ALBANY, N.Y. June 19, 2018 — New York State United Teachers President Andy Pallotta will seek to melt Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan’s resistance to fixing the state’s broken testing and evaluation system by handing out free ice cream outside the state Capitol on Wednesday, declaring that, “Nothing would be sweeter on the last day of session than passing S.8301 with no strings attached.”
“Senator Flanagan has the opportunity to put a cherry on top of this legislative session by passing a bipartisan bill sponsored by 55 senators, including three-quarters of the Senate Republican conference,” Pallotta said. “This shouldn’t be a Rocky Road. The Senate majority should seize this opportunity to unfreeze students and teachers from the burden of standardized testing and pass S.8301 with no sprinkles — or strings — attached.”
Specially decorated ice cream trucks will be stationed outside the Capitol from approximately noon to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday to hand out carefully curated ice cream cones, sandwiches and popsicles all bearing the message: “Let Us Teach, Let Us Learn, Let the Senate Vote.”
Pallotta said that on the final day of the 2018 legislative session — with tensions running high and a late night expected — the free ice cream will hopefully spur Sen. Flanagan and the Senate majority to join him in declaring, “I scream. You scream. New York’s students and parents scream for enactment of a clean S.8301 before the Legislature adjourns.”
New York State United Teachers is a statewide union with more than 600,000 members in education, human services and health care. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.
