Jennifer McAfee was born and raised in the Harbor Area of San Pedro and graduated from Dodson Jr. High and Narbonne High School and earned a BA in American Literature and Culture at UCLA. She has taught for 24 years as a middle school English teacher at Dodson Middle School. While at Dodson, Jennifer served as Chapter Chair for 8 years, which included organizing members through the 2019 strike. In 2017, she was elected to represent the Harbor Area on the UTLA Board of Directors and in 2020 was elected as the Harbor Area Chair. As Area Chair, her focus was on creating space for members’ voices, providing support to fight bully principals, and promoting structures to build power at sites. Jennifer has been a member of the core bargaining team since 2020 and helped bargain some of the strongest health and safety protocols in the nation. She worked with the expanded bargaining team in the Beyond Recovery contract campaign. As UTLA Secretary, Jennifer wants to ensure the voices of members are heard and valued and use her organization and communication skills to provide transparent, timely, and thorough communications to members regarding our union’s policies and procedures. Jennifer wants every member to be informed and understand the structures and policies of our union and how members can become involved in ways that are meaningful to them.