Jerry Jordan, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president, is retiring after 37 years with the union

Jerry Jordan, the decades-long mainstay of the powerful Philadelphia Federation of Teachers and a well-respected figure across the city, is retiring.

Jordan has opted not to run for reelection as president of the 13,000-member union, which is in a contract-negotiating year.

Arthur Steinberg, who runs the PFT’s health and welfare fund and is president of the American Federation of Teachers Pennsylvania, will become the next city teachers’ union president. No other candidates had declared themselves by Tuesday at 5 p.m., the submission deadline.

Jordan, who has led the PFT since 2007, will remain at the helm until July 1.

» READ MORE: Here’s what leaders say about Jerry Jordan, who’s retiring as PFT president : ‘He’s the kind of guy you want to be the one taking care of you forever’

He informed members of his decision in an email sent Tuesday evening.

His decision to retire is likely to surprise many; though he is 74, Jordan has shown no signs of slowing down and said he plans to remain active. But in a way, the announcement is quintessential Jordan, a cards-close-to-the-vest move for a person who has always been very private, despite his very public role.

Jordan, the PFT’s first Black president, has led the union since 2008, but worked as a PFT staffer since 1987. Born and raised in West Philadelphia, a product of the Philadelphia School District, Jordan began his career teaching English language learners at Martin Luther King High School in 1976. When he moved to University City High School, Jordan became shop steward, the first step on a path that would define his working life.

Jordan loved teaching — “there’s never a boring day,” he said. (Also: “Dealing with adults is harder.”) And although he enjoyed representing his colleagues’ and his students’ interests as a building representative, leaving the classroom to work for the PFT — let alone becoming its leader — never entered his mind, he said.

When PFT president Marvin Schuman called Jordan in 1986 to ask him to work for the PFT, he was “totally stunned,” Jordan said, but also intrigued. He began working as a PFT staffer, responsible for representing members at 50 schools around the city, in 1987. He never looked back.

Jordan rose through the ranks of the union, becoming director of staff, vice president and chief negotiator before taking over when Ted Kirsch left PFT to lead the statewide American Federation of Teachers chapter in 2007.

In his 34 years as PFT leadership, including 17 as president, Jordan has seen much: from the contentious state takeover of Philadelphia schools and budget cuts so deep the district laid off thousands of employees, to wholesale school closings and the School Reform Commission attempting to cancel the teachers’ union’s contract.

But Jordan was a constant — not a flashy leader but a deeply thoughtful and strategic one, said State Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Phila.), head of the Senate Appropriations committee. Jordan honed excellent listening skills as an ESL teacher, and it shows.

“Steady, focused, unwavering: That’s Jerry,” said Hughes. “Never got sidetracked by other issues in politics or in the community. It’s always about the students and the teachers with him.”

Gemayel Keyes, a 17-year district veteran employee, said Jordan earned wide respect because he takes the work personally, and doesn’t make promises he can’t keep. Keyes was a paraprofessional when he first told Jordan at a membership meeting that he was in school to become a teacher but couldn’t afford to stop working to complete his student teaching. Could the PFT help, Keyes asked?

Jordan called Keyes later and told him about his plan to work with the district to build a pathway to help paraprofessionals become teachers.

“He said, ‘I can’t guarantee that I can get this done, but this is at the top of my list, and I promise you that I will work as hard to get as much of this as I can,’” Keyes said. “There are some people that think a leader should always be loud and boisterous, but it’s not bravado and puffing up my chest, it’s about having a plan and knowing how to execute it.”

The union and district eventually announced its Para Pathway program; Keyes is now a classroom teacher at Spruance Elementary in the Northeast.

Randi Weingarten, president of the national American Federation of Teachers, counts Jordan as a longtime friend and thought partner, she said.

“He combines a deep sense of compassion and righteous anger, a great strategic mind, with being a real gentleman, a real mensch,” said Weingarten.

Jordan loved working with Superintendent Constance E. Clayton, who, like Jordan, could be formal, old-school. He disagreed with almost everything Superintendent David Hornbeck did. Arlene Ackerman?

“That was a really, really tough period,” Jordan said. “She literally gave away schools, including the new Audenried building, and other buildings.”

And then there was the most difficult day of Jordan’s professional career: Oct. 6, 2014, when the SRC moved to cancel the teachers’ contract, a move that caught the city — and the PFT — off guard.

“I was not afraid; I was pissed,” said Jordan, whose default is mild-mannered and courtly, but when his ire is raised, watch out. (“I try not ... to allow myself to get very angry, because it may not be nice,” he said.)

Critics contend that Jordan is too traditional, top-down, hesitant to forcefully challenge the status quo. Many wanted the PFT to strike then as a show that teachers would not stand for what was ultimately judged to be an illegal action by the SRC. But Jordan told his members to stay on the job, promising that they would win the day through the courts.

They did.

“People will say, he should act, he should be more vocal, but he always had a plan,” said Dee Phillips, a longtime member of Jordan’s executive team who is now retired.

Jordan is good at the long game; he has negotiated high-stakes contracts for years. But he brightens visibly on school visits, in interactions with “youngsters.”

Asked to list things achieved in his tenure that he’s proud of, Jordan, who would clearly rather not talk about himself, says any accomplishments he has realized have been because of the team behind him and the members who power them.

But he does list a few: the PFT’s work drawing attention to the district’s facilities crisis; its February 2021 action during the COVID-19 pandemic, when teachers worked outside in frigid temperatures to push back against what they said were insufficient guarantees that school buildings were safe for them and students to return; and the design and implementation of a Peer Assistance and Review program for all new teachers and those rated unsatisfactory by their principals.

On the other side of the coin, Jordan said he still struggles with the loss of Laporshia Massey, a 12-year-old who died from complications of an asthma attack she suffered at Bryant Elementary, a West Philadelphia school that had no nurse on duty because of budget cuts, and the mesothelioma diagnosis of Lea DiRusso, who contracted the deadly disease after teaching for years in two Philadelphia schools that were known to have damaged asbestos.

“I take those things personally,” Jordan said.

“There comes a time when you need to know when it’s time to go,” Jordan said. “I put in a lot of years in this union. I was very deliberate in who I hired, and I hired people who I wanted to be able to continue running this operation well, and after I left. I knew that I would be leaving at some point.”

Jordan used to tell people he’d retire “when schools are as good as when I attended,” and they’re not there yet, he said.

But, he said, “they’re getting there.”

The trajectory is positive, Jordan said: The school district is back under local control; a judge’s 2023 ruling that Pennsylvania’s education-funding system is unconstitutional brings hope that Philadelphia will reliably get more equitable funding from the state; and the public is better aware of the district’s building crisis, as evidenced by a recent state appropriation to fix old schools, the first such award in years.

“We have been very effective in really bringing to light the facilities crisis in our school system,” said Jordan. “In my very first meeting with Gov. [Josh] Shapiro after he was in office, he mentioned the facilities problem.”

“I will do whatever it is that I can to assist with contract negotiations or anything dealing with the operations of this union, before I leave as well as after I leave,” Jordan said. “You don’t put in as many years into an organization and then just walk away.”

Jordan loves to travel, and he plans to do more of it, as well as volunteer work, likely with an organization that supports children.

“And I am going to become very, very active in the upcoming election and in politics,” said Jordan, a Democrat. “It’s just so important that we elect the right person.”