Transcript: Mayor Adams, Chancellor Aviles-Ramos, UFT President Mulgrew Announce Extra Recess Day on December 23

October 30, 2024

Micheal Mulgrew, President, United Federation of Teachers: Good afternoon everyone, welcome to the United Federation of Teachers. My name is Michael Mulgrew, I am the president of the United Federation of Teachers and we are here today to announce an early holiday present on behalf of all of our school communities in our great city. December 23rd will no longer be a day where we will have school, it will be the beginning of the holiday break.

And that is a joyful announcement because we have heard from so many folks who are involved in our school community. But I want to be clear, nothing ever gets done by any individual. New York City schools are a massive school community, but the outreach over this calendar on December 23rd was administrators and teachers talking to each other, elected officials and all sorts of other folks talking to each other, parents, CEC members.

But let's be clear, this all started with one little spark. One little spark. And that spark came from Isaac this summer, who read the calendar and he wrote to a lot of people and said, you know, why are we doing this? We have an extra day and why should we put this burden on everyone to see if they needed to come to school? And then from there, these conversations started to happen. It's not unprecedented, but it was something that was really something we're so proud of because it's our students. And that's what we do in New York City. It's the students' voice. It's the parents' voice. And it's school communities coming together.

So I want to personally thank the chancellor. I want to thank Isaac. I want to thank Vice President for Education, Mary Vaccaro. And I want to thank the mayor. I want to thank the mayor for being personally involved with this. And again, always there listening to our students and listening to the people who serve the city, so thank you. And I'd like to now bring up Mayor Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks so much, Michael. And I think that, you know, throughout life, what we hope for are teaching moments. Education is more than the academics. It's developing the full personhood of children. And oftentimes, they feel jaded when you speak with them that no one is listening to them. And they come up with some great ideas. And, you know, it's not always about dollars and cents. It's about just common sense, a common sense approach and the willingness, no matter how many letters we receive, the willingness to just read the communication and say, hey, is this a good idea?

And that is something with the UFT, under this leadership, and this administration, is about how do we listen to not only the students, the teaching body, the people in our community to see how do we make the experience, education experience, more inviting and more promising for our young people. And I think what Isaac did is going to be a symbol for the entire school community that their voices matter. It matters a lot. It matters on what type of food is served in the cafeteria. How do we deal with bullying? What our basic school curriculums look like, you know, from the meditation, some that we're doing with UFT, partnering with the UFT. How do we deal with these very complicated issues? Listen, for those of us in this room, school is a long way from where we were.

You know, these children are inundated with social media. They're inundated with so many external factors. And when we come together and just partner with them, the school community, we're able to do real things. And right now, Isaac, he was able to get this victory, but I think it's going to cascade throughout the entire school system that young people are going to know that their voices matter and his parents should be extremely proud of him.

This is what leadership is about, you know, being willing to sit down, identify a problem, come up with a solution, not identify a problem and complain. Identify a problem and say, here is a solution to the problem. That's solution-oriented educational experience means a lot. And so we're happy that we were able to do it one day different. Think about it. One day is going to turn a longer experience and it's going to deal with our attendance issue that we have on that one day on the 23rd. It's going to allow families to be together longer as they go through the holiday season.

And it's going to allow the students to say, listen, we don't like that you took all of our hot dogs out of school, but we like it now that you gave us a day. You know, you gave us a day. So Isaac, job well done. Good job. This is a great moment for you and other students who are trying to do great things. And I'm sure the chancellor understands how important this is. So this is what good partnerships look like, UFT, administration, students, and educators from the CSA to all those who are involved. Job well done, man. You know, really appreciate it. Okay?

Isaac Regnier: Thank you. By the way, I remember you mentioned bullying. And last week at school during music class, the topic for that day was bullying. And people, a lot of staff members had to do a bullying presentation on Google Slides and examples of bullying and videos, bullying. A lot of people misused the word bullying, but some things like the examples can define, sometimes it's like the situation is definitely bullying, but it was a bullying presentation and that was a good topic.

Mayor Adams: Listen, I love it. So we're going to turn it over to our, are we doing the video or are we doing the, which one are we doing first? Team. Okay. We're going to do the video. Then we're going to have the chancellor and then you're going to come and do your comments. Does that sound like a plan?

Regnier: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Okay. Let's check out the video.

[Video plays.]

Regnier: I feel so proud of myself for all that hard work I did, even with the advocating and those emails. Even though I didn't get written back by David Banks, I still made it successful. It was a successful outcome. And this was an important topic about Christmas break. And thank you, everybody.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos: Good afternoon, everyone. And if Isaac hasn't really conveyed what New York City Public Schools is about, I don't know what would. This administration under Mayor Adams, we're so grateful for the fact that we are able to really honor the voices of every single person across the city. And Isaac is no different.

Isaac, you took a stand. You said December 23rd is a must. You reached out to everyone, and you made it happen. So thank you, because as chancellor, when I heard about your letter and the mayor shared it with me, thanks to our partnership with the UFT and our partnership with our other labor leaders, we were able to make this happen. But you got the ball rolling. You got it started. So let's one more round of applause for you, Isaac.

We are here to uplift the voices of our families and our students. I have been very vocal about the fact that our work around pathways and New York City Reads is super important, and it will continue, and I've had the great privilege to be a part of that work even prior to my role as chancellor. But we need to double down on certain things, and there are some prerequisites that need to be in place before we can even think about reading, writing, math. And that is these three commitments. We need to make sure that families, students are empowered, not engaged, empowered. And Isaac is an example of what empowerment looks like.

