This year, Working Educators is taking a deep, hard look at how working conditions in our buildings are affecting women and families.  To celebrate Women’s History Month we are taking March 27th to acknowledge the sacrifices our hard-working, largely female union has made to ensure that the children of Philadelphia receive an excellent education.  

After leading a series of focus groups with PFT members about how to improve working conditions for families, the following wishes emerged:

• We want clean, private spaces for lactation and we want our time spent pumping to be respected and protected.
• Currently, maternity leave exhausts our sick time. We want real maternity leave that doesn’t require us to use all of our sick days in order to stay home with our own children.
• We want leave for our partners too!  Currently, our partners have no additional days to spend with us after we give birth.  Having them at home decreases our risk for postpartum depression and improves our relationships with our children right from the beginning.
• We want to be able to visit our own children’s schools for parent-teacher conferences held during the day, and celebrate their achievements.
• We want dependent care accounts back!  Previously we could take out THOUSANDS of dollars for dependent daycare pre-tax, saving our members over $1000 per year.  We want help paying for expensive pre-school, and before and after school programs.

What else do we need? Let us know! Take a picture with your staff and upload it to social media with the hashtag #WomenMakeThisSchoolWork.  Let us know that you support our campaign to create working conditions that support working families!