IS 383 Chapter Leader Syreeta Dixon refused to back down when her principal violated the DOE-UFT contract in multiple ways in her school’s teacher schedule and then threatened to lay off staff when Dixon called her on it.

Teachers at the school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, were assigned multiple professional activities, sometimes with several scheduled in a row. Some educators, like special education teacher Shawnnita Gittens-Wiltshire, had their preparation period scheduled during the school’s split homeroom period, meaning her prep was divided into 23 minutes in the morning and 23 minutes at the end of the day.

“Not having a full prep period significantly impacted my work situation,” Gittens-Wiltshire said.

When Dixon raised these programming issues in consultation, the principal said she would have to excess staff members to fix the contractual violations.

Dixon, who’s in her 19th year as a special education teacher and her third year as chapter leader, called an emergency chapter meeting in the first week of January to discuss the standoff with her members.

Following that meeting, Dixon and UFT District 32 Representative Veronica Wilensky-Sorkin met again with the principal, who this time promised to make amends.

“We gave her two weeks,” Dixon said.

She was stunned when the principal gave her a draft of the “new” schedules.

“It was literally the same program — nothing was changed,” she said. “To add salt to the wound, she published it to the whole staff.”

It was time to escalate. “In one business day, 17 members — including me — signed grievances,” Dixon said.

With the grievances in hand, Dixon gave her principal one final chance to fix the issues before she went to the superintendent. This time, the principal resolved every single contract violation.

“Her seeing that it’s not two, not five, but 17 teachers — you cannot ignore that,” Dixon said. “She understood she had to fix it.”

Social studies teacher Winifred Guillaume, whose initial schedule included four professional assignments in a row, was among the 17 teachers who got relief.

“The problematic schedule left no breathing room to get much of anything done,” said Guillaume. “The workday was go, go, go and go some more.”

Dixon is proud of her members for standing up to the principal.

“It’s a risk,” she said. “You’re ruffling feathers and might be concerned about retaliation. But people understood that numbers make a difference.”