Contract 2023: Functional chapters
Functional chapters are made up of UFT members who perform a particular job, rather than work together at a school or worksite. Functional chapters were formed to allow UFT members with common issues and concerns to have a voice on the job.
Paraprofessionals
Leaves of absences
Paraprofessionals may be granted a leave of absence without pay of up to two years to adjust personal affairs (such as the winding up of a family business following the death of the family member in charge).
Paraprofessionals on child care leave will now be permitted to work part-time for the DOE.
Professional development
The four days of pre-service professional development that paraprofessionals are supposed to receive must, to the extent possible, be hands-on and relevant.
The Paraprofessional Staff Development Committee will help develop PD programs, including assignment-specific training modules, that are relevant to the duties of a paraprofessional.
School Secretaries
The new contract obligates the DOE to provide school secretaries with the relevant and regular training they need and deserve throughout their careers.
Training
The DOE will now be required to provide uniform, systemwide training — either in person or remote — for school secretaries on Election Day and a day in the spring. The labor management committee responsible for planning this training must now be sure to include training on the programs and platforms that secretaries use in their daily work.
The DOE must provide newly hired school secretaries with pre-service training in payroll processing, pupil accounting and procurement. Those topics were not specified before in the contract.
Online Training
The DOE issued guidance stating that when a school secretary is granted approval to participate in online training, the secretary must be provided with appropriate time and space (outside the main office, if the secretary wishes) during the workday to participate in that training. See the guidance posted in Principals' Digest.
Remote work
School secretaries will have up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork.
School Counselors
School counselors will create their own schedules based on students’ instructional programs, subject to supervisory approval. Up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork. Schedules must include adequate time for school counselors to complete administrative tasks.
School Psychologists and Social Workers and Related Titles
The DOE agrees to consult with the union prior to replacing SESIS and implementing a new electronic case-management system to ensure that the perspective and needs of UFT-represented employees who spend a lot of their time in the system are taken into account.
School-based school psychologists and social workers will create their own schedules based on students’ instructional programs, subject to supervisory approval. Up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork. Schedules must include adequate time to complete administrative tasks.
Speech Teachers
Speech teachers covered by the pilot workday (155 minutes of extended time) will have 25 minutes Mondays through Thursdays for in-person SESIS work, plus 55 minutes of remote SESIS work.
Teachers of Library
Annual Guidance
The DOE, in consultation with the UFT, will provide annual guidance to schools regarding programming (including flexible scheduling) for teachers of library; open access (including student occupancy) of school libraries; and teaching assignments for teachers of library.
Consultation
The head of the DOE’s Office of Library Services and a UFT-designated committee will meet at least bimonthly to discuss issues regarding teachers of library.
Evaluation
Teachers of library can be evaluated during open-access periods, but the Danielson rubric cannot be used in that evaluation since it’s inappropriate to use an instructional rubric for a non-instructional period.
Teachers Assigned
Timekeeping
Teachers assigned must now be given the name and contact information for the employee responsible for maintaining their timekeeping at the beginning of the school year. They must also be notified as soon as practicable if that employee should change.
Geographic Compactness
The DOE will consider “geographic compactness” when assigning teachers assigned to multiple work sites. If a teacher assigned believes that the distance between work sites was not taken into consideration, they may ask their immediate supervisor for an explanation of how their assignment was determined.
Notice of Reorganization
The DOE must give the UFT 30 days’ notice of a central or system-wide reorganization plan that affects teachers assigned. The DOE will no longer be allowed to announce such a plan with barely any notice as it did in the fall of 2022 regarding its Division of Early Childhood Education.
Hearing Education Services terminology
The contract will now use the program’s new name: Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education Services (DHHES).
Vision Education Services terminology
The contract language will be updated to refer to “teachers of visually impaired children” and “teachers of the visually impaired.” The term “visually handicapped” will no longer be used.
The contract will also be updated to refer to “Educational Vision Services,” the department’s current name, rather than “Vision Education Services.”
Hearing Education Services (now DHHES) and Vision Education Services (now EVS)
The DOE will create one preference sheet that will be used citywide for teachers and related service providers in both programs. Currently, preference sheets can vary from site to site.
DHHES and EVS teachers will be notified of their program and borough assignment no later than 10 days before the end of the term.
Timesheets submitted by itinerant DHHES and EVS teachers can be electronically signed by school principals. Until now, these itinerant teachers had to run around to get their timesheets signed in person.
A new labor management committee will meet at least once a year to discuss the assignment process and distribution of preference sheets for DHHES and EVS teachers with the goal of creating consistent practices citywide.
Once per term, the DOE will send an email to the supervisor of each school to which an itinerant DHHES or EVS teacher has been assigned instructing them to: 1) add that teacher to the school’s email distribution list; and 2) provide that teacher with the curriculum of each student in their caseload.
DHHES and EVS teachers will create their own schedules based on students’ instructional programs, subject to supervisory approval. Up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork. Schedules must include adequate time for school counselors to complete administrative tasks.
Attendance Teachers
There will be a two-year reorganization phase that returns all centrally funded attendance teachers to school assignments in one community school or high school district based on a new assignment formula. There will be an emphasis on maximizing fieldwork and will allow days exclusively for fieldwork. In year one, all school assignments will remain the same. Attendance teachers will report to one superintendent or designee. The payroll principal will be the rating officer in year one, and the following year centrally funded attendance teachers will be fully staffed in the superintendent’s organization.
