Hundreds of social workers and psychologists spent a snowy Saturday at UFT headquarters attending professional development sessions about test anxiety, LGBTQ inclusive schools and more at their UFT chapter’s 14th annual Clinicians Appreciation Day.

Whether through activities associated with Making Strides Against Breast Cancer or Wear Pink days, UFT members across New York City have been front and center during October to raise awareness and funds to fight the disease.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew visited MS 245, MS 247 and PS 334 — three co-located schools on the William J. O'Shea Campus in Manhattan — to walk through the site and check in on members.

UFT volunteers, including public school parents and members, partnered with local restaurants and food banks to distribute 20,000 meals to hungry New Yorkers. The initiative included events in each of the five boroughs at which 1,000 meals per week were given away in each borough over a four-week period. 

UFT members in all five boroughs gathered to support each other and raise money for the American Cancer Society at Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walks in October.

Pink Day returned to schools as UFT members across the city dressed in pink on Oct. 13 to raise awareness about breast cancer.

There were plenty of smiles and a bit of trepidation as the 2021–22 school year kicked off with all students returning to in-person learning in their classrooms for the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

UFT members and other frontline workers were honored at a ticker-tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes in Lower Manhattan on July 7. 

The first hybrid Teacher Union Day was held on Nov. 7, 2021, with 234 people, including honorees and their families, attending in person to celebrate union activism in Shanker Hall at UFT headquarters in Manhattan while 592 members joined the festivities online.

The new class-size law and the importance of getting the DOE to abide by it was on the minds of parents and caregivers who attended the union’s parent conferences in Manhattan, Staten Island and Queens in October and November.