“I Iove this campaign, it’s what the people are hungering for,” said Suozzi at the roundtable’s start. “We will not get to [solve] issues if we’re yelling and screaming at each other.”

Person encouraged participants to share their testing experiences, “NYSUT has been prioritizing a bill called ‘The More Teaching, Less Testing Act’ in Washington that would remove the federal mandate to have annual testing in grades three through eight and put this back to the states … because we have seen the impact of these annual tests in our classrooms.”

“These tests reduce something humanistic and complex like teaching and learning to something reductive and statistical,” said NYSUT Board member Greg Perles, president of the North Shore Schools Federated Employees, noting that testing overreliance also leads to less advantaged children being left behind. “If some kids have a path forward and some kids are closed out, then we’re not doing what we need to do.”

This issue underscores the campaign message of Common Ground Over Chaos, said Suozzi. “Who doesn’t want to see our kids succeed or want our kids to be educated? Everyone should agree with that whether you’re a right-wing conservative or a left-wing progressive.”

Weingarten spoke about her advocacy at the federal level in support of the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, laws aimed at keeping kids and teens safe online. “Part of what we’ve tried to do … is bring people together over regulations about AI and create some accountability over the tech companies,” said Weingarten noting that problems occur when the algorithm used by Big Tech tracks and responds to kids’ online searches which can fill their feed with harmful information.

“I wrote a letter in support of those bills,” said Suozzi. He further elaborated regarding the large social media companies’ complicity in this issue, “we’re being manipulated every day by people that have an agenda and very little to no, accountability and it’s degrading our society.”

NYSUT Board member Cordelia Anthony, president of the Farmingdale Federation of Teachers, stressed the need for increased funding for mental health resources, explaining that students’ issues have increased post pandemic. “My building has close to 2,000 students in our high school and we have two social workers, it’s not enough,” she said. “They want to compare us to schools in other countries as far as how well we’re doing, but we’re not going to see that change unless we fix the prevalent mental health issues.”

“Kids are comparing themselves to every kid in the world every day on their phones … trying to live up to impossible standards … as a child I only worried about kids in my school or neighborhood,” said Suozzi who pledged to support greater mental health investment.

The Common Ground Over Chaos bus tour continues this next week with another stop in Long Island and then stops in Utica, Buffalo and Elmira, plus others.