UFT President Michael Mulgrew made the case for more funding for school programs that directly aid students in budget testimony on March 20 before the City Council Education Committee. At the same time, he asked the Council members to make sure state funds are not derailed or swallowed up the city’s education bureaucracy.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew reminded the Delegate Assembly on March 20 that the new citywide safety standards called for in the DOE-UFT contract are in effect and he urged chapter leaders who hadn’t gotten the necessary training to do so as soon as possible.

The UFT began an expedited process of contract arbitration to resolve oversize classes in five chronically overcrowded high schools as the class-size reduction provisions in the new DOE-UFT contract took effect.

Charter school teachers and paraprofessionals in Chicago ended their two-week strike on Feb. 18 after the Chicago International Charter School network promised to increase their salaries to the same level as educators in traditional public schools — a raise of nearly 35 percent over the term of the contract.

Denver teachers voted overwhelmingly on Feb. 25 to ratify a tentative agreement between their union and the school district that ended a three-day strike earlier in the month.

Fifty schools in the Bronx, East New York, Brownsville and Far Rockaway will join the Bronx Collaborative Schools Plan, an initiative that empowers educators at these schools to drive school improvement.