NYSUT News Feed

1. Human rights conference brings together teens from three continents

   “At this time of increased intolerance and hatred in this country, it is only through education and sharing these stories that we can learn how to recognize the signs of history repeating itself,” said retired teacher Wendy Weisbrot, opening the 14th Academy for Human Rights Summer Symposium.

   Aptly themed “Our Stories Will Change the World,” the online symposium brought together 60 students (from three continents) ready to focus on hopeful action. Brave speakers shared stories of war, imprisonment, losses of home and culture, prejudice and change.

   Weisbrot shared how her father, Joe Diamond, survived the Auschwitz concentration camp and was among small groups that survived the grueling Death March from Mauthausen to Gunskirchen.

   “My dad understood what the results of organized hatred, racism and anti-Semitism could be,” cautioned Weisbrot. It was his mission that what happened during the Holocaust is not forgotten.

   “It is hard for students to conceptualize something that is so horrific and incomprehensible as the Holocaust. So, my hope is that when I share my dad’s story, it is more relatable because it is the story of one family,” said Weisbrot, a retired member of the Williamsville Teachers Association in Western New York.

   In another profound story, college student Sara Kattan spoke to symposium participants about how she survived war. Her family fled from Syria when she was 10.

   “If you don’t flee, you will die,” she said.

   Her family left for

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2. Guilderland teacher unites students and community for action and awareness

3. Fundraising efforts revived after Mullany House crash

   When Irish laundress and union organizer Kate Mullany worked at a Troy collar factory in the 1860s, cars did not exist. But a car careened into the back of her historic Troy home last November, destroying parts of restoration work spanning three decades.

   As a result, the American Labor Studies center is putting a push on its longtime fundraising efforts to restore the National Historic Site home under the guidance of Paul Cole, director. The crash left the second floor in near collapse. The building’s back wall remains boarded and balanced by two-by-fours until engineering plans and insurance claims are complete. Display space for the historic home’s museum exhibits was damaged in the crash, and the first-floor interior was damaged.

   “We are rebuilding. This is a unique and important site like no other in the country,” said Cole, a former teacher and secretary-treasurer of the New York State AFL-CIO; former NYSUT Board member and American Federation of Teachers vice president.

   Mullany’s legacy is founded on the bold workplace actions she took in 1864, organizing and leading the 300-member Collar Laundry Union, the first sustained all-female union in U.S. history. The women fought for improved wages and for workplace health and safety, which needed vast improvements in a workplace filled with bleach, sulphuric acid, boiling laundry and steam irons.

   An Irish immigrant, Mullany was inducted into Labor’s International Hall of

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4. NYSUT applauds Regents for upholding charter school cap, rejecting new charter high school in NYC

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   ALBANY, N.Y. July 12, 2021 — New York State United Teachers issued the following statement today on the state Board of Regents’ rejection of a SUNY Board of Trustees Charter Schools Committee recommendation to authorize the creation of a new regional charter high school in New York City by Ventoux Partnership Network, Inc.:

   “Until meaningful reforms are enacted to ensure that charter schools are transparent and accountable to taxpayers, the state should not allow for the expansion of charter schools. If the SUNY Board of Trustees Charter Schools Committee is going to try to circumvent the cap on new charter schools in New York City by any means necessary — like in this case by allowing a thinly-veiled scheme to ‘revise’ existing charters to pass muster — someone must step in and call out what’s happening. That’s exactly what the Regents and State Education Department have done today. We applaud Chancellor Young, Commissioner Rosa and the Regents for standing up for what’s right.”

   New York State United Teachers is a statewide union with more than 600,000 members in education, human services and health care. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

5. SED releases certificate re-registration guidance

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   Since 2016, members with specific certificate titles have been required to register their certificates with the NYS Education Department. SED policy requires members to re-register every five years.

   This week, SED clarified how members will do this.

   SED guidance is found at http://www.highered.nysed.gov/tcert/resteachers/registration-reregister-cr-direct.html.

   Who must re-register?

   The site contains specific directions for permanent certificate holders who are required to register but do not have a CTLE requirement and members with a professional teaching certificate or a Level 3 Teaching Assistant certificate who are required to complete Continuing Teacher & Leader Education (CTLE) hours. Note that the process for CTLE certificate holders does require that members enter data that is used by TEACH to calculate the total number of CTLE hours the state expected them to complete during their registration cycle.

   What if a member has not completed the CTLE requirement?
   

   If a member was unable to complete the required number of CTLE hours the member should select the ‘Conditional Registration’ option. This Conditional Registration adds an additional year to the member’s current 5-year registration cycle so the member can complete any missing hours. No documentation is required to obtain this Conditional Registration. This is

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