UFT President Michael Mulgrew opened the March 25 Delegate Assembly by thanking delegates for their tireless work in countering Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s destructive education agenda.

“I want to start this DA by giving personal thanks to all of you,” Mulgrew said. “What you’ve done in this budget cycle and what you’ve done this month has been amazing.”

The month began with the UFT’s Lobby Day in Albany on March 4, when 1,100 members traveled to Albany to meet with legislators. The next week, UFT members at more than 500 schools came together with parents and other members of the school community to join hands in front of their schools to show their commitment to protecting schools against the governor’s attacks. Throughout the month, members took other creative protest actions, including making videos that were posted online; sending thousands of tweets; and creating T-shirts and signs.

The massive campaign both on social media and in school communities statewide sought to educate the public about the danger to public schools from the governor’s politically motivated attacks.

The impact was evident in a March 18 poll, Mulgrew said. Gov. Cuomo’s job-approval rating for his handling of education had fallen to 28 percent, with nearly two-thirds of state voters disapproving of his performance on education, the Quinnipiac University poll showed. The governor’s poor rating on education brought down his overall job approval to its lowest point yet, barely 50 percent.

Under Mayor Bloomberg, the UFT had conducted a similar campaign to inform the public about the disastrous effects of the mayor’s education policies.

“It took us two and a half years to get Bloomberg’s approval rating into the 20s,” Mulgrew told delegates. “It took us two months” to educate the public about Cuomo.

Even as the campaign against Cuomo’s agenda was in full swing, UFT members have continued implementing new school-based initiatives established by the UFT contract that are moving New York City schools forward, Mulgrew said.

A group of classroom teachers from schools with newly created teacher leadership positions told delegates how educators in the new positions are nurturing collaboration and professional growth among their colleagues.

Joshua Houston, the chapter leader at PS/IS 30 in Brooklyn, said the model and master teachers at his school were helping teachers share expertise, which is ultimately benefiting students the most. “We’re now finally getting real-world, real-time solutions to meeting their learning needs,” he said.

In addition to creating teacher leadership positions, the new contract established the PROSE program, which stands for Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence.

Mulgrew said he accompanied some teachers from PROSE schools to visit state legislative leaders on Lobby Day.

The message that PROSE teachers delivered, he said, was: “We are moving our school system forward, and we would like your support.”

But, Mulgrew said, with or without the state’s backing, the UFT will continue its work with the mayor and the chancellor to enhance education for the city’s 1.1 million public school students.

The Delegate Assembly held a moment of silence for four UFT leaders who recently passed away: Harriet Merchant, a former UFT treasurer and head of the UFT Scholarship Fund, and Morris Shapiro, a UFT founding member and former vice president for vocational high schools; Rosalyn Dorsey, a UFT Executive Board member and paraprofessional coordinator; and Telesha Hillary, a teacher at PS 149 in Brooklyn and, as Mulgrew said, “a great union activist.”