Matthew Kirwan, the chapter leader of PS 74 on Staten Island, said he was participating for the third time in the union’s annual Lobby Day to make sure state lawmakers heard firsthand from classroom educators about their issues. “This is our opportunity to voice those issues and advocate for things that we need,” he said.

Kirwan gave the example of the need for more state funding for Teacher Centers. “A politician might not have any idea what a Teacher Center is, but when we come up here and we have waves and waves of people telling them what it is and how important it is, I think that does make a difference.”

Kirwan, an early childhood education teacher, was among the more than a thousand UFT members who descended on Albany on March 5 to talk to state lawmakers about the education issues on their minds, including the need to boost state education aid, to give Mayor Bill de Blasio the green light to tax the wealthy to pay for universal prekindergarten and after-school programs, and to impose a two-year moratorium on high-stake consequences for Common Core tests for both students and teachers.

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“First and foremost is funding,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew in his luncheon address at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center before members headed out to their individual appointments with lawmakers. “We’ve had years of budget cuts.”

Mulgrew also greeted the several hundred parents who traveled to Albany on the same day under the auspices of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council. “We didn’t send an email saying you must attend, did we?” he said to laughter and applause.

He was referring to the previous day’s rally by Success Academy Charter Schools founder Eva Moskowitz, who closed her 22 schools and then required children and strong-armed parents to go to Albany after de Blasio nixed three planned Success Academy co-locations.

The state legislative leaders who addressed the group were Speaker Sheldon Silver; Sen. Andrea Stewart Cousins, the Democratic minority leader in the state Senate; Sen. Dean Skelos and Sen. Jeffrey Klein, the state Senate co-leaders; and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan and State Sen. John Flanagan, the education committee chairs in their respective houses.

Several rank-and-file lawmakers from New York City sat and chatted with the members over lunch while others came off the Assembly and Senate floors to speak with them or met with them in their offices. Educators seized those opportunities to speak from the heart about what their schools and students needed.

Peter Coutinho, the chapter leader at IS 218 in Manhattan, told State Sen. Adriano Espaillat that teachers, especially the newer ones, need more professional development, which Teacher Centers can provide. “New teachers have no understanding of the Common Core,” Coutinho said. “Every time I turn around, someone’s at my door asking ‘What do I do?’”

James Eugenio, the chapter leader at IS 228 in Brooklyn, was among a group of members gathered around Assemblyman Bill Colton. “I’m very disappointed that all the co-locations in our district were not stopped,” Eugenio told him.

For Stefi Priess, who teaches science to pre-K through 4th-graders at PS 140 in Manhattan, more funding for science was a priority. “I have a lot of old materials,” she said. “I’d like new replenished kits, especially since 4th grade has the state science test.” Like many other teachers, she pays out of her own pocket for materials.

Tom Kelly, who teaches at ReStart Academy, said that it wasn’t fair to evaluate him and his colleagues based on the performance on standardized tests of their students, many of whom are in substance-abuse programs. “It strikes me as unfair to use high-stakes testing to evaluate teachers when you are dealing with a highly unusual student population,” he said. “It should not be one size fits all.”

Whatever their particular issues were, the UFT members all agreed that the exhausting trip was worth the effort.

“It’s important so that they can hear our voice and our issues and see our faces,” said Jean Caccioppoli, the chapter leader at IS 7 on Staten Island. “We are the people that vote for them. They can see that we are very passionate about what we stand for.”