Cara Matthews

The UFT welcomed City Council members to its annual legislative breakfast on May 9 to educate them about union programs and initiatives that need funding in the upcoming city budget.


This year's Retired Teachers Chapter Luncheon celebrated the "visionaries" on whose shoulders stand retirees and in-service members alike as some 500 attendees were urged to continue advocating for political change and the rights of educators, students and families.

"Pete the Cat" author Eric Litwin led early childhood educators in a merry dance as they practiced how to engage the city's youngest learners in a love for reading during the 16th annual Early Childhood Conference held at the UFT headquarters.

In March, educators at Maxine Green HS for Imaginative Inquiry in Manhattan received word that their school would close in June. Winning the Academic High School Division's Team High School Award, said the chapter leader, was "a fitting end to the journey."

CTE Award winning teacher Craig Cannizzaro has a knack for getting his students in his video design class at Ralph McKee CTE HS on Staten Island animated about coding and other key software engineering skills.

CTE Award-winning baking teacher Shamel Donigan provides his students at Food and Finance HS with the tools to find success in the culinary industry and in life.

Music has long been the soundtrack to Nancy Dunetz's life, and now the retired English as a second language educator has found a new calling as a violist for two ensembles in New York City.

A group of high school juniors taking college-level biology at the Gaynor McCown Expeditionary Learning School have a transformative experience working with fluorescent jellyfish proteins during a class trip to the DNA Learning Center in Brooklyn.

The UFT has accused Mayor Adams and the city Department of Education of trying to sabotage the implementation of the state law lowering class size in New York City public schools.
The state has significantly increased aid for city schools to finance the cost of lowering class sizes. But the mayor and the DOE are “inflating cost estimates, inventing excuses and gaslighting the public,” said UFT Assistant Secretary Michael Sill.