Latest news with #UnitedFederationofTeachers
Time Out
a day ago
- General
- Time Out
New York public schools are getting an extra-long winter break this year—here's why
Good news for NYC public school students: Next winter's holiday break just got a little longer, and a lot less confusing. In an update to the 2025–2026 public school calendar, the Department of Education officially gave students and staff Friday, January 2, off, extending winter recess through the entire week. The original calendar had classes resuming that Friday, making for a lone, awkward school day between New Year's Day and the weekend. Students will return on Monday, January 5, making for a much cleaner (and cheerier) break. 'We got it done! Friday, January 2, is now part of winter break,' the United Federation of Teachers texted to its members last week, according to New York Daily News, which first broke the story. A DOE spokesperson confirmed the change. It's not the first time that city leadership has stepped in to dodge a one-day week. Last December, Mayor Eric Adams pulled a similar move, declaring Monday, December 23, 2024, a day off after a Brooklyn eighth grader's petition went viral and racked up more than 20,000 signatures. This time, the change was made early, avoiding the last-minute scramble that puzzled many schools and families last year. The change means kids will enjoy a 12-day break in total, plenty of time for sledding in Prospect Park, checking out the holiday windows on Fifth Avenue or taking in the New York Botanical Garden's annual train show without worrying about Friday homework. Of course, with the school calendar already stretched by added holidays like Diwali and state-mandated minimums for instructional days, the move doesn't come without trade-offs. For now, the city has opted to avoid tacking on an extra day next June by repurposing teacher training days. Winter break isn't the only thing changing for New York City students next year. A citywide smartphone ban is coming, which will see schools enforcing new rules around phone use during the day. So, while students may get an extra day to scroll TikTok at home this January, their phone freedom will now end at the schoolhouse door.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
NYC public schools gives kids an extra day of winter vacation
New York City's public school system is adding another day off next school year after they were warned kids were likely to miss class over a quirk of timing. Next year's draft school calendar scheduled winter recess to conclude on Jan. 1, meaning students and their teachers would have been forced to report to buildings for only one day that week: Friday, Jan. 2. While the holiday season is months away, an update to the calendar, released at the end of last week, gave families the extra day for the next winter break. 'We got it done! Friday, Jan. 2, is now part of winter break,' the United Federation of Teachers texted members. A rep for the schools confirmed the change. School calendars have become one of the city's great education debates, as the addition of new school holidays such as Diwali have come up against a state requirement that all public schools offer at least 180 school days. The result has been little leeway in the calendar when it comes to snow days — when classes now shift online — or illogically-timed school breaks. Even so, the school system did not tack on another school day next June. It previously used teacher training days to comply with the law. The extended winter recess comes after Mayor Adams at the eleventh hour called off the Monday before the break last December — a decision he credited to a Brooklyn middle schoole who had launched a citywide petition. The Council of School Supervisors & Administrators said it had asked at the time for the days off both this school year and next: 'Our concerns were heard regarding December 23, 2024, but the DOE reversed course late, causing confusion,' read an internal memo from the principals union. 'We are pleased that the DOE … acted earlier in this instance.'
New York Post
5 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Re-election for teachers union prez Michael Mulgrew in low-turnout vote
Michael Mulgrew handily won re-election as United Federation of Teachers president Saturday, clinching more than half the votes for his sixth term. Mulgrew got 54 percent of the mailed-in ballots, sources said. His closest competitor, A Better Contract candidate Amy Arundell, netted 32 percent, according to numbers obtained by The Post. 3 Michael Mulgrew received 54 percent of the votes. Robert Miller Olivia Swisher, the candidate from the Alliance of Retired and In-Service Educators, finished third with approximately 14 percent of the vote. All told, 201,791 ballots were mailed in with 413 voided for various reasons. The full and complete count was announced around 3:30 p.m. via Instagram. 3 Amy Arundell followed Mulgrew with 32 percent of the votes. Sources revealed fewer than 30 percent of eligible UFT voters mailed ballots in. 'Apathy prevails in this union of educators,' offered retired teacher Arthur Goldstein, an A Better Contract candidate for assistant secretary. The votes were counted by the independent Global Election Services. 3 Olivia Swisher finished third in the election. AriseUft/X It was the slimmest margin of victory since Mulgrew's first run more than a decade ago, sources said. In 2022, Mulgrew's Unity party won with 66 percent of the votes, besting United For Change's then-34 percent. Mulgrew's new three-year term begins July 1.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Jen Psaki: For many Americans, Trump's mass deportation efforts are starting to hit close to home
