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Kazansky’s candidacy, recommended by the UFT Delegate Assembly on Feb. 11, follows UFT Treasurer Mel Aaronson’s decision to retire from the board. Aaronson has been a board trustee since 1980.

Nominating petitions for Kazansky 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.

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

Brown called Kazansky “a fast learner, competent and smart. I can’t think of a better person to work with us on the board.”

Kazansky started as a part-time pension consultant in the UFT Bronx borough office and quickly moved from conducting preliminary consultations to being the department’s youngest final consultant. He began working for the union full time starting in 2006.

He then served as a coordinator of the union’s Victim Support Program and a special representative in the Bronx, before being appointed director of school safety in 2011. That’s when he founded the UFT’s Be BRAVE Against Bullying campaign and crisis hotline. He became the director of the Safety and Health Department and a member of the Executive Board in 2013.

He returned to the Pension Department at the start of this school year.

March said that Kazansky’s work to help those being bullied will pay dividends on the TRS board.

“David knows what bullies are,” March said. “And those Wall Streeters are the biggest bullies that we know. I can’t wait for David to join us because we need those bullies on Wall Street to be put in their places.”