We are happy to have you as a member of the Summer Educator Academy Class of 2023! You have been selected to attend national training because your local union believes you have the qualities to become an effective professional development instructor. This means you will be delivering your course content to members in your district.
This online community was created for you to access materials, resources and the support you will need to be successful trainers.
We look forward to our new model for the academy this year. Our goal is that we spend time with you, as participants, to build community and engage with content over time. This will require commitment to attending pre and post zoom meetings with your AFT National Trainers.
The message that follows is from the AFT national union. It embodies our belief in the importance of a professional union concerned with improving teaching and learning for all:
The American Federation of Teachers fights for a better life for all and for the next generation to do even better. We fight for good jobs and the right to a union; for high-quality and well-resourced healthcare, public services, and public schools and colleges; to counter discrimination and division; and to protect the right to vote, the integrity of elections and our imperiled democracy.
The AFT’s more than 1.7 million members work every day for this freedom to thrive, and we are on the frontlines of our country’s healing and progress.
Healthcare professionals are carrying us through the deadliest pandemic in a century.
Public employees are delivering vital services that communities rely on.
Educators and school staff are working with families to help students catch up and recover―to support students academically, emotionally, and socially. Just as they worked to safely return to in-person learning, educators are looking forward: They yearn for post-pandemic normalcy and are working tirelessly to prepare our kids for bright futures.
Our members must be respected and supported, especially now as their work is harder than ever, with increased stress, staff shortages, and political interference and attacks.
As professionals and as a union, we care, we fight, we show up and we vote. We choose hope and aspiration over fear and division. It is time to turn the aspiration that unites everyone in our richly diverse country—the aspiration for a better life for ourselves, our children, and our communities—into action.
