

. In 2009, a study was conducted on whether to consolidate the school, and the advice was to not do so as property taxes would significantly increase. Due to a reduced enrollment, in 2011 the school began allowing people not living in the district to enroll their children. It charges an annual tuition of $3,000. As of 2017 the community maintained course by keeping its school."Ride On The Beach"

Campus

The school has a combined gymnasium and auditorium with a maximum capacity of 403. It was established in 1975.

Demographics

In 1992, the school had 47 students, with nine residing on

U.S. Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...

property and three living on the

Fire Island Lighthouse The Fire Island Lighthouse is a visible landmark on the Great South Bay, in southern Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County, New York (state), New York on the western end of Fire Island, New York, Fire Island, a barrier island off the southern c ...

and Sailor's Haven U.S. park ranger properties. Circa 2001 the district had 61 students. In 2011 enrollment was down to 19. In 1992, most teachers did not live in the district territory and so took the district school buses to commute back and forth.

Transport

Fire Island School Bus @ Captree State Park-2

As Fire Island lacks paved roads, the district uses

four wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...

buses.

Culture

In 1992, Diane Ketcham of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' stated that due to a lack of entertainment in winter periods and lack of television channels, "Fire Island children love to go to school." The school through its after school activities functions as a community center for area children.

References

; Videos *

Notes

External links

Fire Island School District
{{School districts in Suffolk County, New York School districts in New York (state) Public elementary schools in New York (state) Schools in Suffolk County, New York Education in Suffolk County, New York School districts established in 1902