
NICE initiative summer boot camps build educators’ expertise
Through the National Industry Certification for Educators, or NICE, initiative, the UFT is providing the professional learning that CTE educators need — and we are doing it ourselves.
It’s completely still until dance teacher Michael Kerr strikes the drum and suddenly everyone is in motion. The 6th-grade girls twirl and bend while the boys tentatively reach and arch.
It’s only days into the new school year and already these beginning dancers at MS 443 in South Park Slope are comfortable with the feel of their bare feet on the wood floor and the challenge of moving their bodies with deliberation and aligning their movements with those of a partner.
The drumming stops, but a few dancers miss the cue. “It’s all right to make mistakes, but in dance the end must be the end,” Kerr explains. “Dance is not like a run…
Ready for anything. There are a lot of different feelings you feel the first day. You think only the children are anxious, but so are the adults! You don’t know what to expect or how the day is going to go, but you know you’ll always have one or two children who feel scared.
Chancellor Carmen Fariña, elected officials, and students on Sept. 24 celebrated the New York City public school system’s first observance of the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha at an event at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan.
The UFT on Sept. 24 launched a new TV ad to kick off its yearlong campaign celebrating the passion and promise of New York City public schools.
Citing a disconnect between education research and policy, renowned Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond has launched a new education think tank, the Learning Policy Institute, with offices in Palo Alto and Washington.
Open School Night on Sept. 17 took place both inside and outside PS 19 in Corona, Queens. Inside, parents met with teachers; outdoors in the yard, there were raffles, dance exhibitions and information booths — the school’s first-ever Community Learning School fair.
The event was the brainchild of UFT resource coordinator Savanity Davis. “I was trying to figure out how I could make a footprint at the beginning of the year and prove to the staff that it’s worth being a community learning school,” she said.
PS 19, one of the largest elementary schools in the city, is one of 25 schools in the UFT New York City Community Learning Schools Initiative, which provides academic supports and social services to students and their familie…
The first day is such a tornado of a day. It’s fun because it’s a jumpstart to the year, but you look forward to the part of the year when you’re in your rhythm again.
I spent most of the day trying to meet as many kids as possible, doing my best to make them feel comfortable and welcome. I know that feeling of coming into high school and feeling overwhelmed.
Hundreds of UFT members marched up Fifth Avenue in the Sept. 12 Labor Day Parade to show pride in their union and demonstrate the importance of unions in fighting for working people.
The annual West Indian Day Parade — traditionally held on Labor Day — brings about two million people to Crown Heights. More than 100 UFT members joined the festivities — riding on the UFT float or marching alongside it.
The toe-tapping musical “Teach It Right, or, Right to Teach” toured the parks and playgrounds of the city this summer, presenting its story of the challenges and struggles facing public education through the ordeals of a teacher and a middle school student.
Students, teachers and parents formed a huge peace symbol in the schoolyard of PS 69 in Jackson Heights in celebration of International Peace Day on Sept. 21.
Through the National Industry Certification for Educators, or NICE, initiative, the UFT is providing the professional learning that CTE educators need — and we are doing it ourselves.
If Gov. Cuomo thought that his assault on educators earlier this year would be popular with the public, he miscalculated.
A little-noticed clause that state legislators tucked into the omnibus bill that ended the legislative session in June could make the already glaring inequities between charter and traditional public schools even worse.
A kindergartner’s effectiveness in handling social and emotional experiences is a strong predictor of success in adulthood, according to a new study from the American Journal of Public Health.
Cultivating and celebrating trust and respect among adolescents in New York City is what student-written YCTeen magazine is all about. Teachers in New York City public high schools can get the print magazine for free.
At the beginning of the summer, I was in high spirits. I had just finished my first year of teaching and was told that I would be teaching all 7th-grade science classes for the upcoming year. Aside from the fact that I adore 7th-graders (awkwardness and all), I was also looking forward to having just one curriculum to prepare and teach.
Members of the UFT Retired Teachers Chapter turned out in force as usual for the annual Labor Day Parade in Manhattan on Sept. 12.