Category: Newsletter

By Pamela Cantor Education has long been central to the promise of the United States of America. But our current education system has never been designed to promote the equitable opportunities or outcomes that our children and families deserve and that our democracy, society, and economy now need. The people who built the education system…

05/16/2021 Back to School for All: Return, Recover and Reimagine by Randi WeingartenPresident, American Federation of Teachers Schools must open this fall. In person. Five days a week. With the space and health safeguards to do so. And my union, the American Federation of Teachers, is committed to making it happen.Weingarten speaking at AFT headquarters…

March 13, 2021, marked a year of our experience of the Pandemic. Throughout this time you have endured many obstacles and experiences to get to this point of the year. You have gone through the reopening of schools process, experienced the summer covid surge, experienced the school board’s decisions of giving secondary students incompletes and…

AFT President Randi Weingarten today delivered a major address on the crisis hollowing out the teaching profession—massive disinvestment in public education and deprofessionalization. In her speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., she called for reinvestment and freedom to teach. It was followed by two panels featuring education leaders who laid out pragmatic…

This week is parent conference week for our elementary schools. It’s an opportunity for teachers to discuss student achievement, academic supports, and hold strategic and focused conversations about each child. Throughout this year, teachers had to dispel misinformation, stop rumors, and remind parents we are in fact conducting In-Person Instruction, unlike many Districts in the…

Patience—counseled by former Vice President Joe Biden all election week as Americans waited for votes to be counted—finally paid off Nov. 7, four days after Election Day, when he won in Pennsylvania and gained enough Electoral College votes to acquire a new title: president-elect. The win in Pennsylvania, and just a few hours later in…

In her September New York Times column, AFT President Randi Weingarten says that going back to school has never looked like it does now. Weingarten explains that because of President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus, which has been chaotic, contradictory and inept, and the lack of federal guidance and funding, we’re seeing a patchwork of school…

An Open Letter on School Reopening in NMUSD: July 15, 2020 Having just attended the school board meeting, here are some of my thoughts. The initial study sessions on reopening led to the presentation of the 40% and 50% hybrid models to the board in June. Contingent upon declining infection rates, both those plans seemed…