b"Association, helping them to understand the Board of Education rules and regulation as a Parents Association and helpingthem and assisting them to understand the budget that the school had.What was your work job title at that time?My job title at that point was Director of Parents for Education Action. It was funded under the city. They had a community part and a city part.You came under the union at that point?Initially, because I was director of the program, I didn't join the union. My affiliation in education, and particularly in all of the positions that I had, was DC 37.When did you join Local 237?When I became part of school safety, under the Board of Education in 1982.Before I was working in a communityprogram that was funded under HRA. Each year you had to submit a program and a budget and you had a board that reviewed the program. It's like a grant, but they review it and make a decision depending upon what area you live in.They only allocate X amount to each area which had a planning board. There would be two or three programs and if theydecided they would only fund one program or one and a half programs, then you didn't get funded for that year. The program I was in was funded for approximately 10 years, and I suppose at that point they wanted to give the money tosomeone else. So, 1982 was the end of my funding. I decided to become a school safety agent though at the time wewere called school safety officers. I took a lot of city tests and I was on the list, and I went for an interview for ACS, part ofthe Department of Social Services. Once I went for the interview I was not very enthused about the amount of cases thatyou had to have. I was involved as a parent and as an advocate with the Manhattan school district, and Louise Latty wasthe superintendent and I knew her very well. We were talking and I told her that my program had ended and she said:You've been in education and you know the school and you know everything about what's going on in the school andyou work with parents and you work with children, why don't I give Hank Murphy a call and see if I can get you an interview; and that is how I came into school safety.Did you also have any friends or family who worked for the city at that point?I had a lot of friends and family that worked for the city, yes.Was there someone on the job, either a co-worker or supervisor, who encouraged you in your job?Once I got into school safety, one person who spoke to me and talked with me very often andgave me a lot of guidance was Bruce Irushalmi, who was Director of School Safety at that point. He was director of the division on SixthStreet and he knew me from the Board of Ed, because he once worked for the Board of Ed, and he just thought that I had a lot of potential.Through training he said he saw me and he just thought I would be very good. So he kind of encouraged me to go to first level, and perhaps go on up to the other levels within the division.150 "