Several years back, special education teacher Amanda Dutton was angry about having to spend several hours on weekends doing Special Education Student Information System work. What the educator at PS 134 on the Lower East Side never realized before becoming the school’s chapter leader midway through the 2021–22 school year was it didn’t need to be that way.

“I found out the union won an arbitration many years earlier mandating that time be allowed during the regular school day to do this work,” she said.

Dutton showed the arbitration ruling to her principal and worked with him to find time during the workday for special education teachers to work on SESIS and individualized education programs.

Special education teachers like Carey Jones were appreciative — and impressed. “I’m grateful she’s our chapter leader,” she said.

“Amanda fought hard, and our principal now allows SESIS time during school time,” Jones said. “Teachers are now able to complete IEPs efficiently without the rush.”

Dutton was a member of the subcommittee of the UFT Negotiating Committee that negotiated the creation of school-based special education committees in the 2023 contract. Then, she had the satisfaction of forming her school’s committee and using it to address the lack of coverage when one-to-one paraprofessionals called in sick.

Her committee advised the principal to seek help from the administrator of special education and human resources at the district level. “Our principal was able to get three substitute paraprofessional nominations for members of our school community — Parent Association members and members of community-based organizations that work within our school,” she said.

Dutton protested when her principal placed the students in her self-contained K–2 class in a general education class during her preparation periods. The parents objected when they found out. The general education teachers informed her the children were struggling.

The principal eventually relented, Dutton said, and “had to find another way to give me my UFT preps.”

Dutton also objected when her principal used the centrally funded IEP teacher at PS 134 to do administrative work in violation of the job posting. The principal soon reassigned the IEP teacher to deliver targeted instruction and interventions to students with disabilities.

If the DOE had found out, she said, “the school would have lost funding for the IEP teacher position.”