This is an adapted excerpt from the May 29 episode of 'The Briefing with Jen Psaki.' On Thursday night, the United Federation of Teachers joined state and local officials at the Tweed Courthouse in lower Manhattan to protest for the release of Dylan Lopez Contreras, a Bronx high schooler. Contreras is an asylum-seeking migrant from Venezuela. He goes to a school called Ellis Prep in the Bronx and works as a delivery driver to help support his family. Last week, he became the first known New York City public school student to be arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since Donald Trump's second term began. All week, we have seen protest after protest for his release. The people of New York are clearly outraged, and they're not the only ones. Kennett, Missouri, may be about as different from New York City as a place can be. While we don't have election results for the city itself, it is the largest city in Dunklin County, which voted for Trump last year by a margin of more than 4 to 1. You would think that if anywhere in the country would support Trump's immigration policies, it would be a place like Kennett. But when Carol Hui, a long-time resident of Kennett and mother of three who works as a waitress at the local diner and is an active member of the local church, got arrested by ICE earlier this month, the residents were shocked. 'I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here,' one resident told The New York Times. 'But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves … This is Carol.' The diner that Hui worked at, John's Waffle and Pancake House, is normally closed Tuesdays. But last Tuesday it stayed open. They called it 'Carol Day.' The staff and their families wore shirts that read 'Bring Carol Home.' All of the proceeds from every meal went to a fundraiser for her. They filled every seat and raised nearly $8,000 that way. But more people wanted to help than the diner had seats, so they put out a donation box for people who couldn't get in, and they raised nearly another $12,000 that way. On every table, in between the jelly packets and the ketchup, was a petition to bring Hui home — hundreds of locals have signed it. The Trump administration is reportedly aiming to deport a million people this year. Big numbers like that are abstract and hard to wrap your head around. But when someone from your own city, your own town, becomes one of those 1 million people, it becomes much more real. Maurilio Ambrocio is a pastor at a local church in a town just south of Tampa, Florida. Just a few weeks ago, Ambrocio was arrested by ICE and is now slated for deportation. Speaking to NPR, one of Ambrocio's neighbors said he voted for Trump, but when he heard about what happened to the pastor, he was beside himself. The neighbor said he was hoping Trump would target people 'without papers' or 'with criminal records.' But he never expected someone like Ambrocio to be taken away. 'You're gonna take, you know, a community leader, a pastor, a hardworking man,' the neighbor said. 'What, did you need a number that day?' On Wednesday, during an appearance on Fox News, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller answered that question. 'Under President Trump's leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day,' Miller said. 'And President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.' To put that quota system in perspective, in the first 100 days of Trump's new term, ICE averaged 665 arrests a day. That means this quota system is pushing ICE agents to arrest 4.5 times as many people per day than their already unbelievable pace. On Wednesday, Axios reported that when Miller announced this quota internally, people at the Department of Homeland Security left the meeting 'feeling their jobs could be in jeopardy if the new targets aren't reached.' Beyond how much these arrests have upset their communities, another thread links the arrests of Contreras, Hui and Ambrocio: Contreras was arrested at a courthouse after he showed up for a routine immigration hearing. Ambrocio, who has done a check-in with immigration agents once a year for the past 10 years without incident, was arrested at this year's visit. Hui got a sudden call late last month asking her to drive three hours to ICE offices in St. Louis. It felt suspicious, but as she put it to the Times, 'I didn't want to run ... I just wanted to do the right thing.' She was arrested and put in jail while she awaits deportation. These stories are, unfortunately, the new normal. All across the country, immigrants are showing up to routine court hearings and check-ins, doing their best to follow the law to become citizens legally, only to be arrested, jailed and slated for deportation. Trump claims his immigration agents are only going after the worst of the worst, hardened criminals. But to get the kind of deportation numbers Trump is aiming for, ICE appears to be arresting anyone it can. Earlier this week, The Los Angeles Times reported about a 4-year-old girl in California with a life-threatening medical condition who, along with her family, was ordered to leave the country despite her doctor's warning that if treatment is interrupted, she would die in a matter of days. On Thursday, The Washington Post reported on a 2-year-old American citizen who was deported to Brazil alongside her undocumented parents. However, since the girl is not a citizen of Brazil, she has become 'all but stateless.' Earlier this month, the Supreme Court stripped 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants of their protected status, opening them up to deportation. And Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the United States will 'aggressively' revoke student visas from Chinese students. There are roughly 275,000 Chinese students studying in the U.S. right now. What are the odds that one of those Venezuelan immigrants or one of those Chinese students lives in your city or your town? How soon until we all know a Dylan Lopez Contrera or a Carol Hui or a Pastor Maurilio Ambrocio from our own lives? This article was originally published on
New York Post
24-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo banking on far-left policy shifts to win NYC mayoral race
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is ripping entire chapters out of the playbook of the Democratic party's far left faction in his bid to become New York City's next mayor, according to critics and a review of his positions by The Post. Cuomo — who resigned in 2021 amid a barrage of sexual harassment allegations he vehemently denies — began soliciting key powerbrokers to support his political comeback last year — but began his leftward tilt as polling for the Democratic primary showed his strongest challenger is extreme left Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani . 'He knows his past positions are incredibly unpopular with Democratic primary voters, who he is trying to trick and fool,' said Bill Neidhardt, a former top aide to ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio who is now part of a political action committee trying to get Mamdani elected mayor. 