About 350 counselors and aspiring counselors — the largest turnout ever — gathered at UFT headquarters at the 15th annual UFT School Counselors Conference to hone their professional skills, meet their colleagues and peruse a vendor fair with 40 exhibiters.

Chapter Leader Lucas Rule knows he is fortunate to have a collaborative working relationship with his principal at Pathways College Preparatory School, a grades 6–12 school in St. Albans, Queens. But when one of his members struggled to resolve a workload issue with an assistant principal, Rule didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the new provision in the DOE-UFT contract that helps chapter leaders address violations of systemwide standards governing workplace issues.

After almost a decade of complaints, malfunctions and payments of more than $70 million to thousands of UFT members to compensate them for work outside school hours, the DOE is finally pulling the plug on the $130 million Special Education Student Information System that it launched in 2011.

It’s not right to dance on a grave, but with SESIS we’ll make an exception.

The largest school district in the nation has an unacceptably low number of buildings that are accessible for students with disabilities.

Let me introduce myself. I’m MaryJo Ginese, the union’s new vice president for special education.