“We believe the future is working in teams,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told District 16 Superintendent Rahesha Amon and teacher leaders on May 10 at MS 35 in Brooklyn. “There is nothing worse than working in isolation,” Mulgrew said during an examination of the thriving leadership program in 22 schools in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district. The union’s goal “is that we want this program in more schools.”

The Teacher Leadership Program, launched in 2014 as part of the new DOE-UFT contract, now has teacher leaders in 402 schools, about 22 percent of the city’s more than 1,800 schools. Mulgrew told the teacher leaders from Brighter Choice Community School, Brooklyn Brownstone School and MS 35 in District 16 that “we’ve had enough help from outside consultants. It’s up to us to take responsibility” for leadership practice and implementation.

Alex Brunner is a teacher, teacher leader and chapter leader at the Brownstone School as well as a Teacher Career Pathways recruiter. The program, he said, looks for exemplary teachers who are “willing to learn and improve, and have the energy and the willingness to do whatever it takes to improve student achievement.”

It “uses chapter leaders as resources to get information out and show that the program has union support,” said Brunner. “When the union is involved, teachers believe in it.”

The program helps reduce attrition, retaining top-notch teachers who love the spirit of collaboration and welcome more responsibility but do not want to become administrators, said Donalda Chumney, the DOE’s director of implementation for Teacher Career Pathways.

The three leadership roles of Model Teacher, Peer Collaborative Teacher and Master Teacher bolster professional learning through peer instructional support and coaching, as teachers visit each other’s classrooms and share best practices. The roles are not evaluative.

Teacher leaders from Brighter Choice detailed how one pre-K teacher, unable to find a resource she needed, wrote her own book about the letters of the alphabet with their encouragement. And Model Teachers from MS 35 demonstrated their peer support roles through a conversation in which they assessed an actual teacher inter-visitation. Administrators can say something repeatedly but when it comes from colleagues it means more, said Brooklyn Brownstone Principal Nakia Haskins.

The process is based on trust and relationship building, says LaKethia White, a teacher leadership coach on the Teacher Career Pathways team. At Brooklyn Brownstone, “we set the tone that we’re all in this together,” Brunner said.

“Classroom doors are always open,” Principal Haskins added. “If I see a promising practice in any classroom, I will give a shoutout.’’

Mulgrew said the teacher leaders of District 16 show the potential of the new roles. “Any real change starts in a certain place,’’ he said.