_________________ FREEPORT _________________
CoMMuNItY uPDAtE Infections as of May 17
6,071
Infections as of May 7 6,031
$1.00
HERALD
Archer Street loves to work out
Village honors electrical worker
Body found in burning car
Page 3
Page 10
Page 20
Vol. 86 No. 21
MAY 20 - 26, 2021
Protecting kids against Covid-19 Schools partner with local hospitals to promote vaccines for students By RoNNY REYES rreyes@liherald.com
Courtesy Mt. Sinai South Nassau
JuStIN BIShoP, 13, received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from nurse Jennifer Reyes at the De La Salle School on May 14.
More than a thousand Freeport students have been vaccinated against Covid-19 so far through a partnership between the Freeport School District and Mount Sinai South Nassau and Northwell Health. Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham said that as younger age groups began to qualify for the vaccines, the district reached out to local hospitals to help distribute them to students. MSSN was the first to step up, vaccinating more than 700 students
at Freeport High School last month, and after children ages 12 and up qualified for the PfizerBioNTech vaccine, MSSN went on to provide vaccines to the De La Salle School, while Northwell Health held its own vaccination clinic on May 14 to inoculate 300 additional Freeport students. Local education officials said the vaccination efforts were essential to help students return to normal, and to that end, the district partnered with Northwell Health to host a webinar to discuss the importance of the vaccination effort on May 17. Continued on page 7
Valedictorian reflects on a pandemic-altered senior year By RoNNY REYES rreyes@liherald.com
While most enjoy their last year in high school as a calming time of goodbyes and self-reflection, those who are set to graduate this year will have done so without a single day in their senior year unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic. Freeport High School Valedict o r i a n S hy a n n e G a r d n e r described the year as “very busy and chaotic,” when seniors no longer ruled the school and when it was difficult for friends to hang out as usual. As Gardner prepares to start the next chapter of her life at
ShYANNE GARDNER Harvard, she looked back on the last year of her high school life, which she hoped would end with a sign that the world would indeed return to normal soon.
Gardner, who ends with a 107.6 g rade point average, explained that while she was excited to go back to school in S e p t e m b e r, t h e p l a c e s h e returned to this academic year was completely different from the one she left last March. The high school had designated entry points to check students’ temperatures, the halls were set up as one-way routes, and class sizes were shrunk to allow a maximu of 15 students in a room at once. Worst of all, Gardner said, the cafeteria, where students normally hang out and relax, was split into separate cubicles to enforce social distancing. “I didn’t see a lot of my
friends because most of the seniors opted for the remotelearning option,” Gardner said. “Most of the students that did come back were the freshmen. The school’s their world now.” District officials said that at the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, about half of all students chose the remote-learning option.
After switching to remote learning, Gardner found the experience relaxing, because there was no longer a rush to get from one class to another. With her newly discovered downtime, she caught up on some reading and began learning how to play the guitar and speak French. She also had to adapt to the Covid-19 Continued on page 4