5 Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is ripping entire chapters out of the playbook of the Democratic party's far left faction. Facebook/Andrew Cuomo In 2014, Cuomo vehemently rejected avowed Marxist de Blasio's push to launch a universal 'pre-K' program in the NYC public schools, telling The Post at the time 'I don't think there is a rationale for it' and that it wouldn't be fair to other cities in the state to tax the rich so only de Blasio's constituents benefit. Cuomo, still the frontrunner in the race to unseat incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, did team up with other top state lawmakers that same year to provide $300 million to expand the city's prekindergarten program. He is now pledging as a mayoral candidate to make the pre-K and 3-K programs created under de Blasio 'truly universal.' 'He was one the earliest opponents for universal pre-K, so for him to say he'd do anything to expand it is pure chicanery,' said Neidhardt. Other lefty policy shifts include: Pushing to add 100 to 200 psychiatric beds to the city's hospital system after reducing the number of psychiatric beds in state hospitals by 28% from 2011 to 2021 as governor. Promising all NYC residents access to 'affordable health care,' despite enacting measures in 2020 aimed at cutting $2.5 billion from the state's Medicaid program. Suddenly becoming noncommittal on expanding a cap limiting the number of charter schools statewide to 460 after avidly supporting the idea as governor, all while trying to score an endorsement from the powerful United Federation of Teachers, which opposes expanding the cap. Declaring just last week during a candidate forum that he supports the powerful UFT's campaign to roll the retirement age of 'Tier 6' public employees hired after 2012 back to 55 years old, when, as governor, he pushed through major pension reform raising the retirement age for these workers to 63. As governor, Cuomo had a long history of raiding the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's budget to offset other state spending, including famously cutting a $4.9 million check in 2016 to help bail out three upstate ski resorts suffering financially from warm weather. But two months ago, he released a campaign transportation platform that includes exploring the creation of permanent free bus routes pending a pilot program and expanding half-priced MetroCard access for low-income residents. The transit proposal sounded all too familiar to Mamdani, who successfully lobbied for a free bus pilot program serving all five boroughs that ended last year after state funding ran out. 'They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,' said Mamdani in a March Instagram post poking fun at Cuomo. '….Just call me next time—we've got so many more ideas I could share!' 5 A social media post by Bill Neidhardt asking New Yorkers to support Zohran Mamdani's campaign for mayor. BNeidhardt/X Cuomo as governor worked with his party's far-left faction to pass a series of controversial criminal justice reforms that he still supports – including eliminating cash bail for most misdemeanors and non-violent felonies. He also has a history of catering to the 'Defund the Police' movement. During the 2020 Black Lives Matters protests, he issued an executive order to strip future state funding from the NYPD and other police departments statewide that 'refuse[d] to commit to a wide-ranging plan for reform.' However, no funding from these agencies ever withheld. 5 Former Mayor Bill de Blasio (pictured) battled with Cuomo while pushing to expand universal pre-K in NYC. AP He also signed legislation in June 2020 sought by anti-police activists to repeal a section of state criminal law which shielded police disciplinary records from public view. And he has come under heavy fire for calling the 'Defund the Police' movement 'a legitimate school of thought,' though his campaign has repeatedly claimed those remarks were taken out of context. Cuomo also has a history of 'defunding' the New York State Police. During the fiscal year beginning April 2011, he cut the agency's operating budget by $45.8 million — or 6%. But with Adams, a retired NYPD captain, dropping out of the June 24 Democratic primary and opting to seek re-election in November as an independent, Cuomo is also trying to position himself as a law-and-order candidate. In March, he announced that if elected, he plans to increase the size of the NYPD's police force to 39,000 by reducing overtime costs and hiring 5,000 additional officers. 5 Here's how former Gov. Andrew Cuomo shifted left on some key issues since he first considered running for NYC mayor last year. He announced his campaign in March. Jack Forbes / NY Post Design 'A larger police presence is a deterrent to crime, improves response rates to 911 calls and gives the police the resources they need to solve crimes,' Cuomo said at the time. 'Andrew Cuomo fled to the Hamptons after destroying this city—catering to the 'Defund the Police' crowd by forcing communities to 'reimagine' policing, slashing psychiatric beds, giving us congestion pricing, gutting pensions for public workers, and unleashing chaos with his reckless bail reform,' said presumptive Republican mayoral nominee and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. Cuomo also now opposes the controversial $9 congestion toll to enter parts of Manhattan – after being a staunch supporter of the scheme when he called the shots in Albany — and is distancing himself from rent reform legislation he signed into law in 2019. 'Andrew Cuomo changes positions like a snake sheds his skin — every month or two, and purely for self-preservation,' said Monica Klein, a longtime political strategist for Democratic and Working Families Party candidates now assisting the mayoral campaign of state Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn). 5 Cuomo is the frontrunner heading into NYC's Democratic mayoral primary. VIA REUTERS Cuomo spokesman Jason Elan defended the ex-governor's record on pre-K, saying he enacted a pilot program prior to de Blasio taking office in 2014 and that as mayor he'll make sure pre-K 'is available in every corner of this great city.' Elan also said Mamdani's criticism is 'rich coming from a silver spoon socialist who voted against his own measure to fund a free bus pilot in the state budget and then failed to get it extended.' 'There's been a ton of revisionist history and gas-lighting during this race, but these silly attacks aren't going to work,' he added. Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy, Carl Campanile and Vaughn Golden.
