VP of Junior High and Intermediate Schools

RICHARD FARKAS is vice president of junior high and intermediate schools. He grew up in Brooklyn during the 1950s. Punchball, stickball, two–hand touch and visits to Ebbets Field spawned his love for sports while schoolyard politics cultivated his organizing skills. He attended PS 165, JHS 211, Brooklyn Tech and Brooklyn College and after basic training with the Army Reserves started his teaching career in 1972.

If it weren’t for the 1975 budget crisis Rich probably would still be teaching at IS 218 in Brooklyn. As a result of excessing, he was placed in JHS 275, also in Brooklyn, where he was elected chapter leader largely because no one else wanted the job. The remnants of the decentralization battle were still evident and after several years of battling the administration on behalf of his colleagues he transferred to IS 61, this time a school in Queens. The first person he met was Richard Miller, that school’s chapter leader, who handed him a contract, a COPE card and asked him to serve on the school’s consultation committee. It was obvious that the work of the union was in his blood .

Miller moved up to district representative, Rich became chapter leader at IS 61, a “U”-rating advocate and a pension advisor at the Queens UFT office. In 1995 he was elected as the District 24 representative and served in that capacity until June 2002. As the district rep he fought school board members who wanted to ban books, ban a curriculum of inclusion and multi-culturalism and hold school board meetings on Friday nights. In July 2002 he was elected a UFT vice president.