UFT members and their parent allies bombarded outgoing City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams with nearly 9,000 emails and posted repeatedly on her Instagram and Facebook accounts in November and December, urging her to let the “RESPECT check” bill come to a vote before the full City Council.

But Adams continued to block the measure as the council’s legislative session drew to a close, even though 47 of 51 council members supported it.

It was a temporary setback for the thousands of paraprofessionals who had mobilized throughout 2025 to make the annual $10,000 payment a reality. The UFT plans to redouble its efforts to get the bill across the finish line in the new year.

“We are furious that one person can stand in the way of the will of 26,000 paraprofessionals, the New Yorkers who support them and a supermajority of her own council members,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “But make no mistake: We will keep fighting until we win.”

At a UFT press conference on the City Hall steps before the Nov. 13 council hearing on the bill, Paraprofessionals Chapter Chair Priscilla Castro said paraprofessionals are the backbone of classrooms but struggle to survive on their current wages.

“It is not OK for our paraprofessionals to be living on $32,000,” Castro said. “Who can live on that?”

The union’s campaign for the “RESPECT check” began in January 2025, when Mulgrew joined a half-dozen council members outside City Hall to unveil the bill and make the case that New York City’s pattern bargaining system — in which all titles receive the same percentage increase — had widened pay gaps between the Department of Education’s lowest- and highest-paid workers over the decades.

Adams had originally scheduled the hearing for the latest possible date in December, but moved it up to Nov. 13 after paraprofessionals mobilized in June to push for an earlier date.

At the November press conference, several council members voiced strong support for the bill. Later, at the hearing, they pressed city officials with pointed questions. Eight paraprofessionals and UFT representatives, including Mulgrew, testified, while 57 other UFT members and parents submitted written testimony.

Mulgrew told council members that City Hall and the Department of Education had offered paraprofessionals a larger raise through collective bargaining, but only if other UFT members gave up part of their own increases to fund it.

Mulgrew rejected that idea. “It’s your responsibility as a city to have a wage that will attract the workers that you need,” he said.

Paraprofessional Undrea Polite, the chapter leader at the Coy L. Cox School in Brooklyn, said the “RESPECT check” would be a lifeline.

“We’re the people who get up at 4 a.m., pack our breakfast, meet your kid at the bus stop, take them to school, work a full day, take them home, and then go and do another job,” she said.