Home-School Connections
Meeting Parents
Parents and guardians can be teachers’ most important allies in encouraging students to learn, and the union favors as much communication with them as possible.
Cordial and forthright conversations can create a true home-school partnership, and it’s best to foster that throughout the school year, when students are doing well, and not just when there’s a problem.
Here is some advice for arranging and conducting productive meetings:
- Find out what your school’s policies and procedures are.
- Begin with a positive statement about the child.
- Focus on joint goals for student achievement.
- Enlist the parent’s/guardian’s support for student success.
- End with a summary of next steps for yourself, parents and the student.
Open School Week
Parent involvement — at home and in school —; is a sure bet for raising student achievement. If you are looking to strengthen the home-school partnership, you’ll have a good opportunity twice each year during Open School Week.
Get ready by:
- Giving each student the UFT’s brochure “Welcome to Open School Week” to bring home to their parents.
- Reviewing each student’s progress and preparing some samples of student work.
- Developing a list of suggestions for how parents can support and supervise homework.
- Requesting Dial-A-Teacher stickers to give out or a flyer to display in your room. Call 1-212-598-9205 or fax your request on school letterhead to 1-212-510-6420.
During your conference:
- Spend at least a few minutes with each child’s parents/guardians.
- Inquire about any situations at home that may affect the child’s schoolwork.
- Review the rules and discipline code with parents of chronically disruptive children.
- Let parents know how to get homework for an absent child and how to get in touch with you, if necessary.
Dial-A-Teacher
Don’t forget to tell your students about the UFT’s telephone homework helpline, Dial-A-Teacher, at 1-212-777-3380. It’s open Monday through Thursday, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. during the school year.
Through this invaluable program, created and operated by the UFT, students and even parents can get help with math, reading, writing and science in languages including Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, Greek, Haitian-Creole, Hebrew, Italian, Korean, Russian and Spanish. Dial-A-Teacher is housed at the union’s headquarters.
The experienced teachers at Dial-A-Teacher have most of the books that your
students will be using, enabling them to teach students over the phone.
Political Action and COPE
At a time when those who don't like teacher unions and public education have great influence around the country, it is especially important that educators and those concerned about the future of public education make our voices heard.
Promoting our educational agenda and reinforcing a pro-public education, pro-labor political atmosphere while safeguarding the professional and economic interests of UFT members, children and working people takes money. That's why the UFT has COPE, its Committee on Political Education.
Federal law restricts how the UFT can use dues money to engage in the political process and that's why your voluntary COPE funds are so important. Only with member contributions to COPE can the union make its voice heard in shaping the laws, budgets and protections our members and our public schools need to succeed.
Most of the issues UFT members face arise from the political environment. That's why:
- We lobby state and city legislators for the resources you'll need to ensure your students receive a quality education.
- We forge alliances with community groups to mount public pressure, such as in our campaign for smaller class size and adequate funding for our schools.
- We support elected officials who stand with us on education, labor and human rights.
The simplest way to support your union's political action is through voluntary
contributions to COPE. See your chapter leader to sign up for COPE. Most
members contribute just $5 per pay check to support activities such as lobbying,
printing and mailing of literature, campaign support for endorsed candidates,
rallies, voter registration drives, online informational campaigns and phone
banks.
Your COPE dollars at work
Some victories:
• Secured pension reforms enabling educators to retire earlier without
any monetary penalties.
• Fought off attempts to grant tenure to teachers based upon the inappropriate
use of student scores on a single standardized math or English language arts
exam.
• Convinced the governor and the state legislature to provide a more
equitable portion of state funding for our city's schools through our involvement
in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) lawsuit. The result has led to new
school construction, the first steps toward real class-size reduction in
all grades; and other educational improvements.
• Won whistleblower protection that shields educators from retribution
for reporting conduct that could harm schoolchildren.
• Required the Board of Education to pay interest on late salary payments.
• Secured legislation that makes assaults on teachers a felony and that
allows teachers to remove disruptive students from their classrooms.
• Gained collective bargaining rights for 28,000 home daycare providers
who work with many of our pre-school children.
We'll also use our COPE dollars to (among other goals):
• Stop budget cuts to our schools.
• Revamp No Child Left Behind.
• Ensure the right of all workers to organize as a union.
• Protect Social Security and your pension benefits.
• Maintain and improve healthcare benefits.
Whether it's is yet another attack on teachers and their unions or a push
for private-school vouchers, a cut in the education budget or attempts to
make student test scores or a principal's whim the basis for how much you'll
be paid, your COPE dollars will be there to fight it off.
ASK YOUR CHAPTER LEADER FOR A COPE CARD AND DONATE TO YOUR FUTURE AND THAT
OF YOUR STUDENTS.
Examples of what COPE has done for YOU:
- As a new teacher, you automatically belong to a pension system.
- Thanks to UFT political action we've preserved age 55 retirement for teachers. Over the course of your career, this will save you tens of thousands of dollars.
Getting Information
The New York Teacher
Approximately, every two weeks, we’ll mail you the New York Teacher, the union’s award-winning newspaper. Until you are on our membership mailing list, ask your chapter leader for a copy.
The paper reports on developments — educational, political, economic and social — that affect New York City teachers (a state edition is enclosed in the centerfold). Our newspaper paints a vivid portrait of the work that UFT members do in our schools day in and day out. Regular features include:
- “The Newer Teacher” section (TNT), filled with the specific
information that new teachers need, including a checklist of reminders.
- Ads for UFT conferences, coaching sessions and other professional development programs sponsored by the Teacher Center. Look for special registration coupons.
- “UFT Calendar,” listing upcoming workshops and meetings.
- “Just for Fun,” providing discounted entertainment opportunities and trips to regional points of interest. Mail in the coupon for items that interest you.
- “Grants, Awards and Freebies,”; listing education-related grant opportunities. Many teachers, including those in their first years on the job, have funded class or school projects by writing grant proposals.
- Three times a year (fall, spring and summer) we’ll mail you a special educational supplement listing Teacher Center courses that you can take to meet certification requirements and increase your salary by earning differentials.
UFT Online
At www.uft.org you will find breaking news, UFT publications, your UFT contract,
Welfare Fund forms and more. Through our Web site, a click of the mouse
will connect you to:
- A section devoted entirely to new teachers. There you’ll find information about certification, licensing, classroom management, union programs that support new teachers and features drawn from our newspaper’s Newer Teacher (TNT) page. And to help you in the classroom, we’;re gathering links to Web sites useful for lesson-planning, motivating students and solving common classroom problems.
- In addition to the Newer Teacher section, other sections are devoted to news and issues — including statements by union officers and press releases on current issues — as well as sections for parents, member services, functional chapters and others.
- Information about citywide and boroughwide instructional networks, conferences, seminars and summer institutes sponsored by the Teacher Center, the UFT’s professional development arm.
- A searchable UFT contract where you can find salary schedules and specific contract provisions.
- A variety of union publications covering such subjects as workplace stress, financial matters, school safety issues, health services, pregnancy and childcare benefits and others.
- News, columns and features from the New York Teacher.
- The Welfare Fund area for forms or information, such as the names of participating dentists and optical services by ZIP code.
- Everything you should know about pensions and other financial matters.
- Even a link to the UFT blog.