Fasten your seatbelts, return your seats …

…and tray tables to their upright and locked positions for takeoff… It’s the start of a new school year and familiar mantras seem to come to mind when blastoff is imminent.

This morning, the Department of Education hosted a new teacher welcoming event at Avery Fischer Hall at Lincoln Center and invited the UFT to be part of the program. Once again the school year sounded full of possibilities. Even the parts of the speeches about how well the DOE and the UFT cooperate sounded plausible. It’s one of the great things about teaching–the chance to start fresh in September.

UFT President Randi Weingarten was (very unhappily) unable to attend as she had to get to Denver to give a speech at the Democratic Convention! (There was quite a murmur through the audience when that was announced.) In her place, UFT Secretary Michael Mendel welcomed the 450 or so new teachers who attended, urged them to get in touch with the union and reassured them that both the union and the department want them to succeed. “You hear the union and the DOE are fighting. That’s the nature of labor-management relations. But we all agree on this: we want you to succeed, because if you succeed our children learn. “

Dennis Walcott, Deputy Mayor for Education, followed Michael and told them, “Don’t listen to Michael. The DOE and UFT get along famously.” Then Chancellor Klein got up and said “Let the games begin.” When the audience laughed he said, “You think it’s funny?” How soon the gloves come off!

He also said he was “so proud of the fact that Randi Weingarten will be representing us at the Democratic National Committee,” though some folks thought that seemed unlikely. He moved to an even more bellicose metaphor at the end of his talk, telling the new teachers, “I hope you will become a warrior for educational change in New York.”

There were performances by some extraordinary city school kids. A fifth-grade chorus from PS22 in Staten Island sang three songs (“Hey Now,” Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game” and one other) that were just beautiful. Stan’s Pepper Steppers, who won first-place in a double-Dutch jump-rope championship, performed such feats it felt like sitting in a stadium in Beijing. (Double-Dutch is going to become a PSAL high school sport this year.) And The Dancing Classrooms presented student exhibitions of the foxtrot, swing dance and mambo (a la “Mad Hot Ballroom.”)

The ride will soon enough become rough. But the arrival of 4,500 great new teachers is indeed a welcome thing. It’s testament to New York’s magnetic power, our students’ desire to succeed and to these new teachers’ tremendous passion. As the Chancellor said, “Let the games begin.” The union will be ready.

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