Long Beach
HERALD
Higher Education & COVID-19 Also serving Point Lookout & East Atlantic Beach Hear from college &
l.B. adding social distancing agents
A week without power for Allegria
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Vol. 31 No. 33
university presidents & faculty on the Backing the lateblue st on going back to school
‘Walking into a lot of unknowns’ Long Beach parents unsure how schools will look in the fall pandemic would drag on, she made adjustments to help her son stay on top of his schoolAmanda Moore, a single work, while also taking care of mother of two boys and a co-own- her younger son, who attended er of Long Beach-based Wolf & day care. Wing Interior Design, had to G o v. A n d r e w C u o m o make adjustments back in announced last week that schools March, when the in New York state coronavirus pancan open in Septemdemic forced schools ber, thanks to the to close, leaving state’s low Covid-19 many students at the infection rate. With mercy of an unprovthe guidance of a en online learning reopening task force model. — made up of Moore’s 15- yearadministrators, parold son, whom she ents, teachers and declined to name, students — the Long will be a sophomore Beach School Disat Long Beach High trict released its School. Moore said reopening plan, givshe had to make an SAM PiNTo ing many parents extra effort to help Board of Education the option of inhim during the pans ch o o l l e a r n i n g , trustee demic. remote learning or a “As a single mom hybrid model. and a business owner, there’s not Middle and high school stua whole lot of extra time as it is, dents will follow the hybrid plan, so I had to quickly figure out switching between remote learnwhat he needed and how I was ing and in-school classes every going to make the time every day other day. Elementary school stuto help him,” she said. “Most of dents have the option of attendthe time it was just that I needed ing classes in person every day. to motivate him, and I needed to Parents who choose to opt out of keep him on schedule and to in-person learning must let the check on him.” district know this week, school When Moore realized that the Continued on page 3
By DArwiN YANeS dyanes@liherald.com
i
Christina Daly/Herald
Mo CASSArA, who owns two restaurants in Point Lookout, is contemplating closing one of them.
Point Lookout, a ‘summer place,’ worries about the fall By JAMeS BerNSTeiN jbernsten@liherald.com
Point Lookout may be tiny, in geographical terms, covering less than two-tenths of a square mile at the very eastern tip of the Long Beach barrier island, but it seems to have always had a giant sign hanging overhead, proclaiming “Summer.” The unincorporated hamlet, with a population of 1,219, is all about bicycles and tricycles, swimsuits and san-
dals and ice cream pop sticks tossed about the sidewalks. It’s about yawning sunrises and orange sunsets. But in these days of Covid19 and the shakiest economy in decades, Point Lookout has taken on a different feel. It is now also about anxiety for restaurant owners who have already scaled back and are losing money; concerns about the coming fall, when many summer residents will l e ave ; a n d q u i e t , d a rk thoughts of businesses clos-
ing for good and life never being the same again. “A lot of the businesses have been holding on by a thread,” said Steve Merola, president of the Point Lookout Chamber of Commerce, who was born and raised in the place residents sometimes refer to as PLO. Merola’s parents ran a grocery store in town decades ago, and he remembers playing handball against the store’s Continued on page 3
think safe interaction is important for their emotional and social growth.