______________
your HEALTH body / mind / fitness
and AUGUST 31, 2023
UNIONDALE _____________
HERALD BEACON
with a focus on:
Wellness
Artsy times at public library
Getting ready to go back to school
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AUGUST 31 - SEPTEMBER 6, 2023
Awake at 5 a.m. to play hoops By BRANDON CRUZ bcruz@liherald.com
Courtesy 5 am Brotherhood
Posing after the first open games hosted by the 5 am Brotherhood this summer in Lake Grove.
The 5 am Brotherhood is a co-ed, Suffolk County-based basketball club that hosts earlymorning games starting at, yes, 5 a.m. every weekday in a competitive but fun, safe and familylike environment for hoopsters from all over Long Island. It has now officially expanded into Nassau County, and is inviting players of all skill levels to join the contests and be a part of something bigger than themselves. Continued on PaGe 12
New app connects schools, families By BRANDON CRUZ bcruz@liherald.com
Befitting the digital age of infor mation, the Uniondale school district has unveiled an innovative application to help bridge the infor mation gap among students, parents and district officials for the upcoming school year. The app, Uniondale UUFSD, NY, was created by Thrillshare, a mobile developer that specializes in platfor ms that help schools manage online interactions between them and the families they serve. It will empower the district to establish its own unique identity
online and keep parents in the loop with individual school updates and information on district events and activities. The app is designed to serve as a communications hub, and will share news, announcements and updates with each school’s social media accounts, simplifying administrative processes. It will also give users the ability to view everything from school calendars to lunch menus to staff directories, and to receive personalized, realtime alerts and updates on their phones. “The app has all of our schools, so parents would go into settings and designate the
schools they want to allow notifications from, and then once that’s done, they have access to that school’s feed,” Ana Ritter, t h e d i s t r i c t ’s d i re c t o r o f instructional technology and library media services, explained. “So whenever that school is posting an event, it comes automatically right to this new mobile app.” Ritter added that parents’ anxiety-filled days of filling out forms brought to them by their children, who are then trusted to return them to school, are long gone. Parents can now sign and upload important documents, such as health forms Continued on PaGe 17
the uniondale uuFSd nY app was designed to be a communication hub for the families of students enrolled in the school district and district offices.
Brandon Cruz/Herald