Happy December 23rd!
When students, families and educators come together we win!
The members of Unity Caucus hope you’re enjoying the day off! By organizing with students and families, we successfully amplified a student petition that led to the city agreeing to close schools today.
Late last summer, members of the Unity Caucus became aware of a petition created by a 7th-grade student in Brooklyn, calling for school to be canceled on Monday, December 23rd. We put our energy into promoting this student-led petition and began coordinating with families and organizing efforts. This resulted in both CEC 21 and the UFT Executive Board passing resolutions advocating for the cancellation of school on the 23rd.
In response to CEC 21, First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg stated, “changes to the 2024-2025 calendar cannot be made.” However, students, families, and educators did not accept this as the final answer and maintained pressure until we achieved our goal.
Is this a generation-defining win? Of course not. But does it demonstrate what’s possible when we refuse to take no for an answer and work in coalition with communities? Hell yes!
Keyboard Warriors, Parlor Generals and Moving Forward Together
Two days after this issue was raised on this substack, a well-known “opposition” blogger posted a lengthy argument blaming union leadership for the city’s decision to keep schools open on the 23rd [Feel free to read the full post here]. The gist of the argument was that UFT leadership failed because the city refused to take the 23rd off the calendar, while the union negotiated to get them to finally release multiple years of the calendar at once. For this blogger negotiations are an all or nothing endeavor.
This brings to mind the words of UAW president Sean Fain when he said, “If you get everything you ask for in a negotiation, you didn’t ask for enough.” In addition to being true Fain’s words highlight an important distinction: just because we don’t get something at the table doesn’t mean we pack it in. We keep fighting!
While others aired their grievances by blogging, posting and arguing the world’s latest outrage the members of Unity caucus continued to organize with their colleagues and communities and won!
If we want to win big, we need to come together and fight!
