Council of School Supervisors and Administrators Photographs

The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (formerly the Council of Supervisors and Administrators) represents principals and other categories of supervisory/administrative personnel in the New York City school system. Its origins are in the post-World War II years, when supervisors in various categories (including assistant superintendents, principals, assistant principals, chairmen of departments, junior principals and principals of youth and adult centers) were represented by a number of separate, and relatively powerless, associations. Eleven of these associations came together in 1961 to form a Council of Supervisory Associations of the Public Schools of New York City. The Council (aka CSA) took its present form, as a union chartered by the AFL-CIO, in the aftermath of the crises associated with decentralization and community control of schools and the teachers' strike of 1967-1968.

In recent decades the CSA has functioned as a fully-fledged trade-union, aggressively defending staffing, salary and benefits levels and tenure for supervisors; managing a Welfare Fund; lobbying on all legislative matters affecting public education (often in cooperation with the United Federation of Teachers and other public employee unions); providing educational and training opportunities for members; raising issues of workplace health and safety; and creating a more than 9,000-strong retirees' chapter. The union has also steadily expanded its outreach efforts, both to members and to the general public, through its publications such as its newspaper, CSA News, whose longtime news editor, Charnia Adelman, was largely responsible for the preservation and arrangement of most of the photographs in the CSA Photographs Collection.