Ms. A

@read_naveed @thenyic @ROCC_NYC @HeyItsMurad @ZohranKMamdani @JumaaneWilliams @JulieMenin @bradhoylman @EricDinowitz @cbreyer @KathyHochul @ARaeAshcraft Great news and thank you for your advocacy Naveed

Dylan Josue Lopez Contreras is finally free after 301 days in unjust ICE custody! This morning we had the pleasure of celebrating his homecoming, while he himself spent time advocating for other children still being held in for-profit private prisons. A beautiful soul! @thenyic

@MarkTreyger718 3K and Pre-K directors in CBO's still do not have pay parity with their DOE based colleagues since the creation in the De Blasio era. Can we try and fix one thing before creating a whole new tier of low paid workers?

@MarkTreyger718 We have had chronic shortages in licensed K–12 areas for decades, especially in high schools, and that hasn’t been addressed. Instead, we’re building pipelines into early childhood jobs that don’t offer a living wage. That feels like we’re shifting the problem, not solving it.

Yes and we need to pay teachers, directors, support staff, and related service providers more

I get the goal here, but we’ve had chronic shortages in licensed K–12 areas for decades, especially in high schools, and that hasn’t been addressed. Instead, we’re building pipelines into early childhood jobs that don’t offer a living wage. That feels like we’re shifting the problem, not solving it.

CUNY officials hope a program to draw older students back to college can bolster the pipeline of early childhood teachers. chalkbeat.org/newyork/2026/0…

@QueensCrapper Metro and 70th

This is very hideous

@teacher_choice @bravest4choice @JohnDMacari @cops4freedom @cafecitobreak @ChildrensHD @FDNYchic @AAGDhillon @erichhartmann @jimmy_dore @stkirsch Well said

Open Letter to the Religious Liberty Commission from Teachers for Choice NYC Employees Fired For Not Getting Covid Shot Still Barred From Work Even Today in 2026 The Religious Liberty Commission (RLC) is meeting on Monday, March 16, 2026 in Washington DC focusing on religious freedom and healthcare. Below is an open letter I have submitted to the RLC in an attempt to draw attention to the continuing plight of NYC unvaccinated workers of faith with 4 recommendations at the end. I sent the below open letter to RLC@usdoj.gov on March 13, 2026. TEACHERS FOR CHOICE recommends everyone who has been impacted should consider sending their own account to the RLC as well. *** My name is Michael Kane, I am the Director of Advocacy at Children’s Health Defense and the founder of Teachers for Choice. I helped organize a peaceful worker resistance movement in NYC fighting against Covid vaccine mandates that included teachers, firefighters, cops, sanitation workers and more. We have organized ourselves under names that include NY Workers for Choice, Teachers for Choice, Bravest for Choice, Strongest for Choice, and Cops 4 Freedom (among others). Children’s Health Defense has been a major supporter of this effort, helping to fund and back multiple ongoing lawsuits related to the denial of our religious accommodations. In September of 2021, I submitted a religious exemption to vaccination as a special education teacher with over 14 years on the job in NYC. The next month my exemption was denied and I was removed from my job for refusing to get the Covid shot. Ultimately in February of 2022, I was officially fired by the City and have been suing in the courts ever since (continuing still today nearly 5 years later). Even after a court ordered that I return to my position as a teacher I was never actually allowed to return to my job. My story is comparable to that of Hermione Susana who did an outstanding job telling her story when she testified to the RLC just last month. While this travesty of justice was - and is - horrible enough to warrant a letter to the RLC, this is not why I am writing to you today. Instead, I would like to call your attention to an extremely cruel “bait-and-switch” policy that NYC recently pretended to implement for fired unvaccinated workers, toying with the emotions of a group of people who have already been devastated by discrimination and denial of religious freedom. In November of 2025, NYC’s former Mayor Eric Adams implemented a “right to return” policy for fired unvaccinated workers like myself. Believe it or not, NYC is still discriminating against unvaccinated workers by often requiring us to sign a legal waiver before returning to work for the City. Once signed, the waiver means you no longer have the right to sue NYC over any illegal implementation of their vaccine mandate. This is strange because if the City has truly done nothing wrong, as they claim, why should any unvaccinated worker need to sign away their legal rights? Thankfully - finally! - this new “right to return” rule-change from the mayor was set to end this nonsensical policy. NPR’s print publication in NYC, Gothamist, reported on this where I was quoted in the article. When then-mayor Eric Adams started the “right to return” process he set up a rule change meeting which was heard by DCAS; this agency is essentially NYC’s H.R. department. That meeting was held virtually via Zoom on November 19, 2025. After that meeting the rule was supposed to be sent to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in Albany, NY, for final approval before implementation. However, Mayor Eric Adams never sent the rule change to the CSC, and the current NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is refusing to comment on the issue when questioned by the press. All the new Mayor needs to do is refer this rule change to the CSC which would then allow hundreds if not thousands of unvaccinated workers to have a path back to their careers. Today I know teachers with master’s degrees driving Uber. I know firefighters and kitchen workers who were made homeless by the illegal implementation of vaccine mandates that denied religious accommodation in unconstitutional fashion. Here we are some 5 years after the Covid crisis and people are still being kept out of work for their sincerely held religious convictions dealing with vaccines. President Trump has done the right thing for military workers by issuing an Executive Order to reinstate unvaccinated soldiers with backpay. While that process has not been without its own problems, it is light years better than the insanity we are facing in NYC. Recommendations to the RLC I implore the commission to help us by doing the following: (1) First and foremost: Please give an immediate recommendation to the Trump Administration that they engage Mayor Zohran Mamdani to convince him to submit the above mentioned rule-change to the Civil Service Commission in Albany so unvaccinated New Yorkers of faith will receive at least minimal relief to be allowed to return to work for NYC. This is a very small ask and “small lift” for the mayor, (2) Shine a light on this horrifying injustice and include it in in your final report to President Trump and the Executive Branch, (3) Engage those of us impacted to come up with additional solutions to recommend as well, (4) I would also love to assist in getting impacted individuals to testify to you about how this impossible situation is destroying their lives in New York. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Thank you for your time and consideration to this critical matter, and may God bless and guide you in your service with the RLC and always.

