Joint Intentions and Commitments

Enhanced student achievement based upon high standards and expectations must be the driving force behind every activity of New York City public schools.  To accomplish this, we must reinvent schools so that decision making is shared by those closest to students, including parents, teachers, administrators and other stakeholders.  Layers of bureaucratic impediments must be peeled away so that flexibility, creativity, entrepreneurship, trust and risk-taking become the new reality of our schools.  Before the millennium, the factory model schools of the 1900s must make way for the child-centered schools of the next century.

To this end, the Union and the Board mutually agree to join together with other partners in the redesign and improvement of our schools, including closing those that have failed and supporting their restructuring.  We must challenge ourselves each day to improve student learning, based upon academic rigor, newfound flexibility, meaningful assessments and true accountability.  Roles and responsibilities of parents, staff and other partners must be defined.  The standards to which we hold our students must never be lower than those we hold for our own children.  To accomplish this, we must focus on both the depth and breadth of each proposed instructional and operational change, each designed to support the children and their teachers whom we expect to meet these rigorous standards.

Change must be service-oriented, supportive and sufficiently flexible so that each school’s educational vision can become a reality.  It must be practical, possible, efficient and timely.  Respect for each other and for every student must be unconditional if we are to accomplish what we must.

To reach these goals, we commit to working together along with other stakeholders to develop by March 31, 1996 specific recommendations in areas requiring immediate attention.  These will include, but not be limited to:

• School Based Budgeting

• Early Intervention and Prevention of Inappropriate Referrals to Special Education

• Professional Development

• Parent Outreach and Support

• Workload Standards.

Following the collaborative development of recommendations, it is our mutual commitment that some or all of them will begin in September 1996.  This commitment is our pledge to the children of the City of New York , not just to a promise but to a reality of educational excellence.

AGREEMENT MADE AND ENTERED INTO by and between THE BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK (hereinafter referred to as the "Board'') and UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS, Local 2, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO (hereinafter referred to as the "Union'').

WHEREAS, the Board has voluntarily endorsed the practices and procedures of collective bargaining as a peaceful, fair and orderly way of conducting its relations with its employees insofar as such practices and procedures are appropriate to the special functions and obligations of the Board, are permitted by law and are consonant with the paramount interests of the school children, the school system and the public; and

WHEREAS, the Board on March 8, 1962, adopted a Statement of Policies and Practices with Respect to Representation of Pedagogical and Civil Service Employees for Purpose of Collective Bargaining with the Board of Education (hereinafter referred to as the "Statement of Policies''); and

WHEREAS, pursuant to the Statement of Policies and pursuant to the provisions of the Public Employees Fair Employment Act (Chapter 392 of the Laws of 1967 as amended by Chapter 24, 391 et seq. of the Laws of 1969), in a secret ballot election conducted among employees in the titles of Teacher Aide, Educational Assistant, Educational Associate and Auxiliary Trainer in programs to Strengthen Early Childhood Education in Poverty Areas, Pre-kindergarten Classes in Poverty Areas, and More Effective Schools, to determine which labor organization they wished to represent them in collective bargaining with the Board, the Union received a majority of votes and the Board issued a Certificate of Exclusive Bargaining Status to the Union on January 21, 1970; and

WHEREAS, after an appropriate showing of majority representation, the Board also certified the Union on April 6, 1971, as the representative of employees in these same titles in programs other than programs to Strengthen Early Childhood Education in Poverty Areas, Prekindergarten Classes in Poverty Areas, and More Effective Schools; and accordingly the Union became the exclusive bargaining representative of all employees in these titles; and

WHEREAS, pursuant to the provisions of the Public Employees Fair Employment Act, the Union became the exclusive bargaining representative of all employees in the titles of Teacher Aide, Educational Assistant, Educational Associate, Auxiliary Trainer and Bilingual Professional Assistant effective September 9, 1975; and

WHEREAS, the parties entered into an Agreement effective September 16, 2000 until May 31, 2003 ; and

WHEREAS, the parties entered into a Memorandum of Agreement on October 2005 effective as of June 1, 2003 ; and,

WHEREAS, the Board and its designated representatives have met with the representatives of the Union and fully considered and discussed with them, in behalf of the employees in the bargaining unit, changes in salary schedules, improvement in working conditions, and machinery for the presentation and adjustment of certain types of complaints; it is agreed as follows: