The UFT leadership is urging members to sign nominating petitions to elect UFT Staten Island Borough Representative Debra Penny to a three-year term as a trustee on the Teachers’ Retirement System board.

Penny’s candidacy, unanimously recommended by the UFT Delegate Assembly on Feb. 3, follows trustee Sandra March’s decision to retire from the board. March has been a board trustee for more than 30 years.

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Nominating petitions for Penny are in all schools and must be returned no later than March 31. The petition may be signed by regularly appointed school staff members and paraprofessionals who have joined the Teachers’ Retirement System, including supervisors.

Penny received high praise from the two other elected teacher-members of the board, UFT members Tom Brown, the union’s assistant treasurer, and David Kazansky.

Brown worked closely with Penny while she was on the UFT Pension Committee. “She did hundreds of pension consultations for our members,” Brown said. “She is bright and extremely capable.”

Penny has been an early childhood educator on Staten Island for more than 34 years, teaching children with special needs as well as a variety of common branch and enrichment programs.

She became the chapter leader at PS 32 and shortly thereafter started working as a pension specialist in the Staten Island borough office. She left the classroom to work as an educational liaison with the UFT Teacher Center, a position in which she assisted new members and provided them with information they would need to establish their own careers.

Penny served as the union’s political action coordinator for the borough and a full-time special representative before becoming the UFT borough rep in September 2012.

She is a member of the union’s Executive Board and is a delegate to the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the New York State United Teachers’ Representative Assembly. She also sits on the NYSUT board of directors.

Kazansky said he is looking forward to Penny joining the trustees.

“Tom and I cannot wait to work alongside Debra and continue the important work of ensuring retirement security for all UFT members,” Kazansky said. “Her intelligence, ability and dedication to the union and its members make her a welcome addition to our team.”