@JohnDMacari Great ask John, I wondered the same

Does it pay out if she resigns ?

@katie_honan @NYMag Facts!

It’s predictable how angry this stuff makes, but calling WOODSIDE, where Calvary Cemetery is, “deep Queens” is incredibly incorrect and shows a deep misunderstanding of the city you claim to cover, @NYMag !!! Here’s a hint: if the subway goes there, it’s not “deep Queens!”

@SusanBEdelman Bring Adam back to Hills !!!

Guns in NYC schools: Today, a 15-year-old boy wanted for assault brought a loaded gun in his backpack to Long Island City HS, police said. This comes less than a week after a 16-year-old boy hid a loaded .9mm handgun in his coat pocket at Cascades HS on the Lower East Side. nypost.com/2026/03/10/us-…

@educatorsofnyc @NYCCouncil @dc37organize If @UFT @FollowCSA and @dc37organize truly came together to create a seperate pattern for their lowest paid workers heading into 2027 negotiations, separate from the highest paid, we could fix this.

@NYCCouncil Right now, cafeteria workers are pleading @dc37organize to organize a fight for a living wage… change.org/p/urgent-cost-…

There’s some KARMA here, nonetheless. The same argument that @UFT Mulgrew and DC 37 have used against @NycRetirees 1096 bill to protect traditional Medicare for city retirees is now being weaponized against them. That said … if they thought like unionists, this is an opportunity to organize and build labor solidarity among the city’s lowest paid workers to fight for a living wage!

@educatorsofnyc @UFT @NYCCouncil @ALLPreksMatter

This is quite the news story especially after an endorsement process that was suspect! @UFT Mulgrew, to his credit, made a good argument today @NYCCouncil about having exemptions in pattern bargaining for our city’s lowest paid municipal workers. Calling out the OLR position that claims the pattern can’t be broken for certain positions — He called it A SCAM! City unions need to unite behind ensuring our city workers are paid a LIVING WAGE, not poverty wages.

@educatorsofnyc @UFT @NycRetirees @FollowCSA @ALLPreksMatter

#nycretirees need the City Council to protect us. #ZohranMamdani also needs to finally agree to meet with us. He should know he cannot fight an affordability crisis that his own inner circle caused unless he hears about it from the victims of it. @zohrankmamdani @NYCMayor

Expanding 2-K to 2,000 children sounds good. But if child care workers earn less than 96% of other professions and the city admits it doesn’t yet have a plan to fix pay disparities, shouldn’t workforce stability come first? Seats don’t educate children. Educators do. If providers aren’t paid fairly, expansion risks becoming symbolic instead of sustainable.

