Ride for Life Seeking Volunteers for Community Ice Bucket Challenge

Former PJSTA President Christine Pendergast asked that we share this very exciting opportunity for volunteers… Ride for Life is seeking approximately 20 volunteers to help coordinate a Community Ice Bucket Challenge to benefit ALS research on Tuesday, August 26th at Heritage Park in Mount Sinai.  The event will be held at 6:00 pm but volunteers …

Katie Kleinpeter Takes the Challenge!

Earlier today we told you of Rob Pearl’s departure from the PJSTA.  The silver lining is that when leaders of an organization leave it opens a spot for new leaders to step in.  I have always viewed Katie Kleinpeter as a future leader of our union.  She contributes in virtually every manner possible, attending rallies …

Thank You Rob Pearl

PJSTA  1st Vice-President Rob Pearl accepted a job today as the interim principal at Norwood Elementary School.  Anybody who knows Rob knows that Norwood is tremendously fortunate to have him.  Congratulations to him.  There are few people I have come across who deserve good things happening to them as much as Rob. Rob has been …

Back-to-School: No Staples, No Walmart, No Testing!

It’s that time of year where teachers are busy preparing for their return to work.  Here in Comsewogue we return to school two weeks from today with the PJSTA Union Conference in the morning followed by a Superintendent’s Conference Day in the afternoon.  I stopped up at school today and was happy to see a …

A Tale of Two Unionists and How Rank & File Teachers Lose

I’ve been meaning to link to this for a few days.  A great analysis of the Common Core from MORE’s Julie Cavanagh. Via the Daily News… (emphasis is mine) The truth is, these tests were designed to create a narrative of failure, and the trends are not so different from those we saw on the old …