Chapter leaders, paras, secretaries attend workshops

Cara Metz Paraprofessionals were among the many UFT educators benefiting from the union's intensive safety and health workshops.

School Secretaries Chapter Leader Mona Gonzalez (left) joins Brooklyn's PS 102 secretaries (from second left) Elizabeth Byrne, Laura Syracuse and Helene Serio at one of the workshops.

Cara Metz Juanito Vargas of the Mental Health Association of New York of Care speaks to chapter leaders about suicide intervention on behalf of troubled students and staff.

Underscoring the pertinence of the training, 200 chapter leaders were dealing with issues of gun violence in schools at the Chancellor’s Day professional development session at UFT headquarters on June 9 when, coincidentally, a 16-year-old Bronx student was randomly killed in a shooting during a Coney Island outing. The daylong session was one of a series offered that day by the UFT Safety and Health Department to meet the special needs of chapter leaders, secretaries and paraprofessionals.

Workshops on bereavement and grief and suicide intervention were designed to help chapter leaders deal with emotional issues that affect students, staff and parents in a building and that go beyond their responsibility for contractual issues, according to Lila Ezra, the director of the UFT Member Assistance Program and coordinator for clinical counseling for the Victim Support Program. Chapter leaders asked for training in this area because they have to “step up to the plate” when a traumatic incident happens at their schools and take on responsibilities beyond the ordinary, Ezra said. A third workshop focused on building a strong school response team, prepared for any contingencies.

At the end of the day, the chapter leaders described the training session as both overwhelming and useful.

In welcoming the participants to the UFT training sessions, UFT President Michael Mulgrew noted the union’s commitment to ensuring that staff and students have safe work environments and secure classrooms.

Some 300 secretaries learned about ways to prevent violence by properly managing problematic situations at a workshop led by UFT Director of School Safety David Kazansky. And because secretaries interact with so many members of the school community each day, they benefited from a workshop on identifying different personality types and dealing with each effectively. For their personal well being, they learned about nutrition and motion exercises they can do at their desks.

Chapter Chair Mona Gonzalez said a secretary made a point of telling her that the day had provided “the best professional development in 20 years.”

Simultaneously, 150 paraprofessionals were learning effective ways to curb violence and the proper procedures for dealing with student discipline. There were lots of questions asked in an afternoon workshop on the ongoing problem of bedbugs in schools. Still frustrated by the delay between the time bedbugs are reported and ridding the school of them, the paraprofessionals were assured that the UFT is working to prod the Department of Education to speed up its response time.

Another 300 paraprofessionals received training in school safety and combating bullying at the Queens borough office and 250 from Brooklyn’s PS 53, a District 75 school, received health and safety training.