We need to make sure that our teachers have everything that they need to do the excellent work that happens every single day in classrooms. And I'm so grateful to our UFT partners, Michael Mulgrew, thank you so much, because this is an example of what happens when you work with your labor partners and not against them. And we need to really make that partnership something that happens on a regular basis. And number three, overall safety and wellness for our students, emotional and physical.

And Isaac here started telling us a little bit about bullying, and how important it is that we need to really think about what bullying looks like, and the fact that he feels so comfortable to be able to say, Mayor Adams, you mentioned bullying, and here are my thoughts on it. And so I want to thank Isaac's parents for being here, for raising such an amazing, outstanding young man. We hope that we live up to your expectations as a school community. And I'm pretty sure he's going to be my boss someday, so I'm going to be real nice to him. But thank you all very much, and December 23rd, let's celebrate. Thank you.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: We're really excited that Isaac's voice was heard, and we look forward to partnering with all members of the media. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: And, you know, when I communicated with the chancellor, it was one thing for the chancellor to respond to him, but the mayor responded to him. The mayor was clear when the chancellor said, let's look at the logistics. We wanted to make sure we can do it. If possible, we wanted to communicate with the UFT. It was possible to get done.

I did not want to give any false promises. We wanted to make sure that if we say yes, just as the City of Yes, I want to put in a plug for that, we are able to get it done, and that was the goal. So it wasn't that the chancellor ignored his letter. God only knows how many communications, and he communicated with as many people as possible, but when it came across my desk, my team told me about it, we said let's sit down with the UFT and figure out how to get this done.

Question: So, mayor, I'm not sure how it works when the calendar is made, but with all due respect to students, why does it take a student to have to pick up this to change the calendar date to make more sense? Will Isaac be part of that conversation?

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, listen, out of the mouths of young will give us the direction we need to move to in the current state and in the future. You'd be surprised how many ideas we get from young people. My young people roundtable, my Summer Youth Employment, my youth forums, these young people are bubbling with ideas because they view life at a different set of lens than we do, and if we're not willing to listen to them, we're going to miss many opportunities.

So I am pleased the fact that it did come from a young person because, as I stated, education is a teaching moment. We need to look at these teaching moments. He will never view an issue that he wants to see a change the same way he did in the past. He feels empowered, and we can empower children. It's not about us just dictating to children and young people and family. It's about embracing. That's something that the UFT has talked about for the longest, something that I believe in, and so I don't see this as a negative. I see this as a positive, and he will be part of the conversation next year. We will line up the stars again. We would love to line the stars up again. This just made sense.

Question: For Isaac, when you started this whole process, did you think that it would actually lead to meaningful action?

Regnier: Yes, I thought I would lead to it, and I did. A lot of people at school were really proud of me for bringing up this topic, and I'm glad that I brought up this topic too. A lot of people kept on asking me, did you get the date changed? And I hadn't gotten it changed yet, but now I have. Woo-hoo!

Question: Yeah, so under state rules, the city is supposed to have, I think, 180 days a year of school. It seems like in terms of just pure full instructional days, we're now below that. So I'm wondering if you can-

Mulgrew: No, we are in compliance with the 180 days. Believe me, there's-

Question: How many days of school will there be this year?

Mulgrew: The major piece here is I don't want to get into technical aspects of it, but we are in compliance with the 180-day rule. So that's what- believe me, there was a team of over ten people counting, re-going, going back and forth, looking at the criteria, what is an eatable day, but I don't… you know, we could have some people reach out to you about the technical aspects of it, but we are absolutely in compliance.

And just to Isaac, you started this ball rolling. You got parents involved in your school. You got parents involved in that whole neighborhood, the district. You had resolutions passed on and voted by adults throughout the city. You did all of that, okay? And our calendars are our calendars. God knows we change them. They're in negotiations at all times now, especially in the world that we live in. They're always under negotiation. But I think the point here is it's a joyful day, and it was Isaac who started this, but the adults started to listen and started to act. And that's what started this thing rolling. And then we had to, of course, assure everyone that we were in compliance with the state mandates.

Question: And just to follow up on the question earlier, I mean, it's not the same thing happening in 2019.

Mulgrew: It's people- the calendars, when we decide on them, they're not done anymore. Even though we think that's-we try to keep to it, but we change them constantly. We've added days in the middle of the year. We're New York City. We have the greatest diversity in the world, and we recognize all sorts of cultures, holidays. So we have done this. This is what the world now has become, and put virtual education on top of that. And so it's basically-it's a 12-month-a-year process, to say the least, on the calendars now.

Mayor Adams: Right, right. And as I stated, the definition of schooling when we were in the classrooms are different now. Dealing with different universes, from remote learning to understanding diversity and cultures. We just added the Diwali holiday. The UFT and I had to work together to figure that out. We're just in a different environment, and it's-you know, if you have partnership, you can get over the complexities. And that's what we've done.

Partnership with the youth, partnership with the union, partnership with our educators, and that's how we get it done. And there are no sad faces if you could stay home now on the 23rd. Trust me. People are happy to hear. You heard that excitement in the classroom. That's the excitement that everybody's feeling, even the teachers. Okay. Thank you.

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