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Topics in the News:
Hurricane Sandy
In testimony at a Feb. 26 City Council hearing, DOE officials indicated that getting reimbursement for the $175 million already spent to get schools up and running after Hurricane Sandy has been slow. So far FEMA has visited only eight of the 50 severely damaged schools, the initial step in the reimbursement process.
Department of Education employees who worked in evacuation shelters during Hurricane Sandy have been waiting months for payment for the hours that they worked.
At PS 299 in Bushwick, the 3rd-graders raised money to help families made homeless by Hurricane Sandy, while a 4th-grade class organized a can drive for Sandy victims.
Wanting to do something special for the children of PS 38, which took a pounding from Hurricane Sandy, the staff of the UFT borough office on Staten Island organized a bowling and pizza party.
UFT Staten Island Borough Representative Emil Pietromonaco testified before the New York City Council Committee on Education.
Students and staff from an elementary school in Mahopac in Putnam County arrived at PS 39 on Staten Island on Jan. 31 to donate 4,000 books to students from that school and nearby PS 38 and PS 41, whose neighborhoods bore the brunt of the flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy.
The world is unfortunately filled with stress and, much as we would like to shield young children from it, there is no magic wand. This past fall, we shared the trauma inflicted by Hurricane Sandy, which devastated some of our school communities and affected everyone throughout the area in one way or another.
In Far Rockaway, the Refuge Church of Christ served as a base for UFT members volunteering in the cleanup and debris removal. UFT President Michael Mulgrew attended Dec. 16 church services and presented a plaque to the pastor, Bishop Leroy Joseph, in recognition of the congregation’s invaluable aid “in partnership with the UFT.”
The UFT, the AFT and our allies were successful in lobbying the Internal Revenue Service to relax its rules and allow members who were hard hit by Hurricane Sandy to take loans and hardship withdrawals from their Tax-Deferred Annuity, their 401(k) and other tax-sheltered retirement savings accounts.
At a UFT knitting jamboree to highlight the Hurricane Sandy Relief Scarf Campaign — 1,000 Scarves to Warm the Soul, serious and fledgling knitters and crocheters, men and women, young and old gathered at union headquarters on Dec. 17 to put their hands and skills to work.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced on Dec. 13 that the Teachers’ Retirement System will allocate $1 billion in post-Sandy reconstruction and other critical infrastructure projects in New York City and the surrounding area.
At the request of UFT President Michael Mulgrew, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited two storm-ravaged school communities on Staten Island on Dec. 13 to learn firsthand from students, educators and family members what they endured and how they are faring in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the New York City Teachers Retirement System has pledged $1 billion to new investments in infrastructure projects, including improvements to transportation, power, water, communications, and housing in New York City and throughout the tri-state area.
After a week without classes, my 5th-graders filed back into school. Fortunately for my class, no one had been directly affected by Hurricane Sandy beyond some minor power outages, though others in our school were not as lucky. But that is not to say we didn’t feel the effects of this tragedy in a very personal way.
At the Nov. 28 Delegate Assembly, the first convened since Hurricane Sandy decimated parts of New York City, UFT President Michael Mulgrew gave a heartfelt thanks to delegates — and all UFT members — who joined the union’s relief efforts in the aftermath of the storm.
UCAN. It stands for Uniting Communities and Neighborhoods, and it’s a new good-will project in the Bronx that has dozens of UFT members hammering or cleaning or beautifying or just playing games with children at a shelter.
A bountiful Thanksgiving dinner was held one day early, on Nov. 21, at Queens HS for Information, Research and Technology in the heart of Far Rockaway. The school invited parents and children for the day’s holiday feast that educators cooked and served.
Thanksgiving took on new meaning for the students and staff from PS/MS 105 in storm-ravaged Far Rockaway when their welcoming hosts at JHS 72 in Jamaica invited them to share a preholiday Community Feast — turkey and all the trimmings.
Hurricane Sandy slammed into our metropolitan area on Oct. 29, causing death and destruction. Educators still feel the financial and emotional effects of the storm on themselves, their students and their colleagues, and see the physical damage to communities, homes, schools and classrooms.
A Hurricane Sandy hotline is now part of the UFT’s continuing and expanding outreach to members who need assistance in the wake of the devastating late-October storm.
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