Three American Federation of Teachers chapters that represent 2,800 teachers at the state’s vocational-technical high schools, technical colleges and professionals at the University of Connecticut have ratified the tentative concession deal.

The governing councils at these three chapters voted to ratify the deal without another vote by rank-and-file members.

Jan Hochadel, head of the State Vocational Federation of Teachers made the announcement of her chapter reaffirming their previous vote during a rally at Bridgeport’s Bullard-Havens Technical High School.

During a phone interview Hochadel said her 40-member council overwhelmingly decided to ratify the agreement “because there were no negative changes to the agreement since the previous vote.” Her 1,000 members approved the concession package the first time around by a 9-1 margin.

AFT’s President Sharon Palmer said the remaining three chapters under AFT are in the process now of having their rank-and-file members voting on the package.

Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

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