Rose Ann Cimino, a veteran paraprofessional at PS 132 in Brooklyn, got a letter early this spring threatening her with termination for failing to meet certification requirements.

The next day, Cimino’s husband had a stroke.

“I felt overwhelmed, crazed,” she said.

She wasn’t alone: 4,000 paras received similar warning letters during spring break this year. All were in danger of losing their jobs if their certification issues weren’t resolved by Aug. 31.

But an epic effort by teams of UFT staff members and paraprofessionals throughout the summer paid off: All but 51 of the 4,000 threatened para members met the deadline and saved their jobs.

Nanette Rosario-Sanchez, the UFT director of certification and licensing services, said that administrators at the Department of Education decided on short notice to send the letters without giving the UFT enough time to reach out to paras first. As a result, the flood of letters created “a panic of volcanic proportions,” she said.

She and other UFT staff members quickly moved into high gear, working days, nights and weekends for months to prevent the layoffs.

They began with robocalls to all of the UFT’s 25,000 paraprofessional members, reassuring them that any who had been threatened with termination would be helped by the union in every way possible.

Within weeks, teams of UFT certification department staff members, paras and borough education liaisons set up scores of informational meetings in each borough and in 940 schools to help paraprofessionals understand what documentation or certification requirements they were missing and what they had to do.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said the team effort was extraordinary. “Their work is an example of our union’s commitment to protect and support each of our members,” he said.

When the letters from the DOE went out, Rosario-Sanchez guessed that most paras had already completed the coursework they needed to meet certification requirements, but had never filed their documents with the State Education Department. She found out she was right during the hundreds of hours she spent vetting each paraprofessional’s file against the state’s records.

Computer workshops for paraprofessionals helped expedite the reams of paperwork that needed to reach the State Education Department for processing by Aug. 31.

“The early weeks were so chaotic and scary,” recalled Paraprofessional Chapter Leader Shelvy Young-Abrams, “We all wondered if we could mobilize fast enough to meet the deadline.”

Compounding the panic was a new state mandate requiring that educators applying for state certification attend a six-hour workshop on the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) — an added requirement that more than half the paraprofessionals whose jobs were on the line now had to meet.

Suddenly, then-UFT Safety and Health Director David Kazansky was receiving more than a hundred registrations a day for the union’s DASA workshops. “I still wonder how we did it,” he said recently.

Drawing on “phenomenal teams of educational liaisons and safety and health department staff members,” Kazansky organized close to 30 workshops — including 10 during the summer — led by trained facilitators, with up to 300 participants in each workshop.

Local colleges also offered the anti-bullying workshops, but they charged $100 tuition, compared to the UFT’s $25 fee. At least 1,000 other UFT members in other titles who also needed the DASA training joined paras in the UFT sessions.

By Aug. 31, the battle was won and 3,949 jobs were saved.

“The union came through,” Young-Abrams said. “In times of crisis, the UFT can be counted on to do all it can for its members.”

Cimino said she’s grateful for all the help she received “to keep a job I love.”

“You took me under your wing,” she said of the paraprofessional team who had worked one-on-one with colleagues. “You were so determined I wasn’t going to lose my job.”