New York City is launching its free child care program for 2-year-olds in the fall, starting with a handful of local school districts. Is your neighborhood on the list? chalkbeat.org/newyork/2026/0…

@JimVolkland @SusanBEdelman @leoniehaimson @NYCMayor @NYCSchools x.com/leoniehaimson/…

@SusanBEdelman @leoniehaimson @NYCMayor @NYCSchools Wait a second, hold the horses here. I thought conflict of interest laws made you wait a year before being able to get a job with a company the city does business with.

Former NYC schools chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, passed over by @NYCMayor to stay, has scored an executive job with a major vendor for @nycschools: HMH. The company has collected $28.8M of NYC funds in FY 26 so far, $44.6M in FY 25 and $37.5M in FY24. linkedin.com/pulse/proven-l…

@SusanBEdelman @NYCMayor @NYCSchools NYC DOE paid HMH over $110 MILLION in the last 3 years. Now the former Chancellor is headed to HMH? Public service shouldn’t become a pipeline to vendors cashing DOE checks. This deserves scrutiny.

@MarkTreyger718 @NYCcompetence @ALLPreksMatter

There are some who wish to paint a picture that the lack of outreach is the main reason why there are thousands of unfilled early childhood education seats across the city. However, folks need to really open the hood of the car on this issue to truly understand how complex it is. Outreach will always play an important role, but it is not the main driver of empty seats, which dates far back including to the start of the push to make pre-K universal a decade ago, which is unquestionably an important and life-changing initiative for the better—but not without structural challenges. One of them was the lack of neighborhood level data to best inform seat placement when the program first launched and I would routinely hear from community based providers that the government would open up its own early childhood education sites in addition to issuing multiple contracts for new providers to serve a specific area (sometimes down the block from each other) which oversaturated one community with so many seats (not necessarily all the seat types that were actually needed) while leaving others in different zip codes with the need for more—while also creating a hunger games dynamic between CBOs and DOE over enrolling children (DOE would open up a site down the block from a longstanding CBO provider which deepened distrust and division over enrollment practices) Additionally, there might be an empty pre-K seat in a particular neighborhood, but what if there are pre-K aged children in that area in need of additional support due to their IEPs and the local community based organization (CBO) cannot meet their needs because they were not resourced adequately enough to hire, retain, or contract with specialized teachers and related service providers? Reminder that the government MUST serve these children, but didn’t for too many kids. You are only 4 once in your life and you don’t get that time back. Same is true if providers cannot hire and retain multi-lingual staff in a community where English is not the primary language. What if there is a need for 3K seats rather than pre-K seats in a community at a particular time and those empty pre-K seats keep showing up on a government dashboard as symbols of waste, which doesn’t really capture what’s happening on the ground? What if a reputable CBO keeps losing staff to DOE schools because the government never factored in pay/benefits parity and parents wish to take their kids elsewhere, which leaves the CBO with unfilled seats and now is in real danger of losing their business altogether? A reminder that over 60% of early childhood education services are delivered by CBO providers and NYC needs them because DOE does not have capacity to do this work on its own. For just some of the reasons described above, an empty seat does not mean an empty need. An empty seat does not mean that the seat is empty solely because the government did not make enough t-shirts and produce fancy commercials to enroll kids. An outreach plan must be coupled with quality data that continuously informs seat placement, including what types of seats & where + adequate resources and space to help CBOs grow to a strong and sustainable model that includes resources for seats & staff to meet the legal and moral imperative of serving children with IEPs, ELLs + parity for CBO workers (teachers, directors, support staff, related services), and resources to help ensure CBO spaces can comply with city codes/regulations.

Or whether outreach was the main problem to begin with?

@ALLPreksMatter @SusanBEdelman Dm me

@mathnerd9130 @SusanBEdelman We never are, but guessing you know that. Truly shameful!!

After getting caught unprepared for remote instruction last week, the city DOE does not want to risk it. "We were told to send devices home with kids again," a principal said. Many students will have to return them on Monday so schools have enough on hand.

@ALLPreksMatter @SusanBEdelman Excellent point. They count to up the enrollment number by why aren’t they being considered in system wise decisions?

@SusanBEdelman What about CBOs/NYCEECs? Most 3K and PreK children are educated in them. No word on devices for them…