A Herculean effort by the UFT helped turn the largest-ever shortage of New York City public school paraprofessionals into a record number of new paras joining the ranks.

The year began with about 1,800 paraprofessional vacancies in the school system, and that figure swelled by another 900 following the vaccine mandate deadline. District 75, which serves students with the most serious disabilities, felt the shortage most acutely.

But after a team of 18 union staffers reached out to nearly 3,500 candidates by phone and email between late October and the end of November, more than 2,700 paras were added to the rolls and another 2,000 are finishing up the process to accept a position.

“Our staff did a remarkable job,” said Paraprofessionals Chapter Leader Shelvy Young-Abrams. “Paras serve a crucial role in our children’s education. Without the union’s work to get these people signed up, the children would have suffered.”

Principals nominate individuals to become paraprofessionals, and then the Department of Education sends applications to those individuals. But the DOE told the UFT that it had a list of more than 10,000 candidates who received applications but never completed the process.

“We finally convinced the DOE to let us have the list of people who want to be paras so we could help them through the hiring process,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at the Delegate Assembly on Nov. 17.

UFT Member Representative John Kamps led the effort to contact the candidates. His team received a list of nearly 1,200 people from the DOE on Friday, Oct. 22. “Our team spent all day Saturday and Sunday reaching out to them,” Kamps said. “We discovered the DOE had incorrect emails for 200 of them, so they never received their applications. We corrected that and got the applications sent again.”

As more names were provided, the UFT team continued to reach out to offer support. Kamps says the union will continue to help as long as the DOE provides new names of nominated candidates.

Michael Davis was one of those job candidates who received guidance from the union and shortly thereafter started working as a classroom paraprofessional at IS 5 in Elmhurst, Queens. He said Monica Christie of the union’s team helped him navigate the process.

“She made sure I did everything I needed to do, as far as training and working toward my certificate,” he said. “She also introduced me to the union rep at the school and filled me in on benefits and rights. She made me feel like part of the family.”

That sense of belonging is the ultimate objective, Kamps said.

“The person from our team who contacts them initially reaches out to track their progress,” he said. “We’re building relationships with them so they have someone to turn to if they encounter additional challenges.”

Nearly 3,000 new para hires attended a UFT informational webinar about their rights and benefits on Nov. 23.