The conversation was lively and intense as a group of 20 teachers gathered in a 5th-floor classroom for a chapter meeting at Eleanor Roosevelt HS on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in early June. Topics ranged from teacher evaluations to changing certification requirements to the benefits of an eight-period day vs. a nine-period day.

Voices were sometimes raised, and people sometimes spoke over each other, but Chapter Leader Arturo Molina was a calm center, bringing the group back to a dialogue where each member was heard and respected.

“Teachers have a lot of good input here,” said Rose Davis, a veteran social studies teacher who transferred to Eleanor Roosevelt HS in October. She credited Molina with engaging the school’s members in civil discussions on sometimes thorny topics. “He’s been a great chapter leader.”

In a testament to those union leadership skills, Molina won a $30,000 scholarship — one of only four winners — from the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York. He’ll pursue a master’s in labor studies at the institute starting this fall while continuing to teach at Roosevelt.

Molina, a Spanish teacher, has encouraged this kind of meaningful dialogue since becoming chapter leader in 2012. He says it’s all about teachers understanding their contract and their rights — and their own power as union members. The culture of the school, which opened in 2002, had not fostered that kind of empowerment in the past. Previously, UFT members had not engaged in the school-based options process, and the administration made most of the programming decisions on their behalf.

“It wasn’t clear what we as members could do,” Molina said. “I had to clarify what the contract stated. I told members my goal is not to be contentious, but communicative.”

Once elected, Molina established a consultation committee, in addition to Measures of Student Learning and professional development committees to ensure UFT members have input into the school decisions that affect them.

“I let them know that we actually have more power than you think,” Molina said. “I always have a good conversation with the administration, and they reach out to me to ask questions. Communication is more fluid now between the administration and the staff.”

Peter D’Amico, a science teacher at the school for 11 years, has worked closely with Molina as a member of the school’s consultation committee. “Since Arturo became chapter leader, he has done a great job of making us and the administration accountable and working with the administration in a positive way,” D’Amico said. “That’s a benefit to everyone. It’s made the chapter stronger.”

While Molina is honored to have won the Murphy Institute scholarship, he is just as proud that his high school won the first UFT Team HS Award for Collaboration in 2015.

“To change the culture, it has to be collective,” Molina said.