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Message from the President

I write this message as my first as your President.  I write this message entering my 30th year in teaching and my 25th in Meriden. The more time I spend in education, the more I realize how hard this job has become. The opportunity to refuel is a key component to doing great work in schools. I hope summer provided that….fuel!

 

Teaching is one of those rare professions where you get a clean slate every year. That always brings new hope and endless possibility. After all my years, I am still full of hope and love for the profession and CHILDREN.   At the end of the day what is most important is what happens in the classroom and with students. Your voice and experience and your students' voices and experiences are indeed most important and I want to honor that.

  

I know not every day will be awesome… we work with kids. They are much like us only at the beginning of their learning journey. It's our wisdom and care that they need. Most days you leave work with that smile on your face knowing you made a difference. My dream this year is that you and your students' think of school as place where communities of learners gather do interesting work that matters. With that said, I'm excited to hear your stories so please share them. In turn, I'm going to share your stories with anyone and everyone who will listen. 

 

So go help kids to learn, smile, and belong.

Try new things.

Share what you're learning.

Ask for help.

It begins now.

Go be awesome.

 

Lauren

 

 

What unions do

In AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest New York Times  column, she describes what it is exactly that unions do. Though unions are the most popular they have been in decades, anti-union sentiment still thrives in red states and across the nation. “Several years ago, The Atlantic ran a story whose headline made even me, a labor leader, scratch my head: ‘Union Membership: Very Sexy,’” Weingarten writes in the column. “The gist was that higher wages, health benefits and job security—all associated with union membership—boost one’s chances of getting married. Belonging to a union doesn’t actually guarantee happily ever after, but it does help working people have a better life in the here and now.” Click through to read the full column.

A torrent of censorship

Nearly 250 years since our country’s founding, some Americans are still attempting to restrict others’ basic freedoms. In Florida and elsewhere, censoring books is part of larger efforts to exert greater control over and undermine education.

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Voting for democracy and a better life

In the leadup to the midterm elections, pundits predicted a red wave, even a tsunami, based on polls, historical precedent, and steep gas and grocery prices. But I had my doubts. I spent the weeks before the elections talking to voters and traveling on the AFT Votes bus, rolling through a dozen states with more than 50 stops. In a year when kitchen table issues, democracy and our freedoms were on the ballot, many people told me that the elections came down to a choice between, on the one side, election deniers and extremists stoking fear, and on the other, problem-solvers working to help the country move forward. Many races were close, but Americans turned the tide from a red wave to a swell of support for progress and problem-solvers. Read the full column here.

Sharing more pathways to student debt relief

As the landscape of student debt shifts, and more and more opportunities allow borrowers to have their debt relieved, the AFT is using every avenue to ensure that the word is out. In affiliate meetings, telephone town halls, media coverage and social media, the union is spreading the news, and at a student debt clinic at AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 31, AFT President Randi Weingarten vowed to reach as many people as possible with information that could save them tens—and sometimes hundreds—of thousands of dollars.

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Your vote is your voice

AFT President Randi Weingarten’s latest column outlines the urgency of using our voices—our votes—in this life-changing election, when we will make a choice “between President Donald Trump, who has trafficked in chaos, fear, lies and division, and former Vice President Joe Biden, who seeks to reverse Trump’s failures on COVID-19 and the economy, and to unite and uplift the American people.” Besides the four crises we face—a pandemic, an economic crisis, racism and a climate emergency—democracy itself is on the ballot, as Trump continues to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election.

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