After accepting the Charles Cogen Award at Teacher Union Day on Nov. 2, UFT Secretary LeRoy Barr reminded the 1,700 in attendance, “In this union, we don’t rise by standing above one another, we rise by lifting each other shoulder to shoulder in solidarity and purpose.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew used similar words to describe Barr.

“LeRoy is the epitome of someone who has always put the union and its members first,” Mulgrew said. “He understands the importance of being stronger together and he lives that truth every single day.”

Barr discovered the value of strength in unity early in his teaching career, which began in 1992 at PS 154 in Harlem, a school that had long been on the state’s struggling schools list.

As a novice 5th-grade teacher, he observed and learned from veteran teachers. “I would sit in on their classes so I could understand how to have discipline in the classroom and still have the relationships,” he said.

Barr became the school’s chapter leader just after it was placed in the city Department of Education’s Chancellor’s District, which provided extra support to get struggling schools back on track.

“Our scores went up dramatically,” he said. “It was truly a team effort and the union wanted to see what was going on.”

Barr’s role in that turnaround caught the attention of then-UFT President Sandra Feldman and Tom Pappas, the union’s staff director. He became a part-time staffer in the grievance department and, in 1999, the union’s point person for a subset of Chancellor’s District schools and then for the full district.

“LeRoy was able to organize people in a school and move them to a rallying point to better their own school,” said Carmen Alvarez, the UFT’s retired vice president for special education. “The union saw that and said he needed to do this on a grander scale. So they hired him to do that kind of work for the union.”

Barr next served as a special representative in the UFT’s Manhattan borough office before being promoted to staff director.

He was elected assistant secretary in 2013 and became secretary in 2019.

Barr has always made space and ensured due honors for earlier generations of leaders, from George Altomare to Abe Levine.

In his speech, he thanked former UFT leaders, including Feldman, Pappas, former UFT President Randi Weingarten and former vice presidents Alvarez, David Sherman and Ron Jones, as well as current leaders, including Mulgrew and Vice President Anne Goldman, “who have all contributed to my journey and the foundation of this union.”

He also noted that his parents — his mom, a former public school teacher in District 15, and his dad, a former police officer — instilled in him his early appreciation for unions.

“He cares about the leadership and the members — he truly does,” Alvarez said. “That’s why he’s been successful.”