_________________ FREEPORT _________________
your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
November 23, 2021
With a focus on
Diab etes and Weig ht Mana geme nt
HERALD Your Health Inside
$1.00
Vol. 86 No. 52
A word from a Freeport pastor
Mayor’s proposed budget is ready
Page 4
Page 10
DECEMBER 23 - 29, 2021
Backyard Barbeque hosts joyful toy drive By REiNE BEtHANY rbethany@liherald.com
Courtesy Shamel Harris/In the Moment
BACkYARD BARBEquE Co-owNERs Kenny Ware, left, and Michael Toney ran their first toy drive on Sunday. State Assemblywoman Judy Griffin, seated on Santa’s right, donated many of the toys. Mayor Robert Kennedy, to Santa’s left, supported the drive.
Since its establishment on the Nautical Mile in 2018, Backyard Barbeque, at 300 Woodcleft Ave., has invested its menu — and its customer care — with full-flavored inventiveness. The establishment displayed the same qualities in its first toy drive last Sunday. Co-owners Kenny Ware and Michael Toney, both in their early 30s, painted their big front windows with snowmen and Christmas trees. They neatly stacked their booths, tables and chairs against the
front wall, opening their space to accommodate a vending wagon with a popcorn machine at the end nearest the entrance door, and a sparkling Christmas tree in front of the broad mirror at the other end of the room. Near the pretty tree sat a bench occupied by Christopher Hines of Roosevelt, clad in a Santa outfit, his face nearly hidden behind a curling white mustache and beard. Behind him hung curtains with broad gold sequins and panels of red, green and white. Spilling away from the walls Continued on page 14
How Freeport schools are facing Omicron variant By REiNE BEtHANY rbethany@liherald.com
Several area schools abruptly switched to remote learning in the last week before the winter break in response to the rise of positive Covid-19 cases on Long Island since Thanksgiving. In Freeport, Woodward Children’s Center and De La Salle School both chose remote learning as of Monday. Freeport Public Schools have remained open, but students throughout the district readied their Chromebooks and Google Classroom protocols just in case. According to a Dec. 21 News 12 report, the rapid transmissibility
of the Omicron variant may be the main cause of the spike in Nassau County’s positive Covid tests to 10.32 percent. Suffolk County’s positivity rate has soared to 13.7 percent — numbers not seen since spring 2020, the early days of the pandemic in the New York metropolitan area. In Freeport, the case count at Woodward Children’s Center included two students and a staff member — but, according to Director Greg Ingino, the school had been Covid-free from reopening until last Friday, so the appearance of any positive cases at all triggered the precautionary measure of putting its 80 students on a remote basis starting
Monday. At De La Salle School on Pine Street, Principal Jeanmarie Becker said that only one student had tested positive last week. “We haven’t had it spread to any other student,” Becker said, “but out of abundance of caution for the rest of this week, we opted to go remote as of Dec. 20.” Becker said that De La Salle had seen no Covid-19 cases within the school during the past year and a half, so the appearance of even one case was a red flag. “I do feel that it’s spreading really quickly,” Becker said, “and I don’t want a whole family to be infected and sick, so best to be proactive rather than reactive.”
Both schools said they expected a return to in-person classes on Jan. 3. In the Freeport Public Schools, Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham said that the few positive Covid-19 cases among its 6,900 students did not merit closure before starting the winter break on Dec. 24. “We’ve been monitoring
what’s going on in our region and also what’s going on in our schools,” Kuncham said, “and fortunately, the positivity rate in our schools, whether it’s students or staff, has been low — not even 1 percent . . . but we will continue to review how this is going to shape in the next several days, during the break and after the Continued on page 16