You and the UFT - Paraprofessional Edition

Nov 21, 2001 3:00 PM

REACHES OUT TO MEMBERS, PARENTS AND STUDENTS

As an organization with a heart, the UFT extends a helping hand to members and the community in all types of situations. The union contributes to worthy organizations and causes striving to improve human rights and better conditions for children. We’ve joined forces with the Children’s Defense Fund and the Coalition for the Homeless to press government representatives to be more socially responsible and aware of the impact of their actions on children. We run a Labor Heritage Day each year for high school students who want to learn about the impact of labor unions. And we’ve sponsored "Double Dutch," chess and debate teams in state and national competitions.

Here are some other examples of union outreach:

• The union pioneered a Victim Support Program to provide staff members who have been assaulted or victimized by school crime with hands-on help with everything from filing the proper forms to prosecuting the criminals in court to providing confidential counseling. The program is run by the UFT’s School Safety Department, which also collects data on school-related incidents, offers technical help with safety planning and conducts violence prevention workshops.

• The union has become the most credible source of information on environmental health and safety in the schools. Working with professional industrial hygienists, the UFT’s Health and Safety Committee — a team of experts based at union headquarters and borough offices — swoops into schools with environmental and physical hazards and hammers out solutions with the board and the School Construction Authority. And as part of its efforts to reach out to the community, the UFT has issued a host of Q&A booklets giving the facts on contaminants and serious diseases. Our aim is to protect our students as well as our members.

• The UFT recognized that many students across the city need help with homework. We responded with Dial-A-Teacher, a UFT-run telephone service which students or their parents can call after school. Some 73,000 calls come in each year to the teachers who staff the phones and speak eight languages — a rate averaging an astounding 210 calls an hour. This successful idea, supported with funds from the Board of Education and the City Council, has spread to cities around the nation and to Canada. Encourage your students to call Dial-A-Teacher at (212) 777-3380.

• Each year since 1971, the UFT Scholarship Fund has awarded more than 200 undergraduate and graduate scholarships to some of New York City’s brightest and highest-achieving students from poor families. Teachers and guidance counselors recommend the candidates, and an impartial selection committee chooses the scholarship winners based on academic and financial criteria. In 1997 the fund was renamed in honor of the late UFT president, Albert Shanker.

• Parents play an essential role in their children’s education, and teachers need parents as partners to help children reach their potential. That’s why the union has increased its parent involvement activities. Over the years the UFT has distributed millions of copies of Welcome to Open School Week, a booklet encouraging parents to visit schools and meet with teachers; it’s available in several languages. The union conceived of a formal school orientation program for parents which the chancellor adopted; each year the union issues a special newsletter for parents to coincide with this event. The UFT runs an annual parent conference and issues other booklets, including Drugs: What Every Parent Should Know and A Parent’s Guide to School Conduct, both available in English and Spanish. And the UFT, through its educational programs and Dial-A-Teacher, conducts parent workshops in various languages throughout the city and sponsors a citywide parent conference.

• The UFT has numerous committees that deal with a wide range of member concerns and all are open to paraprofessionals. Some concentrate on professional matters, such as art, music, mathematics, social studies, English, science or high schools. Others are ethnically oriented, including the African American, Asian American, Hellenic, Hispanic American, and Irish American heritage groups. The Lesbian and Gay Teachers Association and Women’s Rights Committee tackle human rights and other concerns, and the UFT Committee for Members Who Are Capably Disabled works to ensure that members with handicaps get the workplace accommodations to which they are entitled. This is just a random selection of committees. Watch the New York Teacher’s "UFT Calendar" for meetings of all of the groups.