Over 100 AFT Massachusetts members served as delegates at the AFT’s 89th biennial convention, with union delegates addressing critical issues in education and healthcare over the course of four days in Washington, D.C. 

AFT Massachusetts President Jessica Tang was re-elected to serve a two-year term on the AFT Executive Board, topping the ticket among the 43 elected Vice Presidents. This was her third election to the Executive Board and third time topping the ticket. President Tang was also re-appointed to the Board’s 10-member Executive Committee.  

Delegates debated and passed resolutions on a range of pressing issues—from reclaiming the promise of public education, to protecting immigrant communities, to rebuilding public health, to preparing for the age of artificial intelligence, to tackling the affordability and student debt crises. Dozens of breakout meetings and receptions covered rural issues, faith and religion, international solidarity and more.

In July, AFT Massachusetts and the Boston Teachers Union hosted a book giveaway as part of the National AFT’s Summer Reading Cup, which is giving out more than 30,000 soccer-themed books across the country to build upon the excitement of the soccer matches and promote summer reading. 

Players from Boston Legacy Football Club, the 15th team to join the National Women’s Soccer League, helped educators distribute over 5,000 free soccer-themed books. The Kick-Off Into Reading event included a World Cup watch party featuring Match 97 between Switzerland and Colombia. 

The Summer Reading Cup includes its own World Cup-inspired bracket to see which book takes the cup for students this year! After reading eight books, students can score them against each other, find their winning book, and upload their bracket results for a chance to win a back-to-school pizza and book party for their school, as well as a classroom collection of books for their classroom next year.

A signature component of the Trump Administration’s agenda to dismantle public education is slated to take effect in 2027.

Tucked away in the reconciliation act signed in July 2025 was a hallmark of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a federal school voucher program that threatens to gravely undermine public education in the Commonwealth and across the United States.

The most recent iteration of this plan provides individuals who donate to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) a dollar-for-dollar tax credit, up to $1,700. SGOs distribute the money as vouchers to students to pay for school tuition and fees. By comparison, taxpayers can only claim 35 per dollar donated to every other charitable cause, including food banks, disaster relief, and more. No other donation is eligible for a 100 percent tax credit. Governors, including Governor Healey, have until the end of the year to decide whether their state will opt-in.

Under this framework, states would be prohibited from issuing their own guardrails or holding SGOs to specific accountability or evaluation measures. The program is designed to help the wealthiest families the most. Unlike federal childcare assistance eligibility requirements, which are only available to those making 85% or less than the state median income, families earning up to 300% of their county’s median income are eligible for these vouchers.

The AFT PSRP leadership conference last month came chock-full of advice from activists on how to optimize campaigns, whether they focus on organizing, politics, a living wage or community service. PSRP co-chairs Carl Williams and Sarah Wofford led the proceedings. Williams is president of the Lawndale (Calif.) Federation of Classified Employees, a former school custodian and president of California’s classified members. Wofford is an accounting specialist for Rogue Community College and president of the Oregon School Employees Association. Eighteen AFT locals sent paraprofessionals and school-related personnel to Chicago April 10-12 for the conference.

As the Trump administration continues to attack higher education—cutting research grants, targeting free speech and restricting classroom materials—the AFT and the American Association of University Professors have unveiled a powerful new blueprint to restore and preserve higher education, just in time for the 2026 midterms.

AFT nurses and healthcare professionals from across the country gathered in Detroit April 13-15. They came carrying the weight of understaffing, growing patient demand and a healthcare system under attack but left with something stronger: a shared sense of purpose and concrete plans to act. The “Together We Care” 2026 professional issues conference wasn’t about passive listening. It was a rehearsal for what comes next. 

When the president of Colorado WINS learned that the president of the United States might be targeting Denver next in his anti-immigration campaign of terror, she knew how she’d begin to mobilize. One simple thing Diane Byrne does is deck out her activists in matching T-shirts. Wearing union colors promotes team spirit and builds confidence, she says. The AFT Public Employees program and policy council, meeting in New York City Feb. 5-6, abounded with tips to help locals mobilize. PPC chair Gary Feist, president of North Dakota Public Employees, recommended finding members who can tell a personal story to draw media attention. With more media on the issue, he said, legislators will become more motivated to fix the problem.

Federal immigration actions are rapidly expanding, with deadly consequences. The killings of poet Renee Nicole Good and nurse Alex Pretti by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis have brought intense focus on the use of excessive force. An AFT webinar, co-hosted by AFT President Randi Weingarten and AFT Massachusetts President Jessica Tang on Jan. 28, featured experts on immigration and the law. It highlighted AFT resources and showcased how our locals are showing up to minimize fear and trauma.

On her very first day of student teaching at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, N.Y., Martha Strever pushed, pulled and pounded on the school’s door, which was locked. No one came. Where was everybody? It was, after all, the first day of school.

It turned out everybody was exactly where they were supposed to be: inside, having entered through the school’s front entrance. Strever had been knocking on a side door. Flustered but undeterred, she not only found her way inside, she also found her life’s calling.

Paraprofessionals and school-related personnel are often overlooked because of their support roles. They are the last ones hired and often the first ones fired when budgets get tight. This certainly seems true right now as the Trump administration withholds nearly $7 billion in education funds, effective July 1, which has hamstrung summer school programs, hindered English language support, halted professional development this summer, and left before- and after-school programs in limbo for the coming school year.