On Oct. 30, Governor Andrew Cuomo released new guidelines for schools in red and orange zones that would allow them to reopen for in-person learning. The guidelines state that mandatory mass testing in schools must be conducted before they can reopen, followed by daily symptom and exposure screenings.
Loretta Watz is an example of the kind of devout Catholic who is the backbone of the Diocese of Brooklyn — the parishioners who faithfully attend Mass every week. In Watz’s case, that would be St. Pancras Church.
It has been five months since George Floyd died at the hands of police in Minneapolis — a tragedy that unleashed massive protest demonstrations in cities across the country and ushered in a new era of racial reckoning in America.
Msgr. Joseph Calise, pastor at the Parish of Transfiguration-St. Stanislaus Kostka, is a recovering alcoholic who has remained sober for the last 30 years.
This year, the annual Futures in Education Gala has officially gone virtual to help families keep their children in local parish schools and Catholic academies. Futures in Education relies on this gala every fall to raise money for scholarships.
The start of the 2020-2021 academic year last month began positively as schools in the Diocese of Brooklyn reopened on time, with proper health and safety measures enforced.
With Halloween festivities changing due to the pandemic, the Home Academy Association (HAA) at Immaculate Conception Catholic Academy (Astoria) made sure their students could still have a semi-normal experience. So, they came up with the idea to hold an outdoor “Trunk-or-Treat” event that involved dressing up in masks and costumes, plus trick-or-treating at tables in Immaculate Conception’s church parking lot.
Rocco Pisani celebrated his 11th birthday on Oct. 7 at Cohen Children’s Medical Center while receiving intense chemotherapy treatments. He was diagnosed with leukemia in May and has been going into the hospital every 10 days for three-day stays.
On Oct. 6, Governor Andrew Cuomo established three color-coded zones — red, orange, and yellow — to identify areas with increasing numbers of coronavirus cases. Public and private schools in the red and orange zones were temporarily closed, beginning Oct. 6 and Oct. 9, respectively, and must remain closed for at least two weeks.
With a month of school officially done, there’s a sense of routine and structure when you walk into St. Ephrem Catholic Academy. Students line up outside on the designated stickers, get their temperatures checked through thermal imaging, and go up the stairs and down the hallways in one-way fashions.
