VOTE UNITED FOR CHANGE; OUR EXECUTIVE BOARD CANDIDATES ARE MOSTLY IN THE CLASSROOM TODAY

Jonathan Halabi is a high school teacher and longtime Chapter Leader at the High School for American Studies at Lehman College who is running for Vice President for Academic High Schools in the current UFT Election on the United for Change slate. He also writes the JD2718 blog. His latest post on why you should vote United for Change is very persuasive. If United for Change wins, you will have actual classroom teachers running the UFT.  

According to the UFT Constitution in Article V, Section 6: "The Executive Board shall direct the affairs of this organization." The Executive Board is made up of 90 members plus the 12 officers of the Union.

29 positions on the UFT Executive Board are reserved for high school, middle school and elementary school teachers. The rest of the Executive Board is the officers, and non-teachers (functional chapters), and there are 48 at-large positions open basically to any UFT member.

How are the two caucuses, Mulgrew's Unity and the opposition United for Change, filling out their at large candidates? 

Of Unity's 48 at-large candidates, only six are currently full-time educators. The other 42 are either full-time UFT staff, District Reps who work one period per day in a school, or retirees. For United for Change, it is just the opposite with 42 who currently work full-time in schools and 6 who are retirees including me. 

Don't get us wrong, the officers in such a big union need to be out of the classrooms full-time to represent the members. In addition, a large union needs full-time people to handle the work of the Union such as representing members in grievances but should they be the same people who make the decisions on UFT policy? Shouldn't the people who currently work full-time in the schools have a big say in running the affairs of this organization?

Unity's selection of its at-large Executive Board explains perfectly why the UFT is so detached from its members. Those full-time or one period a day in the schools people are not going to be rated by the cookie-cutter unfair Danielson rubric. They don't have to sit in endless professional development meetings. They haven't a clue. The only way to change this is to vote for United for Change and tell every UFT member you know to do the same.