Students learn how to combat climate change at eco-friendly, solar energy-powered school on Staten Island that has become a model for the Carbon Free and Healthy Schools campaign.

This Brooklyn teacher uses immersive, engaging lessons and storytelling techniques to bring the past to life for his middle school students.

School social worker Maureen Eigenfeld has made art the cornerstone of her therapeutic work with students at the Bronx Writing Academy, a United Community School in Concourse Village.

More than 10,500 meals have been delivered from school cafeterias to neighborhood food pantries through a new UFT member-initiated School Meals 2 Pantries program on the Upper West Side.

"We know the pandemic did not affect all of us equally," said teacher Jamel Holmes, and he does what he can to ameliorate that at the East Bronx Academy for the Future. An Excellence in Education Award winner, Holmes delivers care packages to the families of former and current students, everything from food to hygiene products to laundry detergent to books. 

The UFT's community schools initiative, which now serves more than 20,000 students in 32 schools, launched on June 20, 2012, when it received financial support from the union and the City Council to begin with six schools that September.