Teachers have prospered under the current union leadership. They should stick with us | Opinion

As a young woman graduating from FIU and entering into the teaching profession, I never imagined that I would one day have the incredible honor of leading my peers and co-workers as the president of United Teachers of Dade.

What I did know on Day One — a lesson from my unionist father — was that educators must come together and empower each other to practice our profession with the respect and support we deserve. Our passion is teaching and educating the children in our community.

Over the past six years, the United Teachers of Dade and the Frontline Caucus have worked tirelessly to improve the lives, working conditions and pay for our A+ educators and staff in Miami-Dade. Simply put: We deliver.

If the sole legacy of current UTD Leadership were the historic 2018 Educators Pay Raise we conceived, funded, campaigned for and passed with more than 70% of the vote, that would be enough for most people. But beyond passing and securing the largest teacher pay increase in M-DPCS history, UTD leadership has accomplished so much more.

For our teachers and staff, we have been able to tackle rising healthcare costs by keeping our premiums frozen. That means no additional money diverted from our take-home pay. Through our tenacity, UTD has successfully blocked efforts by Tallahassee politicians to dismantle our pension system. While we are always striving to improve working conditions, the contract ratified by M-DCPS teachers is considered the best for teachers in the entire state of Florida.

In March 2020, as the pandemic swept across the nation, UTD made sure that teachers and staff were protected. That meant no layoffs and the toughest safety requirements of any county in Florida. UTD rallied and provided staff with hundreds of thousands of masks, shields and PPE, that we sourced and had donated. We understood that our children could not be educated if our teachers and staff were not safe.

Last year, our community outreach and steadfast relationship building allowed us to stand up to a governor who wanted to politicize mask-wearing in the classroom, and we prevailed.

There is much more that UTD and the Frontline Caucus Leadership have done to improve our community and support our mission. The Frontline Board, the most diverse in the organization’s history, are excellent stewards of our finances. We accomplished what seemed unimaginable 16 years ago when we teetered on bankruptcy. Debt free, we purchased a building at the end of our lease that will save millions of dollars moving forward.

We have formed alliances with dozens of community organizations and union peers throughout South Florida and the state to uplift each other. We have led community-wide education and vaccination drives to help protect us all and return to normalcy. UTD Leadership has organized relief trips to Haiti and the Bahamas, rallies for social justice and sit-ins for immigrant and women’s rights. I am humbled by the energy and time that Vice President Tony White, Secretary-Treasurer Mindy Grimes-Festge and the Frontline executive board put in to improve the lives of children, teachers and the entire community.

However, as I learned from my trailblazing predecessors Fed Ingram and Dr. Shirley Johnson, the first African-American man and woman to lead UTD, we cannot rest. That is why we were so active in the selection process of our new superintendent. I met with potential candidates and School Board members to ensure that educators were key stakeholders in this decision. UTD leadership has been meeting with district staff and board members to draft language for a second countywide referendum to make sure that we increase the 2018 pay raises in order to recruit and retain high-quality educators.

Recently, we spent several days in Tallahassee advocating for all Miami-Dade residents against the governor’s retaliatory actions taken through the state House budget in the form of a $71 million dollar cut to M-DCPS. We are cautiously optimistic that our bi-partisan outreach will prevail.

As a special-education teacher from Hialeah Middle School, a woman of Honduran descent raised in Hialeah and educated in our public schools, serving as the president of the United Teachers of Dade is the honor of a lifetime. As a mother of two children in our public schooIs, I look forward to my continued service and our journey together.

Karla Hernández-Mats is the president of the United Teachers of Dade. She is running for re-election.