Your submitted consultation notes help enforce the contract

When you face an issue with contract implementation at your school, you should put the issue on the agenda for your monthly UFT consultation committee meeting with your principal. Report any unresolved issues in your consultation summary notes, which you should submit as soon as you can after the meeting in the forms section of the UFT Chapter Leader Hub. Your district rep will receive a copy of your notes upon submission. The union will escalate unresolved issues to the monthly district consultation or — if the same issue is reported by chapter leaders across the city — to the monthly consultation at the chancellor's level. Contract enforcement in this first school year under a new contract is important because we are setting a precedent for the coming years. When the UFT raises contract-implementation issues in consultation meetings at the district or chancellor's level, the data provided by chapter leaders' consultation summary notes give us greater leverage because we have documentary evidence of the problem and its scope.

Professional-learning rights in the new contract

The new DOE-UFT contract gives educators more voice in their professional learning.  Each school will now have one committee to serve as an instructional leadership team that plans all school-based professional learning. As chapter leader, you are automatically a member of that committee, and you and the principal will each choose an equal number of members to also serve. When deciding which UFT members to invite to serve on your school's committee, please consider UFT Teacher Center staff and teacher leaders and recruit some members who are not teachers.The new contract also says that school-based professional development must not be one size fits all;  instead, all UFT members must receive professional learning that is directly related to the work they do. Having paraprofessionals and members in other titles on this committee will help ensure that all titles receive relevant professional learning. The DOE and the UFT Teacher Center will create a catalog of professional learning options aligned with DOE initiatives that will confer CTLE hours and other required PD credits, such as CEs. These options may be used in PD time during the workday at the school's discretion.

Parent engagement time under the new contract

We fought for and won for teachers and paraprofessionals the autonomy to dedicate time to parent engagement as they see fit. The 55 minutes of weekly parent engagement time is self-directed and can be conducted remotely. Teachers and paras can do this work at the time that works best for them outside the regular school day. The list of activities that are considered parent engagement is comprehensive:

• Meetings (individual or group) with parents or guardian
• Telephone conversations with parents or guardians
• Written correspondence with parents or guardians
• Creating newsletters
• Creating content for school/class websites and answering machines
• Preparing student report cards
• Preparing student progress reports
• Meetings with parents of English language learners
• Preparing for parent engagement activities

If teachers and paras spend the parent engagement time on a school-approved digital system that tracks parent engagement time, they do not have to document their time. Otherwise, they should track their time using a simple log.

If less than the full time is taken up with parent engagement activities, the teacher or para can use the remaining remote work time on Other Professional Work (OPW).

Report oversize classes again on Sept. 27 — Day 14

We are addressing the class size issues that chapter leaders reported on Days 1, 6 and 10. The next key reporting days are: Day 14 (Sept. 27) and Day 19 (Wednesday, Oct. 4). Please obtain your school's RACL (elementary or middle schools) or Master Schedule Final (high schools), which indicates class sizes on these dates. For most schools, the oversize classes that remain unresolved by Day 14 (Sept. 27) will go to your district representative and superintendent to tackle. On the 21st day, unresolved cases escalate a step higher to the citywide Class Size Labor-Management Committee.

The 2018 contract created a special additional step for schools that are chronically out of compliance, defined as having oversized classes for four of the past six school years. These schools are escalated to the Class Size Labor-Management Committee once the overages are reported to the union. If the Class Size Labor-Management Committee cannot resolve the issue, the case is scheduled for expedited arbitration as soon as 10 days later — and no later than the 34th school day of the term. The arbitrator can issue a binding remedy within five school days that the DOE must implement in five school days.

Please reach out to your district rep if you have any questions.

Celebrate Teacher Union Day on Oct. 29

This year, we dedicate Teacher Union Day to our Contract Action Teams. They embody the passion, pride and dedication of the brave educators who put everything on the line in the 1960 strike that forged our union. See the day's award winners, including the 88 school chapters who are receiving the Ely Trachtenberg Award. Please consider bringing a group of members from your school to the event, which takes place on Sunday, Oct. 29, at the New York Hilton from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. There will be a continental breakfast and post-awards reception. This year's celebration will conclude with a special tribute to UFT founder George Altomare, who passed away in August.

Register now