Teaching Assistant Colleen Condolora has been named the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) School-Related Professionals Member of the Year.
NYSUT honored Colleen Condolora and Priscilla Castro as 2019 NYSUT School-Related Professional Members of the Year during the union’s 47th annual Representative Assembly that was held in Albany in April 2019.
Colleen has been a teaching aide/assistant with middle and high school students attending our special education programs for the past 29 years, and an active union and faculty association member this entire time. She teaches others about those methods through NYSUT’s Education and Learning Trust classes and provides workshops on trauma-informed care at conferences through NYSUT’s Health and Safety Committee.
A life-long and eager learner, Colleen is always looking for ways to expand her professional knowledge and that of her colleagues. Recently, and as a result of her work with the NYSUT Health & Safety Committee, she has trained our Special Education teaching and support staff to become trauma-informed educators—giving them the knowledge and tools to support our students in managing traumatic stress that can affect their learning and behavior.
“Colleen and Priscilla are incredible unionists who show every day how important our school-related professionals are to our schools and our students,” NYSUT President Andy Pallotta said. “I am proud of the contributions they have made to education and to a strong labor movement here in New York.”
“We have to change our own culture to consider where the child is coming from, asking not, ‘What is wrong with you?’ but ‘What is happening to you?’” Condolora said of her work.
Castro, a borough advocate for the United Federation of Teachers, is known for her classroom work as a one-on-one, crisis paraprofessional and as part of an inclusion program modifying lessons for special education students learning with general education students. For the past five years, she has worked for the UFT with SRPs on contract and grievance issues at more than 100 sites in Queens.
“We have what we have because of the union,” Castro said. “We started out with nothing, and this is something we built over time.”
