It was such a great experience last summer communicating with the New York Teacher reporter about our first Brower Day in honor of Scott Brower, a beloved physical education teacher who died tragically last year. The school community and the Brower family really appreciated the article in the UFT paper.

The nation recently honored all of its teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week in May. Teachers are dedicated professionals who work tirelessly each day to motivate their students to work to their full potential in the classroom. They are also mentors and role models for their students.

I have been an occupational therapist for the city for over eight years. I love working with children inside and outside the classroom. However, it seems to me in all the schools I’ve been in (I’ve worked in more than 13 schools, including a number of District 75 sites, across Brooklyn and Queens), there seems to always be the same difficulty: too many students for too few teachers.

This is not the first time the state has earmarked money to reduce class size (previously early grades) only to have the city Department of Education misuse the funds. During the Bloomberg administration, when Joel Klein was the schools chancellor, the DOE accepted state funds to reduce class sizes for grades 1–3. Schools that accepted the funds were required to use the money to add classes, but there were cases in which the city gave money to schools that did not have any space to add classes.

In my career, I have shared my classroom with the most wonderful assistants imaginable.

Why are kids bringing guns to school? According to Schools Chancellor David C. Banks, kids are bringing guns to school because they are afraid and want to protect themselves.