As of August 2007, the union had regained more than 1,000 members and in October 2007 began negotiating its first post-storm contract with the Orleans Parish school board (OPSB).

Unions in the city were segregated, and the organization's black membership (affiliated with the AFT) was unable to accomplish much.

In 1954, after the AFT amended its constitution to require integrated locals, the affiliate integrated—although most white teachers in New Orleans still belonged to the NEA.

The AFT struck New Orleans public schools again in 1969, asking all teachers to follow the union onto the picket line.

After black students in several high schools rioted, the African American community withdrew its support for the union.

With white teachers finally participating in the strike, nearly 3,500 of the school district's 5,000 educators walked out, and two-thirds of the city's children were affected.

UTNO became the first teachers' union in the Deep South to win a contract without the protection of a state public employee collective bargaining law.

UTNO argued that New Orleans students suffered from severe poverty, malnutrition, poor health care and domestic violence, all of which significantly impaired their ability to learn.

The school district was chronically underfunded and financially mismanaged, and leadership turnover was high (with nine interim or permanent superintendents in 10 years).

The solution, the union argued, was for significantly higher levels of funding for the schools and other public social services agencies.

Despite evidence to the contrary, critics alleged that the union's collective bargaining agreement protected incompetent teachers, made it difficult to adopt an innovative curriculum, failed to reward good teaching, established onerous work rules.

A school was labeled "academically unacceptable" (AU) if it failed to achieve a minimum SPS score of 45.

Any school designated as AU for four consecutive years was classified as "failing" and eligible for state takeover.

UTNO members, about to begin the school year, received their first and last two-week paycheck on September 1, 2005.

With no tax revenue flowing into OPSB coffers, the school district cancelled further paychecks and all insurance for New Orleans education workers.

Reacting to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, on November 22, 2005, the Louisiana legislature passed Act 35 and took over the New Orleans public school system.

Conservative state legislators appeared to be using the Hurricane Katrina crisis to break the union in the name of quality education.

Another suit attempted to win back-pay as a result of Act 35 layoffs, while a third sought contractually required disaster pay, lost sick days, employer-paid health care premiums, and additional employer contributions to the union's health and welfare funds.

[8] In April 2007, UTNO attempted to re-establish a collective bargaining relationship with the Orleans Parish School Board.

When a charter school board suspended its director, principal and four others after parents and teachers accused them of inflicting unduly harsh corporal punishment on students and summarily firing teachers, UTNO argued that the incident was a prime example of why a collective bargaining agreement with due process and grievance provisions was necessarily.

OPSB Superintendent Paul Vallas made public appearances with UTNO President Brenda Mitchell, and asked for the union to partner with the district in improving education.

Mitchell offered a conciliatory response, saying that UTNO stood "ready to work with the new superintendent to turn this district around.

The school board agreed to pay $1,000 each of its 6,800 employees fired after Hurricane Katrina and to contribute $200,000 to the union to administer the payouts.

In exchange, the union ended five lawsuits against the OPSB, and dropped three arbitrations involving the school district.