AFT New Jersey PreK-12 leaders virtually met with N.J. Department of Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer on Nov. 25 in what is expected to be his final monthly session with the group in that role as Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration winds down.
Before going through the meeting’s agenda, some AFTNJ members expressed their appreciation for Dehmer, who replaced Angelica Allen-McMillan (the N.J. DOE’s acting commissioner for three years) after she retired in early 2024.
Among them was AFTNJ PreK-12 Executive Vice President Silvia Pereira, who described Dehmer and his staff as “amazing partners in this collaborative effort.”
“I’m kind of sad to see it come to an end, just because it’s nice to have someone on the other side to really just listen,” Pereira added. “Oftentimes we don’t have someone that is willing to listen to our concerns and work together … At the end of the day, we all came together to really support our students, so I appreciate all the work you have done in working with us. … The fact that you took time to really just listen to us speaks volumes.”
Dehmer responded in kind, telling everyone on the call, “In every single one of our conversations, you bring up some new wrinkle or some new issue that we need to be thinking about. It’s one of those things where some little comment in one of our conversations sits with us, and we keep talking about it, working through it and figuring out how we address it or what we can do differently.”