Education Analysts and Education Officers
Workload
A labor management committee will meet at least once a term to address issues of workload, staffing and compensatory time for education analysts and officers.
Reorganization
If the school system undergoes a reorganization in which DOE offices are being dissolved, relocated or moved that affects educational officers and education analysts, and there are multiple work-location options as a result of the reorganization, each affected employee can express their preference for up to three of the new work locations, and these preferences will be honored if advisable and feasible.
Administrative Education Analysts & Officers
Workload
A labor management committee will meet at least once a term to address issues of workload, staffing and compensatory time for administrative education analysts and officers.
Reorganization
If the school system undergoes a reorganization in which DOE offices are being dissolved, relocated or moved that affects administrative education analysts and officers, and there are multiple work-location options as a result of the reorganization, each affected employee can express their preference for up to three of the new work locations, and these preferences will be honored if advisable and feasible.
Terminal Leave
AEOs and AEAs will now be entitled to all the same leaves governing other non-pedagogical administrative employees employed by the DOE except terminal leave. The tentative agreement eliminates the provision that employees who resign or retire during the school year will have their sick leave for service during that school year paid out at the rate of one day for each two full months. Now, regardless of when they retire or resign, AEOs and AEAs will receive termination pay of one half of up to 200 days of unused sick leave.
Redeployment
In the event of a systemwide staffing or other emergency, AEOs and AEAs may be redeployed to provide administrative or other support in schools.
Occasional Per-Diem Teachers
Ratings
Per diem substitutes who work in multiple schools during the school year will be rated only by schools at which the substitute worked at least 30 days.
Q Status
The DOE has issued guidance to schools and field offices so that occasional per-diem substitutes can be expeditiously transferred to the Q-Bank when appropriate.
Per diem substitute teachers who serve in long-term positions may be eligible for a higher pay rate and benefits. If a school hires a substitute teacher to fill a vacancy (for example, if an assigned teacher resigns in late August) within the first 15 days of the year, or if the substitute teacher serves in a vacancy for two months or longer, the per diem sub should be re-coded as Q status. Once eligible for Q status, teachers will receive the regular full-time salary (up to step 4A), be eligible for health benefits and accrue sick leave.
Per diem substitutes are also eligible for Q status if they cover for a teacher on a leave of absence, work a minimum of two months and finish the school year in that role. For example, if a math teacher takes a leave of absence from March 1 to the end of the school year and a substitute fills in, the substitute will be eligible for Q status (and possibly Z status in the interim). If the substitute fills in for a teacher who returns before the end of the school year, the substitute is not eligible for Q status (but may still be eligible for Z status).
Adult Education
On the same day as the June Adult Education consultation meeting, the UFT and the DOE will meet to discuss the upcoming Adult Education school calendar and adjustments if necessary; and "owed hours” for adult education teachers (any additional work time required beyond a regular classroom teacher’s schedule).
Adult education staff will have up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork.
LYFE
A new, fairer process will be established for the assignment of per-session work before or after the contractual workday to monitor children in the LYFE program. This work, will be assigned on a rotating basis from a list of volunteers starting first with LYFE program employees. If there remains a need, the assignment will be offered to other qualified UFT members at the DOE site housing the LYFE program in order of school seniority and at the applicable per-session rate.
Lab Specialists
Lab specialists who obtain both a C-14 Certification of Fitness (Non-Production of Chemical Laboratories) and C-15 Certification of Fitness C-15 Certificate of Fitness (Flame Retardant Treatment) will receive $500 and be reimbursed for all associated application and testing fees.
Lab specialists will have up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork.
Teachers of the Homebound
Teachers of the homebound will have up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork.
Hospital Schools
Teachers in hospital schools who are exposed to communicable diseases and require testing will have access to testing during the contractual workday with no loss of pay or CAR time.
Hospital school teachers will have up to 55 minutes of remote work per week to complete administrative and paperwork.
Directors and Assistant Directors of Alcohol & Substance Abuse Programs
The DOE and the UFT will continue to advocate for more local, state and federal funding for the treatment of alcohol and substance abuse.
Sign Language Interpreters
The qualifications for a Level IV sign language interpreter have been amended to remove “National Interpreting Certification Certified from the Registry of Interpreters of the Deaf” as one of the list of qualifying certifications.
The qualifications for a Level V sign language interpreter have been amended to make that same “National Interpreter Certificate from the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf” one of the qualifying certifications. Before, an advanced version of that certificate was required.
Supervisors of School Security
The chapter leader will be given one day of paid release time per week for the investigation of grievances and other union work.
There is a new process for supervisors of school security to reach out to their commanding officer when there is an issue with locker access.
A new labor management committee is being established to discuss the creation of a mentor program for supervisors of school security.
Hearing Officers
The chapter leader will be given three hours per week of paid release time for the investigation of grievances and other union work.
Their new job title will be Judicial Hearing Officers in practice.
Management will send a communication to hearing officers outlining the policy and procedures for requesting lunch and other breaks during the workday.
Hearing officers will be paid for time spent in meetings or training required by management regardless of whether the meeting or training is on a scheduled workday.