Hundreds of teachers, many of whom are nervous about the possibility of drastic budget cuts and layoffs, turned out for the United Federation of Teachers annual spring conference Saturday in Midtown.

"I think it's scary, I think it's not fair that the children have to suffer what other people have done, I think it's going to be hard on all the teachers due to the fact that our class sizes are going to get much
bigger," said PS 155 teacher Haydee Melendez.

"It's a very bad thing. Period," said another teacher.

Saturday's event was a first for UFT president Michael Mulgrew as he delivered a speech that focused on the recently proposed budget cuts.

Meanwhile, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein was not warmly received.

During his brief speech to union members, he shied away from mentioning the controversial issues surrounding the potential loss of 6,400 teaching jobs. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the DOE may need to layoff teachers to balance the city's budget.

Both the mayor and Klein have spoken out against the current system for teacher layoffs, meaning the most recent teachers hired are the first ones let go regardless of job performance.

"As far as I'm concerned it's a critical issue and I've talked to lots and lots of parents about this and they share my concern, the wrong way to do this is to do this in a rote, mechanistic way of last in, first out," Klein said.

"Anything that distracts us right now from the biggest agent that we're facing which is budget cuts, is not constructive. Because it really has to be about schools, it's not just about teacher layoffs, its about the cutting of all sorts of school services," Mulgrew said.

Mulgrew says additional services like after school programs, art and music could also be eliminated if the cuts go through and he and the union vow to fight and keep as much as they can.

Klein says he, like the mayor, will fight to get money from Albany to avoid the most drastic cuts.