Highlights from the latest issue of New York Teacher:
There are some who feel that charter schools and teacher unions don’t go together — but not the folks at Amber Charter School in East Harlem, who have been successfully combining the two for years, exemplifying their school theme, “Together, we can.”
Not many mothers on Staten Island — or in any borough, at that — can boast of a son who can cook kangaroo to perfection or whip up a mean piranha soup not to die for.
Think of American Idol for poetry: that’s one of the many ways that New York City public schools celebrated National Poetry Month throughout April.
The good news in the proposed city budget is that there will be no teacher layoffs largely due to the federal stimulus money. The bad news is the union must still fight for city budget restorations.
Approximately 40,000 retired and active UFT members stand to benefit from the provisional settlement of a UFT class action suit challenging how one part of a TRS interest payment was calculated.
By the time the federal government declared swine flu a public health emergency, the UFT had already sprung into action, consulting with all the major city agencies and issuing information about the virus and appropriate school safety measures to union representatives throughout the city.
The celebration was on as a principal who was profiled in the New York Teacher as an abusive presence at the school, resigned from his post following 44 days of resistance to his reign of terror.
The UFT scored a huge victory in April when an arbitrator laid out the rights of members seeking hardship transfers.
The UFT’s drive to organize the city’s growing number of public charter schools and ensure that teachers get respect on the job just took a great leap forward when PERB voted to certify teachers at KIPP’s AMP Academy in Brooklyn as a recognized collective bargaining unit of the UFT.
Eighty-four tons and what do you get? Two R45 stainless steel subway cars unloaded by crane for a midnight delivery at East New York Transit Tech HS.
