"If you're a paraprofessional, please stand up," UFT President Michael Mulgrew said to the crowd at Teacher Union Day on Nov. 6. As scores of paraprofessionals stood to thunderous applause, he turned to Shelvy Young-Abrams, their just-retired chapter...

Decades of UFT advocacy bore fruit for the union’s paraprofessionals on Oct. 29 as a newly enacted state law guaranteed all UFT-represented full-time paraprofessionals — on the job now and in the future — will automatically become members of the...

Priscilla Castro was elected on May 25 as chapter chair of the Paraprofessionals Chapter for the term ending June 30, 2024. Castro had been serving as interim chapter chair since Shelvy Young-Abrams retired in October 2022.

Gloria Weiss has worked for 20 years at the Consortium for Worker Education (CWE), the workforce development arm of the New York City Central Labor Council.

All students suspected of having a disability should be identified, located and evaluated. Referral for special education evaluation should not, however, be the first response to pandemic-related learning loss or readjustment issues.

As a paraprofessional interested in an education career, the UFT’s Career Training Program helped me obtain a DOE voucher to earn my bachelor’s in early childhood education and psychology

The UFT has initiated an outreach program to determine how the union can best support retired paraprofessionals. The Retired Teachers Chapter includes approximately 7,600 paraprofessionals.