"You are the best," schools Chancellor Richard Carranza told 17 Big Apple Award winners at the seventh annual awards ceremony at the city Department of Education headquarters in Manhattan on June 11. In addition to their Big Apple honors, the 17 educators will form the Chancellor’s Teacher Advisory Group.

The second annual Daniel Dromm Scholarship Brunch at UFT headquarters in Manhattan on June 1 kicked off Pride Month, honored members of the LGBTQ community past and present and honored five high school seniors with $1,000 scholarships for being exemplary students and LGBTQ student activists.

The 33rd annual UFT and DOE School Counselor Recognition Day Awards Ceremony on May 31 at the UFT’s Brooklyn borough office recognized the contributions of 26 school counselors from all around the city.

UFT members Connor Valvo, a teacher at Kingsborough Early College Secondary School, and Janu Williams, a school counselor at the HS for Sports Management, both in Brooklyn, were honored by the city DOE in June for providing lifesaving assistance to colleague Elizabeth Kullman last November.

Thirty-two student projects were honored May 30 at the 13th annual Better Speech and Hearing Month Celebration at UFT headquarters in Manhattan, where about 200 students, parents and speech and hearing providers gathered in Shanker Hall for a ceremony and dinner.

“You have different skills, certification and education, but you all have the ability to stand up in the middle of chaos — no matter how crazy it gets — and say, ‘This person matters,’” Anne Goldman, the head of the Federation of Nurses/UFT and the UFT vice president for non-DOE members, told the nurses attending the union’s sixth annual Nurse Recognition Day on April 30.

At their annual recognition dinner at union headquarters ion May 8, school nurses celebrated each other, their union and their mission of compassionate caring for the students in New York City public schools.

The UFT presented $5,000 Albert Shanker Scholarships to 180 seniors from public high schools throughout the city and also honored eight graduate students on May 14 at a reception and ceremony in Shanker Hall at union headquarters in Manhattan. The ceremony marked the 50th anniversary of the annual $1 million scholarship awards celebration.

"We are not babysitters, we are early childhood educators serving New York,” Chapter Chair Tammie Miller said on May 11 as UFT Family Child Care Providers Chapter members gathered for the union’s sixth annual Provider Appreciation Awards Ceremony at UFT headquarters in Manhattan.

Zenzile DaBreo, a kindergarten teacher at PS/IS 109 in Brooklyn, was honored with the Sanford Teacher Award as the “most inspirational teacher” in New York State. “We only have two rules in my classroom: be respectful and be responsible,” she says.