New York City public schools went on a hiring spree this summer to reduce class sizes at the approximately 750 schools whose funding applications were approved last spring.
Department of Education officials said the additional state funds earmarked for class size reduction would pay for a total of 3,700 new teachers to reduce class sizes in the 2025–26 school year. The funds will recur from year to year, barring a citywide financial crisis.
As of Aug. 25, the DOE had hired about 3,000 teachers for the 3,700 open positions — about 81% of the need.
UFT Assistant Secretary Michael Sill, who is leading the initiative for the union, said the DOE has made significant progress in hiring teachers for class size positions, but noted that the hiring is taking place amid citywide shortages, including for teachers, paraprofessionals, physical therapists and other titles.
“The DOE and the city need to meet these challenges on behalf of New York City students and families,” Sill said. “The work is challenging, but the students of New York City deserve smaller class sizes just like their counterparts across the state.”
The 2025–26 school year is the third year of a five-year phase-in of a New York State law that set the following class size limits: a maximum of 20 students in kindergarten through 3rd grade, 23 in grades 4–8, and 25 in high school. The DOE was required to have 20% of classrooms within the limits in the first year, 40% in year two and 60% in year three. Last school year, 46% of classrooms citywide were in compliance with the law. All classrooms must be at or below the maximum class sizes by September 2028.
The UFT and parents have kept the pressure on city and DOE officials year after year to implement the landmark class size law.
The next challenge is increasing capacity within schools without available space, union officials say. Almost 500 city public schools — about a third of them in Queens — did not have enough space to comply with the law at their current enrollment, according to December 2024 data from the DOE.
For the city to be able to fully comply with the law, the School Construction Authority must create new classroom capacity. Under the state law, schools can apply for exemptions pending the completion of construction projects, but such exemptions are temporary and must be approved by the DOE, the UFT and the principals’ union, Sill said.
“We are concerned about the pace at which the School Construction Authority is identifying sites for construction,” Sill said. “We agreed to give temporary exemptions to schools that are going to be affected by sited construction projects, but the truth is there are far fewer of those happening at the moment than we need.”