It has been one year since we ratified the UNITY/UFT negotiated contract that provides us with new and improved rights at the school level/workplace for all UFT represented DOE titles. We listened to our members concerns and addressed safety, lack of curriculum, professional development, basic instructional supplies, workload and issues around physical space.
However, UNITY/UFT is NOT finished. We are now confronting the issue of curriculum
alignment to the new standards (NextGen). We are working to ensure that EVERY school in the city has an appropriate curriculum to match with these new standards and that each and every one of our members is given professional development on these standards. UNITY/UFT knows that if our students and schools succeed, then WE win. Unfortunately, these days, too many people want to see us fail. We cannot and will not let that happen. As UNITY/UFT President Michael Mulgrew said, “we need to have the appropriate curriculum in our schools and be given the proper professional development . . . we work with students every day and know better than anyone what works and doesn’t work in the classroom.”
On a very different note, UNITY/UFT has pledged to raise awareness and encourage participation in the 2020 census. It will literally and figuratively be our rallying cry as we head into 2020. NY historically has had a low response rate and, as a result, our city has lost BILLIONS of dollars of federal monies. UNITY/UFT President Mulgrew recently stated that “We cannot keep subsidizing the rest of the country while continuously losing tens of billions of dollars each year. We can and must change this . . . it is our job as educators to teach everyone about the importance of being counted.”
Everybody counts!