While winter storms have threatened some waterfront homes, they’ve been a boon to nesting piping plovers, who prefer the scoured beaches left by storms and hurricanes. But this year’s population of the tiny migratory shorebird still face challenges from predators.

The school on Penikese island will reopen this summer under new leadership and a new name, the board of directors for the school confirmed this week.

The new school will be named Penikese.

The program will use the same facilities as the long-running Penikese Island School, and will begin admitting adolescents with substance abuse issues beginning between mid-July and mid-August.

The 33 eighth graders at the West Tisbury School aren’t the only ones moving on to high school. Their principal, Michael Halt, an Island educator and administrator since 1997, is gearing up for a major transition of his own. Mr. Halt’s last day is June 28. Then he will pack up his truck and head for California, where, in the fall, he will start as principal of the San Clemente High School.

Acting behind closed doors, the Tisbury selectmen voted without dissent Monday to fire a Tisbury police officer who is the subject of a criminal complaint and who has had a recent history of misconduct.

Kelly Kershaw, 30, was terminated following a nearly three-hour executive session that was attended by the three town selectmen, their town administrator, Ms. Kershaw and her attorney. Her attorney told the Gazette later in the week that Ms. Kershaw, who had been employed with the police department since 2004, will take action to dispute the decision.

The Dukes County pest management program will be discontinued beginning July 1 due to lack of funding. County manager Martina Thornton notified selectmen and town administrators of the decision in a letter sent last Friday.

The program would have been funded by just two towns, Chilmark and Aquinnah, for the fiscal 2014 year.

Each family has its own Vineyard specialty, a beloved summer-after-summer tradition that everyone cherishes and remembers during those empty winter days in February. Sometimes it is the patriarch’s birthday party. Sometimes it is the matriarch’s birthday party, especially if the house belonged to her family.  Sometimes it is a Fourth of July or a Labor Day event when far-flung family members assemble to celebrate.  One of our friends, who is not French, gives a lavish annual dinner party with many guests in honor of Bastille Day.

Carol Carrick, the award-winning author of more than four dozen children’s books and books for young adults, many with a Vineyard setting, died unexpectedly at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital on June 6. She was 78 and lived in West Tisbury. The cause was complications from a stroke.

Ralph Graves, the former editor of Life Magazine, a novelist and longtime summer resident of the Island, died in New York city on June 10 after a period of declining health. He was 88.

With construction about halfway complete on the new West Tisbury Library project, town leaders raised concerns this week about a rapidly dwindling contingency fund for the project.

The $6 million project has already used up half of a $200,000 reserve in the budget. Construction began in December and there is a little less than $100,000 left.

Once the address of choice for whaling captains, North Water street in Edgartown is now home to captains of modern industry, a handsome boulevard of stately white mansions and manicured hedges that runs from Main street past the Edgartown Light.

Handsome, that is, but for Number 62, the so-called Captain Warren House — the now-decrepit building next to the Edgartown Free Public Library — which has become the most public of eyesores as the town of Edgartown continues its search for a buyer who will take it off its hands for a reasonable price.