Frequently Asked Questions
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A list of the most commonly asked questions.
Your pension is governed by state law and protected by the State Constitution. Whenever the State Legislature made substantial changes in public employee pensions, it passed a new law creating a new plan for people hired after the law’s effective date. So public employees fall into different pension plans depending on when they began their service.
The plans may have different costs and benefits, so to find out about your pension plan, you need to know what tier you are in. In some cases, people are permitted to change tiers or to transfer their tier membership from another eligible retirement system.
You can call Retiree Programs at 212-598-6879, check out the Retiree Programs section of the UFT website (http://www.uft.org/chapters/retirees/programs), the Guide to Retiree Programs on our website (http://www.uft.org/health-benefits/retiree-programs), read Si Beagle Learning Center annual meeting notices, attend annual meetings and read the retiree page in the New York Teacher (http://www.uft.org/news/ny-teacher/retired-teacher-chapter-news).
All UFT and Welfare Fund retiree members, as well as their spouses or domestic partners on file with the Welfare Fund, are entitled to participate in the program.
There are coordinators in all five boroughs as well as in Westchester/Rockland/Putnam, Suffolk and Nassau Counties, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, the greater Washington, DC area, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Israel. To find the phone number of the coordinator in your area, call the Retiree Programs’ office at 212-598-6879 or visit the Florida Section of the UFT Welfare Fund Retiree Programs on the UFT website or the Outreach Sections for other parts of the U.S or Israel.
Contact the coordinator of the Si Beagle Learning Center where you would like to teach and make an appointment to discuss your idea. Bring your resume and a course outline. You can also mail a copy of your resume and course outline to: UFTWF Retiree Programs, 52 Broadway, 17th floor, NY, NY 10004, or send an email to: lynn.lospenuso@uftwf.org.
Retiree Social Services are available to retiree members and their families by calling 212-598-6880.
For a retroactively enrolled dependent, whether spouse, domestic partner or child, the effective date of eligibility is the beginning of the calendar year in which the dependent is added to the Welfare Fund.
You must work one day past your probation completion date. If you finish your fourth year at the end of June, you must return for at least part of the following year to receive tenure. Your probation is not complete until the first day of school the following year. You maintain that tenure as long as there is no gap in your state certification following a subsequent return to service if you resign.
No. Bed bugs are not known to cause or transmit disease and the risk of person-to-person transference in school is very low. No child should be isolated or removed from a classroom setting. It is important to remember that bed bugs can resemble other insects and that many bed bugs submitted for identification are not, in fact, bed bugs.
No. If it is a bed bug, it is likely that it was unknowingly brought it into the school by someone who encountered it in another place. If you have captured it, you may have already eliminated the problem. Additionally, many suspected bed bugs are not bed bugs at all. You should take a clear photo of the suspected beg bug and submitted it along with a completed submission form to DOE Pest Control at IPMDepartment@NYCDOE.onmicrosoft.com for confirmation.