Describing SRP members as "hidden heroes," NYSUT Vice President Kathleen Donahue praised support staff for their work keeping buses, schools and offices running smoothly.

"It's time to get the credit you deserve," Donahue told the almost 400 participants at the union's annual SRP leadership conference. She noted that when Gov. Spitzer signed into law a bill creating a permanent School-Related Professionals Recognition Day on the state calendar, her first thought was, "We finally have a recognition day — now let's use it."

Previous SRP recognition days were authorized on a year-by-year basis, through the annual work of NYSUT's Legislative department. This year, recognition day will be held Nov. 20. The union is distributing peel-off stickers that say, "Proud to be an SRP" or "Proud to Work with an SRP" for members to wear that day.

That legislation is one example of what the union has done for SRP members, noted Margie Brumfield, who chairs the SRP Advisory Committee that coordinates the three-day conference in mid-October.

"Many of us look to the many training programs NYSUT offers for us, whether at this conference or regional conferences across the state, or we look to our regional offices for their invaluable assistance in helping us bargain our contracts," said Brumfield, president of the Rochester Association of Paraprofessionals and a NYSUT Board member.

Now the union is looking to SRP members to become more involved.

"Are you willing to become more active?" asked Sandra Carner-Shafran, a teaching assistant in the Saratoga-Adirondack BOCES Employees Association and one of four NYSUT Board members elected to represent SRP interests. Besides the recognition day, she noted that the union has won legislation that benefits support staff in their working conditions and in their pensions.

"Are you willing to contact your lawmakers on issues that need to be changed? You can do it in your home districts or come to Albany to be a part of the hundreds of people who lobby on special days in March and May," Carner-Shafran said.

"Are you willing to vote? Are you willing to work to get someone elected who will work to put families and students first instead of big business?"

Karen Arthmann, who works security in the Rush-Henrietta schools, was among the many who said yes. "I realized that often it's the working-class families who are the most deeply affected by so many policies or tax formulas," she said, "and I believe it's because we are the group that doesn't get involved."

Brumfield agreed.

"At the very least, we need to find out how the candidates stand on our issues and we have to vote, or we won't have the right to complain," she said.

Working together was the theme of keynoter Ruby Newbold, president of the Detroit Association of Educational Office Employees.

A laundry list of employee benefits — pensions, health insurance, even the 40-hour work week — are under attack by the Bush administration and corporations, she said. "We have to support each other, all of the unions together, because this is a big fight and we are in it together. If they get one of us, the rest will fall eventually."

Several workshops over the three-day conference focused on building solidarity, whether among students or among union members. Participants learned how to unite students to overcome gang influence while SRP leaders in the Monroe-Woodbury and Newburgh schools gave examples about increasing participation and improving the public image in their unions, and how that paid off in bargaining.

Hands-on workshops to help kids in schools included strategies for struggling readers and math activities to help teach hard-to-grasp concepts. Also, building and maintenance members went on a field trip to examine two Albany city schools to discuss the challenges members have keeping schools safe and healthy for students and staff.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin spoke on the importance of VOTE-COPE, the union's voluntary political action efforts. He praised the fact that half of the locals at the conference participate in the union's bipartisan efforts to get pro-labor and pro-education candidates elected. See page 2 for more on SRP VOTE-COPE efforts.

The memory of Shirley Root, a bus driver and president of the New Hartford Employees Union, was honored. Besides donating books to the New Hartford schools, participants generated $2,500 for NYSUT's Disaster Relief Fund in Root's name.

Participants also honored Mary Jo Roberge of the North Syracuse Education Association, who received NYSUT's SRP Employee of the Year award this spring.

— Betsy Sandberg

SRP Advisory Committee members pose with a few of the more than 350 books collected for the New Hartford schools in memory of Shirley Root, a longtime bus driver, playground monitor and leader of the New Hartford Employees Union. Root died earlier this year.