Honoring founders, slapping special ed plans among 6 approved

All six resolutions on the agenda were passed fairly easily at the March 24 meeting.

A resolution on the union’s 50th anniversary thanked the founders for their “courage and foresight” in establishing a union that “greatly improved salaries and benefits for our members, protected their rights as professionals and improved our public schools.” It also pledged that present members would “build on the progress made these 50 years, always remembering that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.”

Retiree George Altomare said, “It’s courage and solidarity we are celebrating.”

A resolution sharply critical of the latest special education reform plans was unanimously approved. It was introduced by Vice President Carmen Alvarez, who noted that one of the resolution’s demands had already been met: the recommended working committee of parents, the UFT, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, education and special education advocacy groups as well as representatives of school communities had its first successful meeting days before the DA.

UFT Vice President of Special Education Carmen Alvarez introduces a resolution criticizing the Department of Education’s latest special ed reform plans.

Support for the fired educators at Central Falls HS in Rhode Island passed (with one nay vote), with delegates resolving to inform the president and the U.S. education secretary “of their complete lack of understanding of education,” after both said they agreed with the district superintendent’s actions in firing the entire staff. The delegates also voted to send material support to the teachers.

There was almost unanimous agreement to endorse and help get members to a May 1 march and rally in support of immigrant workers’ rights called by the Alliance for Labor and Immigration Rights and Jobs for All. An amendment to the resolution calling for insertion of the word “legal” in reference to those the union would support was voted down when it was pointed out by Queens HS rep James Vasquez that the rally was about all workers’ rights.

Two final resolutions passed unanimously. One blasted the Department of Education for initiating high-stakes testing of children in kindergarten through grade 2. The other called on the DOE to bulk up its near nonexistent emergency preparedness protocols.

One other resolution, introduced by Chapter Leader John Yanno of the John Jay campus’ Secondary School for Law for consideration at the April DA, failed to win support. It called for “job actions” in place of declaring impasse and going to the state Public Employment Relations Board for mediation on outstanding bargaining issues. “It’s time we mobilize the only power we have, the teachers,” Yanno said.

Responding, LeRoy Barr, one of the union’s two staff directors, reminded delegates that “any job action means we lose the contract at a time when Chancellor Joel Klein would like to tear up the contract. If you organize a walkout, you have to have a strategy for walking back in.”