Respect Campaign: Win the Respect You and Your Students Deserve

Join Our Respect Campaign Today!

We need every member to take action: (1) ask your co-workers to join our union, (2) attend local union meetings and stay informed, (3) vote in all upcoming elections, (4) take part in local and state actions, and (5) never quit as this is a long campaign to lift up our professions and to improve working conditions — the learning conditions for our schoolchildren — for all public schools employees.

Texas AFT New Report | Texas Needs Teachers!

In a call to action, the Texas AFT reached out to Battelle for Kids (BFK), a national not-for-profit serving K-12 education systems for over 20 years, to facilitate conversations with a broad geographic distribution of teachers to not only uncover contributing factors, but to surface solutions and give voice to those closest to the work.  This paper presents the findings from a series of focus groups conducted in Dallas, El Paso, Houston, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley. Texas Needs Teachers! synthesizes the perspectives of the dedicated teachers who contributed to advance this important discussion. Teacher voice needs to be incorporated into shaping the path forward. In order to solve this critical teacher shortage, we must create deeper understanding of what it is like to be a modern teacher and align solutions accordingly.

AFT New Report | Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?

AFT’s national Teacher and School Staff Shortage Task Force released a report, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? The report outlines targeted solutions to ensure educators have the tools, time, trust, and training they need to do their jobs and to stay in their jobs. The report offers practical, research-proven solutions to reverse the shortages and revitalize the education profession, and emphasizes treating teachers and school staff like the professionals they are, with time to plan and prepare for classes, the chance to collaborate with colleagues, the power to make day-to-day school decisions, and ongoing professional development so they can grow in their careers.

Texas AFT Report | The Lost Decade

In “The Lost Decade,” a report published in April 2022, Texas AFT and Every Texan revealed startling trends in Texas’ funding of public schools, as well as the effects that underfunding has had on teacher and staff salaries. If our state and local leaders fail to address issues like back-sliding pay, we will continue to see headlines about massive teacher and staff shortages, and we will continue to lose hard-working, experienced educators.

AFT+ Member Benefits Guide

As an Texas AFT member, you belong to a community of colleagues. We understand the power of joining together— in our work, in our communities and in the marketplace. At AFT, we have our own marketplace—AFT + Member Benefits—which combines the purchasing power of AFT’s 1.7 million members with the benefit offerings of Union Plus, the AFL-CIO’s benefit arm. This gives you a rich array of discounts, services and benefits that go beyond the workplace. Many of these programs are available to family members, too. 

Share My Lesson | Back-to-School Resources

As we head back to school and to a new normal this fall, join our community, Share My Lesson, where you can find and share resources and ideas on topics such as safely reopening schools, hybrid and distance learning, social emotional support, anti-racism education and more. Register here for all new back-to-school webinars.

Share My Lesson Brochures

• General
• Early Childhood Educators
• Supporting New Teachers
• How Parents Can Use Share My Lesson
• Paraprofessionals and School Support Personnel

Know Your Rights

Use our Know Your Rights resource pages to learn more about your rights as a public school employee in the workplace, including your rights to join a union or enjoy a duty-free lunch. You can access our library of Know Your Rights resources. If you have any questions about an experience on the job, contact us at 1-800-222-3827.

Professional Learning & You

As a member of the American Federation of Teachers, you have access to a variety of programs and resources designed to enhance your professional growth. This brochure highlights many of these opportunities. You can also visit aft.org/education, email edissues@aft.org or contact your local union. By addressing the professional needs of our educator members, we are able to help them become even more successful in their careers; in their union; in the institutions in which they work; and in serving the students, families and communities they serve.

Managing Student Behavior

Our union provides many resources and workshops helping our members manage student behavior. Use these resources as a guide and sign up for a future workshop hosted by our Texas AFT Bridges Institute for Professional Development.

Trauma Counseling Program

AFT members work hard—now more than ever—to educate, heal, help and serve our communities. Sometimes our ownstress is compounded by a personal or workplace trauma; still, we struggle to be fully present for others. Now the AFT is offering a new, free benefit—trauma counseling—to provide help and healing for our members, whenever needed, wherever a member may be.

About AFT Booklet

As you’ll see in this booklet, AFT fights to solve the problems that are keeping you up at night. In recent years, we added just-in-time benefits, including trauma counseling with highly trained therapists and student debt relief through our partner Summer. Tackling the problems of recruitment and retention, we created task forces that bring together our affiliates’ leaders with top researchers to address critical staffing shortages in schools and hospitals. And because we know that your students’ troubles keep you up as much as your own, we added a wide array of social, emotional and academic resources on Share My Lesson. Rest assured, when you join AFT, you’re joining like-minded professionals who fight for a better America. Our power comes from our values, our vision and our dedication to engaging with families and communities.