News

“Protecting the health and safety of our students and their families is our top priority as educators, and DESE’s guidance needs improvement in several critical areas. From expecting students to provide their own masks, to addressing how students will travel to school safely, to recommending only a 3-foot minimum physical distancing requirement, this guidance doesn’t adequately reckon with the realities, or the added costs, of reopening schools in the communities we represent.

Join us for our Summer Leadership Institute, a series of virtual workshops for local leaders and members to refine their leadership skills as well as to promote participation and initiative in our union!  We will still be socially distancing for much of the summer, but with this institute we aim to come together across the state for conversation and learning. 

We have a range of different classes, including a training on the new Connect 2.0, information about the para to teacher pipeline and increasing power in your local through building representatives. We also have a series on the role of elected leadership in the union presented by our colleagues at AFT national. 

AFT Massachusetts is excited to welcome two great new members to our statewide Executive Board! This month, Amrita Dani of the Boston Teachers Union and Patty Myers of the United Teachers of Lowell joined the board, which represents the 23,000 AFT members statewide.

“I’m thrilled that these two great local union leaders will join the AFT Massachusetts Executive Board as we work to ensure that safety and equity are at the forefront of Massachusetts’ plan to reopen schools this fall,” said AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos. “Their experience engaging members and organizing to protect public education will be critical as we work to ensure our schools have the federal and state funding they need, and as we advocate for our most vulnerable students who are most at risk of falling behind during school closures.”

AFT Massachusetts stands in solidarity with our Black students, families, educators, and communities in Massachusetts and around the country, and joins them to condemn anti-Black racism and police brutality..

As educators, we must confront racism in our schools, and in our communities, even when the headlines fade. AFT Massachusetts is committed to fighting for antiracist reforms – real, lasting change that transforms not just policing, but our entire society. In the classroom and the community, we must challenge our own internal biases and fight to transform the systems that preserve them.

AFT Massachusetts is proud to represent school and municipal library employees across Massachusetts. This week, we are observing National Library Week (April 19 - 25, 2020), an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and other library employees play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.

AFT Massachusetts is excited to welcome two dynamic new Vice Presidents to our statewide Executive Board! Earlier this month, the AFT Massachusetts Executive Board voted to support President Beth Kontos’ recommendation to appoint Nicole Reminder and Mary Henry to fill vacancies on the board.

“I’m thrilled that these two great local union leaders will join the AFT Massachusetts Executive Board as we work to ensure that every student has a fully-funded school,” said AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos. “Their work to empower and engage members will be critical as we push historic school funding legislation over the finish line and then make sure the new money is spent on services our students need in the classroom.”

“I am excited to serve in this capacity and look forward to contributing to the work of the executive board,” said Nicole Reminder, president of the North Attleboro Federation of Teachers. “I hope to be able to be a voice for smaller-sized, suburban locals. As a current classroom teacher, I can also bring the perspective of what it is like to be in today's classroom environment.”

The BTU Unafraid Educators are a group of BTU members seeking to build schools where all immigrant and undocumented students are welcomed, respected, cherished, and protected.

“I and many other BTU members got involved with Unafraid Educators after seeing a rise in anti-immigration sentiment during the 2016 election cycle. Students were organizing within our schools, and we saw a need within our school community,” says Nora Paul-Schultz, a Physics Teacher at the John D. O'Bryant School of Math and Science. “Lena [Papagiannis, a History Teacher at the O'Bryant School] and I tried to put together a college access workshop for undocumented students, and found there weren’t easily accessible resources. We were connected to Unafraid Educators, which had been started in early 2016 by a guidance counselor and leaders from SIM. We were excited to learn there was already a group doing some of this work.”

“Unafraid Educators is all about helping our students feel more welcomed and more supported,” says Papagiannis, the History Teacher at the O'Bryant School. “We see our work as building sanctuary schools from the ground up, which, to us, means empowering educators with the tools to support undocumented students and those from mixed-status families. This begins in classrooms and spreads throughout entire school communities through the Week of Action and college access programming. We also see our role in the political sphere, advocating for district policies and government legislation that protects our students and their families.”