Over 300 UFT members from academic high schools donned formal attire to celebrate themselves and their colleagues at a prom-themed Academic High Schools Awards celebration on May 31.

“It’s love at the prom!” said UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds to roaring applause, as she welcomed her members.

Hinds acknowledged that there are few places where high school educators are appreciated and honored for their work. “If no one else will honor you, I want you to know that your union has honor and love for each and every one of you,” she said.

Sonia Burke, a school counselor at A. Philip Randolph HS in Harlem who took home one of the Outstanding Union Activist Awards, said she felt love. “I’ve never gone to the Met Gala, but I felt like I was there,” she said.

Erica Berger

UFT members from Brooklyn International HS, wearing matching light-up bow ties, smile for the camera after accepting their Team High School Award.

Honorees exemplified the many unique circumstances in which high school educators distinguish themselves. For example, the team from Brooklyn International HS — easily recognizable by their matching light-up bow ties — educates a student body of new immigrants.

“Some of the students here come to my classroom during their first week in the United States, so I’m attentive to the fact that this is a big moment in a young person’s life,” said Ashkan Jahangiri, a teacher and a UFT delegate at the school.

Amanda McKenna, the school’s chapter leader, says she loves to “lead by example” as a unionized worker. “Our kids might end up in jobs where they’re taken advantage of,” she said, “so there’s something special about saying, ‘Here are your teachers, who take care of you, getting their rights as workers.’”

Collaboration was a theme throughout the night. UFT President Michael Mulgrew said teamwork among high school educators is “what makes it work in a crazy, hectic school system.”

The 10 Team High School honorees and 26 individual award winners showed teamwork in every award category. But the five school chapters on the Walton Campus in the Bronx, which worked together to save their library, particularly embodied that spirit.

Walton Campus lost its library in September 2019 after water damage compromised its roof. Although the roof was eventually repaired, the library remained nonoperational for years. Luckily, the campus’s five UFT chapter leaders meet regularly to resolve shared issues. Johnny Veloz, the chapter leader for the International School of the Liberal Arts, said he and his fellow chapter leaders made reopening the campus library a priority because it is “a safe place for students to read and study.”

Erica Berger

Walton Campus Team High School Award winners show off their commemorative banner with UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds (left).

They each approached their administrations and, through what Discovery HS Chapter Leader Marilyn Martin called “the spirit of cooperation and respect,” found the resources to rebuild the library, which is slated to reopen this September.

Teachers and school-related professionals alike were happy to see their union give recognition to related service providers. Hinds said these members “make a huge difference in how our schools run and how our students are supported.”

One such honoree, Melanie Homsey, a speech therapist at the HS for Service and Learning in Brooklyn, spoke with passion about her students with disabilities. “They work so hard,” said Homsey. “Getting through high school is not easy.” She said it’s fulfilling to watch students graduate from high school when she’s worked with them since 6th grade. “I know that I was behind them supporting them,” she said.

Mulgrew summed up the mood at the event when he called the Academic High Schools Awards “a night about rejoicing.”

“We need to rejoice over the fact that we are changing thousands of children’s lives,” he said. “That’s what this is all about.”