Attendance teachers ensure that students and their families have the support they need so students attend school every day or participate using technology during this remote-learning period.

LaWanda Riddick provides science instruction — and a listening ear — to junior high and high school students in Brooklyn who qualify for home instruction for medical reasons.

Diana Gorda is a lab specialist at James Madison HS in Brooklyn, where she works to make sure that science teachers and the school’s 4,000 students have everything they need to perform safe and engaging laboratory experiments.

Leandra Bates, an administrative education analyst in the Department of Education’s central Bronx office, serves as the human resources director for 34 elementary schools in the Bronx. 

Christina Gavin is the librarian at the Herbert H. Lehman HS Campus in the Bronx, where she serves 3,200 students and more than 300 staff members in the seven schools that share the building.

Desiree Mark has worked for nearly 30 years at the Lawrence Avenue school of ADAPT Community Network, formerly United Cerebral Palsy of NYC, working with children whose medical, cognitive, emotional and/or physical needs require a more restrictive setting than a public school. Since 2003, the UFT has represented ADAPT employees, who now number more than 900 at schools and residences citywide.