Boston, Lowell Local Leaders Join AFT Massachusetts Board

AFT Massachusetts is excited to welcome two great new members to our statewide Executive Board! This month, Amrita Dani of the Boston Teachers Union and Patty Myers of the United Teachers of Lowell joined the board, which represents the 23,000 AFT members statewide.

“I’m thrilled that these two great local union leaders will join the AFT Massachusetts Executive Board as we work to ensure that safety and equity are at the forefront of Massachusetts’ plan to reopen schools this fall,” said AFT Massachusetts President Beth Kontos. “Their experience engaging members and organizing to protect public education will be critical as we work to ensure our schools have the federal and state funding they need, and as we advocate for our most vulnerable students who are most at risk of falling behind during school closures.”

Learn more about the new Executive Board members below:

Amrita Dani

Amrita Dani is a rank-and-file member of the Boston Teachers Union and a building representative for Boston Adult Technical Academy, where she teaches ESL and Humanities. She has been a union member and educator for 5 years, and first became involved in the union during the "No on 2" campaign fighting for continued investment in public education.

Since then, she has gotten involved in the Boston Teachers Union’s COPE committee and the Ethnic Studies Now committee. Amrita participated in the AFT's Teacher Leader program before becoming a delegate this past year to the AFT-MA convention.

In all of this work, Amrita has seen the power of solidarity and organizing as the communities at her school, in her union, and across the city and state have come together to fight against austerity and for public education and public services more broadly over the years. She is excited to be working to build union power through membership on the AFT-MA board.

Patty Myers

Patty Myers has been a member of the United Teachers of Lowell for 34 years. She has served as a Middle School VP and continues to serve on the union’s Executive Board. Patty has been a member of the Negotiating Team and a delegate to several Massachusetts and National AFT conventions.

As an educator in Lowell, she has been an elementary and middle school classroom teacher, science, content literacy teacher as well as currently serving as the districts STEM Support.

Patty has participated in the AFT PD Summer Education Academy and presented at the AFT Teach Conference in Washington, DC.  She has been an active participant in negotiation rallies, the No on Question 2 campaign, and the Fund Our Future Campaign to win historic school funding legislation.