Like most educators in professional development sessions, teachers at PS 249 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, discuss theories and best practices. But at PS 249, teachers also get a unique opportunity to test out the strategies they learn on students right away.

Activist Velma Hill and UFT founder Albert Shanker had crossed paths in the civil rights movement. So when Hill, armed with a master’s in education from Harvard, decided she wanted to organize paraprofessionals, she approached Shanker in 1968.

Solidarity is contagious. That’s how it seems in public schools across New York City where UFT chapters are proudly proclaiming they have 100 percent union membership in their schools.

At the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan, history lives behind glass. But on the museum’s lower level, in the imagiNATIONS Activity Center that opened in May 2018, Native American culture comes to life.

Everyone loves a good party. What makes the monthly parties at PS 151 in Brooklyn really special is that students earn them with their hard work and good behavior. 

James Gaffigan, the music director and chief conductor of Switzerland’s Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, attended public schooling on Staten Island. “If I didn’t go to public schools, I never would be where I am today,” says Gaffigan. “It’s an extraordinary gift to have a great teacher because that’s what gets kids excited about something. I remember so many of them and their passion.”