Testimony of Michael Mulgrew, UFT president, submitted before the New York City Council Committee on Education

My name is Michael Mulgrew, and I am the president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). On behalf of the union’s more than 190,000 members, I would like to thank Education Chair Rita Joseph and all the members of the City Council’s Committee on Education for holding today’s public hearing on the New York City preliminary budget for fiscal year 2026. I would also like to thank Speaker Adrienne Adams for her leadership during this year’s budget process.

Protecting Our Schools

Protecting New York City’s schools is more important than ever as the federal government attacks public education. We must also safeguard against executive orders that harm our students, particularly our newly arrived and LGBTQ+ students. On the local level, we must continue to fund our public schools, despite City Hall’s constant claims of financial shortfalls.

Respect for Paraprofessionals

Protecting public education in NYC also requires sustained commitment to recruiting and retaining educators, specifically paraprofessionals. Paraprofessionals develop deep relationships with their students, providing them with the encouragement and support they need to thrive. They also work in lockstep with teachers, collaborating to best serve every child in each classroom. Paraprofessionals are proud of the work that they do, and they deserve recognition for it. However, the city has allowed paraprofessionals’ wages to remain unacceptably low for far too long. They have acknowledged that these low salaries make it challenging to recruit and retain paraprofessionals, but they have failed to do anything about it.

Education Chair Rita Joseph, Labor Committee Chair Carmen De La Rosa, Council Member Crystal Hudson and Council Member Julie Menin have championed legislation that would provide paraprofessionals with an additional $10,000 or more annually. It is time to give our paraprofessionals the respect they deserve, and we are not the only ones who think so. A total of 33 City Council Members have said they will be co-prime sponsors of the legislation. Additionally, a petition in favor of this legislation has already amassed over 73,000 signatures – and counting – from individuals who believe paras deserve to feel valued and appreciated.

Undoubtedly, the city will tell us that it cannot fund this legislation, but we cannot trust them to tell us the truth when it comes to bookkeeping. At the start of every fiscal year, the city claims it will be short billions of dollars, and we will face large budget deficits in the following years. But, every year, the city miraculously finds the money it needs in the couch cushions.

Since the November 2024 financial plan, the city found an additional nearly $8 billion dollars. This money came from several sources, including the steep decline in asylum-seeker spending, underspending on personnel and increased tax revenue. With the release of the fiscal year 2026 preliminary budget, the city also announced that its reserves were at an all-time high of $8.5 billion. Surely, the city has enough funding to provide our paraprofessionals with this respect check.

Class Size

As per state law, the city has a fiscal responsibility to ensure that schools are in full compliance with the class size law by 2028. To reach full compliance, the city must appropriately fund the hundreds of schools that applied for class size funding this year and actualize the School Construction Authority’s (SCA) capital plan so that it builds the new seats we need.

The law is non-negotiable. New York state has provided funding for the implementation of this law, and that funding cannot be redirected for other purposes. The city is legally and financially responsible for ensuring that 60% of the classes in New York City comply with the class size law this coming September.

Over the past few months, the DOE, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA) and the UFT have collectively reviewed over 800 applications for class size funding. These applications were completed by individual schools with the input of chapter leaders, principals and school leadership teams. Schools were able to request funds for class size reduction strategies such as hiring more teachers or buying furniture and supplies to open new classrooms. We were incredibly impressed by the creativity and consideration that went into each application. Now, we must ensure that schools get the additional funds they so thoughtfully applied for.

Additionally, the city will need new seats and schools to achieve 100% compliance with the law. Last year, SCA was given an additional $2 billion for new capacity, yet it has done little with this funding. This is unacceptable.

The fiscal year 2025–29 five-year capital plan from July 2024 approved the creation of 33,417 new seats — 6,701 of which were completed or were in process. As of February 2025, 10,596 of these approved seats have been completed or are in process. This means that in six months the SCA built only 3,895 seats — a generous estimate given the likelihood that not all these seats were completed. 

The SCA has also been slow to identify sites for new schools, forcing communities across the city to wait years for new seats in their growing neighborhoods. Our families and students deserve better. The SCA must be proactive about locating sites for new construction and must put its new capacity budget of $6.13 billion to work promptly.

Fund UFT Programs

For years UFT’s programs have ensured that education funding goes directly into the classroom and improves educational outcomes for students and working conditions for teachers. This year we submitted discretionary-funding applications for six programs that we ask the City Council to support.  We greatly appreciate the Council’s past support for these programs, and have seen a dramatic increase in demand for each of them in recent years. Because of that, we are requesting a proportionate adjustment in allocations to support these activities, since the amount of Council funding has remained at the same level for the past five years even as demand for and provision of the program services have increased.

UFT Teacher Center

The UFT Teacher Center empowers teachers and students through award-winning, embedded professional development tailored to each school’s unique needs. With 208 coaches embedded in sites across the city, we have established ourselves as a primary provider of high-quality, relevant and innovative professional learning aligned with state and city initiatives.

In school year 2024–25, we opened 28 new Teacher Center sites. The year before that, we delivered over 128,000 hours of transformative professional development and provided seminars to over 317,000 participants, educators, principals and parents. Additionally, 99% of participating educators reported that the Teacher Center’s professional learning sessions improved their practice.

In school year 2023–24, we also used City Council funding to provide high-quality support in three urgently needed areas:

1. Ensuring that educators are prepared to support students in literacy development using the science of reading and the new curricula used in the NYC Reads/Reading for All initiative.
2. Ensuring that educators are prepared to provide the social and emotional support their students need to address the trauma they have experienced in these unprecedented times, including students who are new arrivals to our city.
3. Ensuring that all students receive support equitably through providing professional learning that prepares educators to reach all students, including students with disabilities and multilingual learners.

