News

Furlough/seniority changes become law

The omnibus school code bill, Act 55 of 2017, became law on Nov. 5, 2017. Despite concerns about the furlough provisions, Governor Wolf allowed the bill to become law without his signature to ensure that state funds would be paid on time to public schools and to protect other provisions in the bill, including extending the moratorium on Keystone exams, requiring opioid abuse education and ending “lunch shaming” of students. AFTPA opposed the school code bill because it changes the way layoffs are conducted, places emphasis on a flawed evaluation system and interferes with collective bargaining rights.

Unions chastise US Supreme Court ruling

The Janus case is a blatantly political and well-funded plot to use the highest court in the land to further rig the economic rules against everyday working people. The billionaire CEOs and corporate interests behind this case, and the politicians who do their bidding, have teamed up to deliver yet another attack on working people by striking at the freedom to come together in strong unions. The forces behind this case know that by joining together in strong unions, working people are able to win the power and voice they need to level the economic and political playing field.

The 2018 budget proposal released by the White House on March 16 "takes a meat cleaver to public education" and ignores promised investments in the types of skills, training and other vital family supports that Trump rode to the White House in 2016, AFT President Randi Weingarten says.

PFT, PCAPS Release Results of Survey on Local Control of Public Schools

The PFT and PCAPS are calling for dissolving the School Reform Commission in favor of a locally accountable school board

PA Residents Agree: Invest in Public Education

A survey of Pennsylvanians by Terry Madonna's Opinion Research group found that 71 percent of Pennsylvanians believe the state needs to make a bigger investment in public education.

Philly charter school ratifies union contract

Members of the Alliance of Charter School Employees at Wakisha Charter School in Philadelphia (AFTPA Local 6056) ratified a new union contract unanimously.

The need for seniority

Seniority has less to do with teacher placements and promotions and has everything to do with fairness and objectivity in hiring decisions, says Lisa Haver, a retired Philadelphia teacher and active PFT member, in a recent op-ed in the Philadelphia Daily News.

It was an awe-inspiring sight in Philadelphia Thursday (Aug. 22) as thousands of students, parents, teachers and school staff clad in iconic red T-shirts marched from Comcast headquarters and around City Hall to rally outside school district headquarters for full, fair and sustainable funding for public schools.

SCRANTON – (June 30, 2013) – AFT Pennsylvania convention delegates voted to expand its campaign to save Pennsylvania’s public schools, colleges and universities and engage and mobilize not only its members, but parents, students, community leaders and lawmakers to stop the “excessive and unnecessary state takeovers of school districts, and for the return of local control of our schools to democratically elected school boards.”

In a dramatic conclusion to the union’s Biennial Convention, delegates from across the state

condemned “the reckless policy of mass closings, mass firings, mass

Watch the Harrisburg School Funding Rally Video

http://youtu.be/X6hp51cBT6w

Tuesday, June 25, more than 2,000 and parents, students, clergy and AFTPA members traveled to Harrisburg from across Pennsylvania tell lawmakers to restore the billiion-dollar education budget cuts to save our public schools, community colleges and universities.