Sunday - halftime - Feb. 9
ABC is following up on its successful zoom organizing events with a meet the candidates event this Tuesday at 7PM. Last Tuesday over 100 people attended the elementary school zoom focused on issues specifically related to that oft neglected division.
This Tuesday, the entire officer slate will be announced. Come on down. rsvp.uftmembers.org.
We can use your help in petitioning and also you can run with ABC for AFT/NYSUT positions. Email me offline or leave a comment.
I am pretty happy with the adcom ABC candidates - some old, some new, some borrowed, no one is blue. We've also seen a similar mix with the executive board candidates. I'm excited about the prospects of a diverse exec bd and adcom where we've seen the outcome of 60 years of loyalty to the ruling Unity caucus. That is why ABC is trying not to be a caucus but a collection of individuals. And open to all with no loyalty oaths. You can be in a caucus and also be part of ABC.
I've come under attack for having a vision
on how to win and why I don't want to be tied down and forced to put my
vision through multiple caucus filters and a closed steering committee.
I
love the free way ABC has been operating - fits my nature of least
restrictive environment. Sort of the way I tried to teach. I had times
of an unstructured classroom and rather than chaos I saw amazing
interactions between my kids who loved some freedom and flourished
socially.
Here is a group of people from a wide variety of interests, many who have only met recently, coming together and getting to know each other and having fun while doing it.
The loose structure of ABC - a
floating group of people that keeps expanding - really bothers the
structure people. How can you make decisions without a steering committee or no defined leaders? You know what's interesting? I've seen people show up in an open environment and show leadership and most importantly, be allowed to do so.
Somehow since November
decisions have been made and carried out effectively and with wide
outreach. Has it been perfect? What is? The process seems to me the
most democratic internally I've seen yet. There is no formal steering committee but instead a batch of working groups and those groups keep expanding with new people.
I love the process and the give and take and also the fun people seem to be having. Arthur, another old war horse like me and someone who often skipped meetings as boring, has been totally invested with this group.
And the group is diverse in the sense that it melds a bunch of Unity expats with people from other caucuses, independents and newbies. That I did not know so many of these candidates before and still don't know many, is refreshing.
And very exciting to work with so many
new people, most half my age. I'm getting a real picture of what is
happening in the schools from wide ranging discussions. And building a
slate through personal contacts and extending the network. That was our
vision - not to build a slate by tapping the usual suspects in the
caucuses but to use the campaign to build a slate with newly involved
people, though caucus people have always been welcome. The fact I do not know so many of the people signing up to run is a good
thing.
My aim since last March has been
to focus on winning and not to mock any group that might vote for us.
The votes are in the schools and like banks, that's where we have to go,
not by stuffing mail boxes as in the past which yielded few results or
even spend money on sending mailers - which some did last time with
little results.
It's one on one
conversations with people at the school level and that will take deep
school penetration, a major goal of the ABC campaign and I'm seeing
early signs of new schools coming on board. Trying to create a buzz
through social media that penetrates is another tactic. How deep will this penetration go? Building a slate and an election campaign while flying the plane with lots of people chipping in. Votes in May will tell.
Whatever level it does go, the
process helps build a network that will outlast this election. Unity has
a deep network into the schools, especially in the elem level which
they win by the biggest margin. There are 34,000 elem teachers and last
time in 2022 I believe about 7k voted. So there are a lot of potential
votes to pick up. Using elements of the Unity network, which is one of
the goals of ABC, to reach people, should not be mocked.
This was the original goal from way back in August for many of us was reaching out and opening the process to more people than the usual suspects.
It is also a formula for winning.
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