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MARCH 31 - APRIL 6, 2022
Lynbrook native to play on Broadway By JORDAN VALLONE jvallone@liherald.com
Courtesy Lynbrook Public Schools
Showing support for Ukraine Fifth grade Waverly Park Elementary School Student Council members, from left, Darby Emerson, Kylie Park, Parker Emerson and Ryan Bowes collected supplies for people in need. Story, Page 2.
Flag issue, discrimination claim causes troubling community rift East Rockaway BOE seeks to unite parents By MIKE SMOLLINS msmollins@liherald.com
Standing before the East Rockaway Board of Education on March 22, Lucy Pozo fought back tears, telling the board that it had “failed me, and I’m glad to be graduating in three months’ time.” The East Rockaway High School senior’s complaint stems from an incident March 22 at Sports Night, when some students waved a Donald Trump flag and posed with it for photos. Pozo said she and others were made uncomfortable by the flag, and added that she had been bullied for being Hispanic by some of her peers in the past.
“East Rockaway schools have failed me,” she said. “That flag, the reason nobody was talking about it that day, is because we’re scared.” The flag, and its appearance at the school’s event, had sparked both positive and negative reaction in the community. After the meeting, Superintendent Lisa Ruiz wrote in an email to the Herald that the board takes discrimination seriously, and that officials had contacted Pozo and her family. “The district is investigating the claims,” Ruiz wrote. “I applaud the student’s bravery in speaking CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
Most 17-year-olds don’t get the opportunity to appear in a Broadway play, but Lynbrook native David Kaid is not like most 17-year-olds. Kaid, who lives in Merrick and attends Sanford H. Calhoun High School, will play Pavel in “The Last Boy ... A New Play With Music,” at a special, one-night benefit performance on April 27. “The Last Boy,” c re at e d by p l ay wright Steven Fisher, tells the remarkable story of 100 boys who David lived in the Terezin Concentration Camp, Dor m Number 1, during the Holocaust. Set in the former Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic, the “last boys,” as they became known, created the longest-running underground publication of the Holocaust, called “Vedem,” which means “we are leading” in Czech. Its contents included poems, essays, jokes, dialogues, literary reviews, stories and drawings as the boys described what they witnessed and their hopes for the future
Fisher, who founded the Keystone State BoyChoir in 2001 and retired in 2020, was touring the Czech Republic with his choir pre-pandemic. They visited Terezin, Fisher said, and learned of Vedem. The choir boys Googled the story and found that some of the last boys had survived. Fisher met with Sidney Tausigg, a 92-year-old survivor living in Florida, and asked for his blessing to write a play inspired by their story. The play had its premiere in New York last summer. Returning April 27 for a one-night-only event, it will comKaid memorate Yom HaShoah, the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. Kaid’s love for theater developed when he performed in several productions at Marion Street Elementary and Lynbrook North Middle schools, and then joined the village-based theater group Plaza Theatrical Productions, where he continued to hone his craft. In eighth grade, he and his family moved to Merrick in the hope that he could join the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District’s CONTINUED ON PAGE 10