“There’s a whole world out there with so many opportunities for our students,” said Suzanne Ribeiro, a special education teacher at the Bronx HS for Visual Arts.

Three college and career fairs hosted by the UFT’s Academic High School Division this fall brought that world to some 6,000 high school students, including a group of 29 chaperoned by Ribeiro.

The union hosted a college fair at Brooklyn College on Oct. 10 and at Borough of Manhattan Community College on Nov. 8. Each fair drew about 2,500 students from 70 schools. Future in Focus, where students explored the advantages of unionized careers, attracted 1,500 students from 37 high schools to Lehman College in the Bronx on Nov. 15.

“People think unions only exist to protect workers,” said UFT Vice President for Academic High Schools Janella Hinds, “but our support for and empowerment of the young people we teach are among the most important values we hold as activists.”

Martin Castro, a social studies teacher at International Community HS in the Bronx who brought more than 50 students to the Manhattan fair, said it made perfect sense for the union to furnish these opportunities for high school students. “We’re teachers, it’s our union, and our whole focus is supporting and guiding students,” he said.

Castro helped students get the most out of the fair held at Borough of Manhattan Community College by creating bingo cards that prompted them to seek information about different types of schools and programs. As students spoke with representatives from more than 100 colleges, universities and ancillary support organizations, they marked the boxes on the bingo cards that represented the programs they learned about.

“For students who feel nebulous about the idea of going to college, or who know they want to go, but not what questions to ask, it’s a way to get them to ask questions,” Castro said. “When we’re back in class, we’ll help them do more research about the schools they liked.”

Castro’s colleague Patrick Doyle, a math and special education teacher, said he was impressed with the targeted information for students with special needs at the UFT college fairs. He said representatives “were able to speak directly to special needs students” about support services offered at colleges and universities as well as transition programs provided by organizations such as The Bridge and the city’s Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.

Tiffany Watkins, a transition coordinator at Manhattan HS, brought 11 special education students to the college fair at Borough of Manhattan Community College. She prepared them by discussing questions the students might ask about class sizes and majors. Watkins said she spends most of her day researching college programs that fit her students’ accessibility needs, so the college fair directly complemented her work. Her students’ follow-up questions demonstrated how much insight they had gained by attending, she said.

At the union’s annual Future in Focus event, students connected with union representatives to learn about career opportunities, salary expectations and the educational pathways that lead to unionized professions.

“This was enlightening for my students,” said Timmie Coleman, a teacher at the Brooklyn School for Music & Theater who brought 48 students to the event.

“My students didn’t know what unions were at first,” Coleman said, but once he “explained that unions back you up and protect you,” they became enthusiastic and asked him about his own union — the UFT. Coleman said one student even told him that she felt inspired to become a union organizer after visiting the fair.

Ribeiro appreciated that Future in Focus gave her students the opportunity to learn about trade careers. “We’re so caught up in college, college, college, but college isn’t for everybody,” she said. “Some people like to work with their hands or be creative.”

Ribeiro said her students learned about unionized jobs like welding or construction that “they didn’t realize have paid training and benefits.”