This year, 6,600 new teachers — the largest cohort since Mayor Bill de Blasio launched the “Pre–K for All” initiative a decade ago — joined our schools as more classes came into alignment with the new class size limits we fought so hard to secure. I urge everyone to welcome these new educators in your building and offer support wherever you can.

Our newest members have a wide range of backgrounds and experiences. Some are 20-somethings fresh out of grad school, while others are seasoned professionals making the leap into education from other careers. If you’ve heard the phrase “It takes a village to raise a child,” you know it’s true — and we are all part of that village. Just as children need a community of support, so too do educators and school professionals. Each one of us — in every title, in every school — deserves respect and a caring community.

At the end of August, I was pleased to greet nearly 3,000 new teachers at the kickoff event for New Teacher Week at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The UFT joined the Department of Education and other organizations for events connected to the week’s theme of “Cultivating a Village.”

More than 100 UFT representatives were there to welcome and enroll new educators in the union. It was a wonderful opportunity to show the strength of our union and the key role we play in a teacher’s success and longevity. More than a dozen union departments were on hand to help our newest educators understand their benefits and workplace rights.

The excitement in the room was palpable as the new teachers mingled and learned how the union supports them. For Joseph Perez, of PS 127 in Queens, the decision to join the UFT was easy. “A union means security and confidence in my own practices — knowing I have resources to back me up if I don’t know something,” said Perez, a first-year teacher who had previously worked for five years as a paraprofessional.

As we welcome these new educators into our union, we also invite them to add their voices and energy to our shared work. One of our union’s top priorities is engaging our newest members — whether it’s rallying to fix Tier 6 of the pension system, advocating for needed changes in teaching and learning conditions, or door-knocking for our mayoral candidate.

“People have no idea how much better your life is because of a union,” said Emily Gartner, a new teacher at Liberty Avenue MS in Brooklyn, after attending the New Teacher Week event. Gartner, an experienced educator who has taught in states with weak or no unions, said the difference is striking. Without a strong union, she said, “there was no support and so much disrespect for the teachers.”

We are all part of this great union, whether elected UFT representatives or rank-and-file members. As new teacher Andrew Allmon of PS 144 in Queens, the son of a longtime union member, put it, “The more we rise up together, the better off we all are. We’re all in this together.”