For 2025–26, we are requesting a grant of $6.5 million from the City Council Speakers Initiative and $4.12 million from the City Council’s discretionary funds. We have always focused on what NYC educators, students and parents need most. With this funding from the City Council, we will be able to continue to focus on:

• Supporting students with the highest needs and engaging all learners
• Supporting schools in retaining and mentoring new teachers
• Supporting curricula rollout across the city
• Keeping schools at the forefront of technology
   

United Community Schools (UCS)

United Community Schools is a teacher-inspired and educator-led nonprofit with proven results. Within each school there is a community school director who leverages outside relationships to bring the necessary resources directly to students and families. Our community schools provide food for families and offer mental health, physical health, dental and vision services within school buildings.

In the 2023–24 school year there were:

• 35,716 families fed
• 25,769 mental health visits
• 33,823 health, dental and vision visits

As a result of these robust supports, we see test scores go up, attendance improve, and student engagement increase at our UCS schools. We also hear teachers say they feel more supported, secure and engaged in their work.

This year we are requesting that the Council provide UCS with $5 million to implement and sustain our 32 community schools. This funding will be used to provide professional development to educators and staff, deliver student and family support services, and coordinate health and mental health resources, which include community school directors and administrative salaries, mental health staff salaries, and supplies and equipment for UCS.

Positive Learning Collaborative (PLC) and Member Assistance Program (MAP)

The PLC program is one of our most effective tools for bringing equity to New York City public schools and helping teachers, students and parents cope with — and heal from — trauma. In the past several years, over 10,000 educators attended our various workshops, and PLC schools have experienced 53% improvement in school culture, a combined 46% reduction in principal and superintendent suspensions and a 40% reduction in total incidents.

Recently, the PLC has collaborated with the MAP program to further expand the UFT’s capacity to meet the needs of educators and school communities around social emotional support, mental health support and professional development opportunities. Our MAP careline has received over 20,000 calls since 2022, with a recent increase in calls relating to bias and hate crimes, as well as immigration crackdowns and fear of deportation of our students. Since 2019, MAP has also offered the Let’s Talk About It all-day program to thousands of middle school students from around the NYC area, with a focus on the Bronx in the 2023–24 school year and Queens in the 2024–25 school year.  Additionally, since 2018, MAP has also offered thousands of hours of professional learning opportunities and credits to educators and counselors. We are requesting $1.9 million for the 2025–26 school year, to sustain and expand all these citywide supports.

Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence (PROSE)

PROSE amplifies the voices of educators by enabling them to propose school-level innovations that bolster student excellence. These innovations may include how teachers are hired and evaluated and how students are programmed throughout the day. Many of the over 200 PROSE schools that currently exist have a strong emphasis on project-based learning. The program includes most of the consortium high schools in the city, which have a state waiver allowing them to replace state Regents exams with project-based assessments, as well as other schools that focus on this kind of curriculum and assessment. PROSE also includes most of the Internationals Network of high schools, which are focused on serving students who are new arrivals to our city. We propose to use $300,000 in City Council funds to support schools in continuing these efforts, to expand the program to more school communities around the city, and to facilitate the sharing of best practices between schools around these innovations in the 2025–26 school year.

BRAVE Hotline

Bullying continues to pose a significant challenge in our schools, deeply affecting students’ mental health, academic potential and overall well-being. That is why UFT’s BRAVE (Building Respect, Acceptance and Voice through Education) hotline has been an invaluable resource to students, their families and educators who can call, chat or text for help 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As our schools face evolving challenges, such as the rise of cyberbullying and the increasing diversity of student needs, it is imperative that BRAVE continues to adapt and expand its critical services. Strengthening this program through enhanced training for educators, broader outreach initiatives and the integration of innovative strategies will ensure that it remains a cornerstone of safety and well-being in our schools. We are requesting a grant of $300,000 from City Council for this fiscal year to help us increase access to this crucial program and to expand the range of services available to our students and families.

Dial-A-Teacher

Dial-A-Teacher operates Mondays through Thursdays from 4 to 7 p.m., offering help in nine languages, including Spanish, Mandarin and Bengali. Last year, the program received over 35,000 calls. Dial-A-Teacher is respectfully requesting $300,000 in City Council funding for fiscal year 2026 to allow us to expand access to these supports by increasing the number of teachers available to answer calls, continuing with technological upgrades and providing staff development that will enhance our ability to serve students in the modern educational arena.

Support Citywide Initiatives

I would also like to advocate for citywide programs that are vital for our students and educators. We need to continue to baseline Teacher’s Choice, and I also ask the Council to support arts in education and Commonpoint.

1. Teacher’s Choice – Thank you for your continued support of the Teacher’s Choice program. It is a key initiative to ensure teachers and other school staff are reimbursed for the school supplies and materials they purchase for their classrooms and for many of their students in need. We ask that you continue to provide $20 million in baseline funding for Teacher’s Choice in fiscal year 2026.
2. Arts in Education – The arts introduce our students to new ways of thinking and expressing themselves. That is why we ask that the City Council support Broadway Bridges, which ensures high school students see a Broadway show before they graduate and supports arts education in schools in the fiscal year 2026 budget.
3. Commonpoint – Commonpoint is a social services organization that supports the diverse needs of New Yorkers of all ages, abilities and backgrounds. The organization offers a variety of supports for youths and families, ranging from sports programs and summer camps to job training and college access assistance. We ask that you support Commonpoint’s programs in the fiscal year 2026 budget.

Thank you for holding today’s hearing and for working with us to protect public education in New York City. I look forward to our continued collaboration.