Parent empowerment was the objective at the Queens Power Summit, which drew more than 80 parent leaders, students and UFT members to the UFT’s Queens borough office on Nov. 23.

The four-hour event offered a range of workshops designed to empower the participants with skills and knowledge to strengthen their communities, said UFT Queens Parent and Community Outreach Liaison Delci Rodriguez, the event organizer. Workshop topics included emergency preparedness, scholarship strategies, cardiac arrest awareness and IEP meeting training. Rodriguez said the attendees’ enthusiasm conveyed “their dedication to driving meaningful change and community growth.” Howard Slewett, a father of four, said the scholarship strategies workshop was “the best scholarship workshop I have attended, and I have attended many.” The event also featured a men’s roundtable discussion on neurodiversity. Rodriguez said the men “were so deeply engaged in their discussions that they stayed in their session room for its entirety.”