We did it!

The City Council passed our RESPECT check legislation! Every day of action we held, our huge rally in 2025, each piece of testimony we submitted, all the letters we sent and everything else we did brought us to this victory. 

We thank City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Council Member Carmen De La Rosa – our prime bill sponsor – and all of the council members who recognized the hard work and dedication our paraprofessionals put into our schools by voting to pass this important bill. 

This historic piece of legislation makes it clear that the harm pattern bargaining has caused paraprofessionals is unacceptable. The RESPECT check is a way for us to start to close the paraprofessional pay gap immediately, while we work to create a permanent pensionable fix in our contract next year.

What the legislation says

Paraprofessionals will be paid $10,000 in four installments of $2,500: 

*Substitute paraprofessionals will be paid based on the number of days they worked in those time periods.

Next steps

The bill will now be placed on the mayor's desk, and he has 30 days to approve or veto it. Mayor Mamdani has expressed support for this critical legislation in the past and we are hopeful he will sign it into law. If the bill is vetoed, it can be passed back to City Council to overturn the veto.

Nothing comes without a fight, but we know how much our paraprofessionals deserve this, and we are prepared to face any political or legal challenges that come our way.

Once this bill is signed into law, our paraprofessionals will be able to collect these well-deserved payments. Each year, the City Council will review the situation and can reauthorize the payments if needed. In the meantime, we will keep working to get permanent payments for paraprofessionals in our next contract.

We should feel proud of our fight for this RESPECT check. But, this is just the beginning of the work we need to do to get our paraprofessionals the money they deserve and to fix the broken system of pattern bargaining in New York City. We have won something important, and together we will continue this work to get our paraprofessionals the respect they deserve.