UFT Vice President for Education Mary Vaccaro writes that the UFT Teacher Center has been a leader in providing New York City public school educators with high-quality professional learning for more than 40 years. The program recently has begun working with new partners to ensure that educators across the city get the training they need. 

UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds writes that high school educators routinely face challenges, and during the pandemic, we found little joy. Connecting with our quest for joy in our craft remains an undeniable part of our work. But how? The answer: school-based, collective solutions.

UFT Vice President for CTE Leo Gordon writes that it's a challenging time for career and technical education, but it's also a time of exciting opportunities. The pandemic has illuminated the importance of skilled trades in our day-to-day lives. Now is the time to enhance and promote these career pathways.

We have seen how so many of our students with disabilities have lost ground since the pandemic hit. This fall, we have been confronted with the rocky rollout of the DOE’s Special Education Recovery Services program that was supposed to provide targeted help to these students.

It’s been a stressful year, and the pandemic is still affecting all our lives. Some UFT members have gotten a jump-start on their own social-emotional wellness, with training in mindfulness meditation and yoga they use in their own lives and bring to their students at school.

As hospitalizations rise, we again find ourselves in a battle for adequate staffing. Staffing ratios are the foundation for safe patient care.

As we look ahead to September, when students and educators will be back together in school buildings, we must focus as strongly on social-emotional wellness as on academics.

High school members from across the city joined forces with the union’s academic high school team in five safe spaces to talk about what works and what obstructs, to uncover better practices, and to find solutions to our challenges.

Nearly a year after the pandemic began, New York City hospitals are once again at full capacity, but this time our own ranks have been thinned by illness. But Federation of Nurses/UFT members continue to demonstrate courage, compassion and relentless dedication while caring for patients in battlefield conditions.

No matter what is going on around us, we tune out the noise and we plug away, fulfilling our responsibilities to our students, whether in person and/or remotely.