East Meadow
HERALD Protesters call for l.I. to reopen
Teachers visit their students
Tennis starts up at Eisenhower
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Vol. 20 No. 21
MAY 21 - 27, 2020
A socially distant surprise McVey kindergarten class salutes teacher on a special Mother’s Day By BRIAN STIEGlITZ bstieglitz@liherald.com
Courtesy Patsy Mustafich
KINdERGARTEN STudENTS AT McVey Elementary School, in East Meadow,, surprised their teacher, Danielle Page, with a car parade on May 10 to celebrate the birth of her son, Tyler. Sebastian Mustafich cheered while his mother, Patsy, drove past Page’s house.
Throughout the school year, the students in Danielle Page’s kindergarten class at McVey Elementary School, in East Meadow, were “watching her belly grow,” as 5-year-old Sebastian Mustafich described it, and planning to throw a class baby shower at which they could meet her first child. But when schools closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, the children’s plans were put on hold. And in late March, Page gave birth to a boy,
and she and her husband, Thomas, named him Tyler. But that didn’t stop the students from celebrating with her: On May 10 they held a car parade outside her house in Seaford to honor her first Mother’s Day as a mom. “At his age, the teacher isn’t just a teacher,” said Patsy Mustafich, Sebastian’s mother, describing Page as a mother figure to her son and his classmates because of “her warm and kind ways.” While the class parents couldn’t throw her a baby Continued on page 3
Students empower their cross-state peers, virtually By BRIAN STIEGlITZ bstieglitz@liherald.com
Anjali Aggarwal, a junior at W.T. Clarke High School in Salisbury, has been spending her time during the coronavirus pandemic helping students who want to improve their public speaking skills. Kate Li, a junior at Howland High School in Youngstown, Ohio, is also an avid public speaker, and has been meeting virtually with students to teach them different styles of debate. And Jason Cai, a junior at the MacDuffie School in Granby, Mass., has been teaching students how to speak Mandarin
and French. The three recently launched a nonprofit called Empower Expression, which offers free mentoring to high school students in a variety of fields, including public speaking, design, music, writing, language and film production. “We just really wanted to help other people with their confidence and with their communication skills,” Li said, “to help guide their future and careers.” Aggarwal added that their mission became even more pertinent because of the pandemic. “I feel like [our mentees] are benefiting from having someone to talk to and learn from,” she said.
“Being alone could be very isolating, and virtual mentoring is something that could bring people together right now.” The three students met last summer in the Harvard Pre-College Program, a two-week course for high school students who live on and take classes at Harvard’s campus in Boston. Li is Empower Expression’s president and executive director. She has experience in congressional and public forum debating, is a Ted-Ed Student Talk leader and has taken part in piano competitions for 12 years. Aggarwal, the vice president and secretary, has been a standout in writing and business competi-
tions on a regional and international level. And Cai is a native Mandarin speaker who is fluent in French. “We all stayed in touch after the end of the [Harvard] program, and that led us to start working together on Empower Expression,” Aggarwal said. The group is hosting its first #SpeakForT heAr ts Online
Debate Tournament June 6-7. There will be two divisions, one for high school students and another for graduates, and include three categories of debate: Public Forum, Lincoln Douglas and Congressional. Public Forum is a debate between two teams of two, and focuses on issues and questions Continued on page 3