French teacher Efthimia Johanides (left) takes a selfie with two of her colleagues from Susan E. Wagner HS on Staten Island — Outstanding Activist honoree Alison Kaminsky (center), the school’s chapter leader, and Carol Ascencio, the paraprofessional representative.
Librarian Christina Gavin, the chapter leader at Jeffrey M. Rapport HS in the Bronx, shows off the flowers she received with her Outstanding Union Activist Award.
Successfully fighting off a charter school co-location. Reviving a program that teaches high school students how to swim. Creating a WhatsApp chat to connect librarians around the city.
These are just a few of the achievements of the exemplary educators, union activists and school communities honored by the UFT at the union’s Academic High Schools Awards celebration on May 5 at union headquarters in Manhattan.
Many of the awardees are members “who put their heads down and do the work” and are not looking for recognition, said UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds, the event organizer. “Their biggest focus is making sure that the schools are successful and their young people are happy.”
One of the five Team High School awards went to the Springfield Gardens Campus, which encompasses four high schools in Queens. The school community united to fight a Success Academy charter school co-location, and the city Department of Education withdrew the proposal in January. The school chapters “partnered with their students and with the community to fight this fight, and they won,” Hinds said.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew said it is an honor for the union to thank members for their achievements “because you’re the ones who get the children to the finish line, and we know that is no easy task.”
Community Champion Jessica O’Connell, a school counselor at Susan E. Wagner HS on Staten Island, said she thrives on the variety of interests and goals among her 800 students. On a typical day, she could have one senior looking at Yale University, another at the College of Staten Island and a third planning a plumbing career. “I genuinely have kids from the entire gamut and I love it,” she said.
Brooklyn School for Social Justice physical education teacher Marvin Carbajal received an Excellence in Education award for restarting a long-dormant swimming program at the school. As a high school student who initially didn’t know how to swim, Carbajal himself took part in the school’s program and eventually competed on Bushwick HS’s swim team, considered one of the best in the city and a major source of city lifeguards at the time. The program was scrapped after Bushwick HS was split into four schools, and Carbajal convinced school officials to bring it back at the Brooklyn School for Social Justice, one of those four schools.
Outstanding Union Activist honoree Karl Bruckner, the chapter leader at the School for Excellence in the Bronx, with UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds.
The program targets students from families that might not have money for lessons, and participants often are nonswimmers when they start out. Not only is swimming an important life-saving skill, it helps build self-confidence and can lead to good-paying summer jobs, said Carbajal, the coach of the boys’ swim team at Social Justice. “It’s a totally life-changing experience for them,” he said.
Lisa-Erika James, who teaches government and economics as well as theater at Talent Unlimited HS in Manhattan, said her students’ trajectory from freshman year to senior year inspires her. “I love being able to plant seeds in students and then watch over the four-year period how much they grow and develop,” said James, who also received an Excellence in Education Award.
Hinds thanked the Outstanding Union Activist awardees for their commitment to the union through organizing. “They’re the ones who are making sure that your voice is being heard, those grievances are filed, those issues are being raised during consultation,” she said.
School librarian Christina Gavin, the new chapter leader at Jeffrey M. Rapport HS in the Bronx, was one of the Outstanding Union Activist honorees. Many schools have only one librarian, so she created a WhatsApp chat to provide a forum for connecting librarians across the city. She has organized teams of librarians to volunteer at union book giveaways and attend other union events.
Community Champion Nellie Turken, a paraprofessional at Manhattan Academy for Arts and Language for 39 years, works with English language learners who hail from all over the world. She tells students it’s OK to make mistakes and is gratified to see them build self-confidence and pride as they learn. “I tell them if you believe in yourself, you will always be successful,” she said.
Turken said she is proud of her award and her nearly four decades as a para. “I wanted to make a difference,” she said, “and I feel that I have.”
