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at 2 a.m. on Sunday. Remember to change your smoke detector batteries.
HERALD Infections as of March 7
2,303
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Infections as of Feb. 26 2,216
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Student named award semifinalist Page 27
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516.544.2728 Demi Condensed 530 Merrick rd.
Across from Pantry Din er
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MARCH 11 - 17, 2021
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SPRING FORWARD
ROCKVILLE CENTRE
Vol. 32 No. 11
Students return to South Side Ahead of staggered starts, school hosts forum on reopening might be able to get everybody in before spring break,” he said. The three main factors in the The community had a chance decision to bring seniors and to learn about the Rockville Cen- eighth-graders back full time on tre School District’s plan to bring Monday, Chang said, included a students back into classrooms decline in infection rates, the full time at a reopening forum delivery of desk barriers and a last week at South vaccination clinic Side High School. partnership with The school adminisMount Sinai South tration and Board Nassau for district of Education orgateachers. Chang nized the meeting said he discussed ahead of the stagthe plans with gered return of stuSouth Side High dents to the high Principal John Murschool and middle phy and South Side school, which began FRANk VAN ZANt Middle School Prinon Monday. cipal Shelagh “ W e w o r k e d President, McGinn, both of extremely hard to Rockville Centre whom gave an overget to this point,” Teachers’ Association view of the transisaid Superintendent tion at the March 3 June Chang, noting meeting. The plan is that conversations about bring- to have freshmen and sixth-grading students back began in July. ers return to the buildings full Elementary students began full- time on March 15, while seventhtime in-person instruction in 10th- and 11th-graders return on September, while secondary-level March 22. Students will still have students operated on a hybrid a fully remote option. schedule. Chang said that adminAt the high school, Murphy istrators kept an eye on Covid-19 said, the first step was to outfit infection rates, which increased each classroom with desks, with over the holidays and after the the assumption that all students December break. “As we looked would return. The next step was at what was happening over February break . . . we thought we Continued on page 8
By JIll NoSSA
jnossa@liherald.com
W
Melissa Koenig/Herald
GEoRGE BlAttI, A former doctor who was operating out of an abandoned Radio Shack in Franklin Square, was escorted into the Nassau County Courthouse in Mineola on March 4. He was charged in the deaths of five of his patients.
Doctor charged with murder Officials: Five patients overdosed on opioids By MElISSA koENIG mkoenig@liherald.com
Geraldine Sabatasso was a smoker with a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who began seeing Franklin Square-based Dr. George Blatti in 2007 for acute pain she suffered as a result of a neck surgery. He started prescribing her opioids in 2010, and by February 2016, Nassau County prosecutors said, she started complaining of dizziness and shortness of breath, but still,
they allege, Blatti continued to prescribe Sabatasso, of Baldwin, opioids. She died on March 22, 2016, at age 50. Among the other four patients to die under Blatti’s watch were residents of Valley Stream, Hempstead and Floral Park, according to prosecutors. Blatti prescribed the drugs from a number of locat i o n s, a u t h o r i t i e s s a i d , including an old Radio Shack in Franklin Square and the parking lots of a hotel in Rockville Centre, where he
lived at the time, and a nearby fast-food restaurant. Now Blatti, 75, originally from Malverne, faces murder and reckless endangerment charges for overprescribing opioids to Sabatasso and the four other victims, who died between 2016 and 2018, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced on March 4. Blatti was charged with five counts of second-degree murder and 11 counts of reckless endangerment, in Continued on page 4
e ask the community to maintain safe practices.