Every day, we guidance counselors work hard to help New York City's schoolchildren excel academically, grow personally and adjust socially. The UFT's proposed new contract with the Department of Education recognizes and rewards our vital work and dedication and gives us tools to help us in our jobs.

If you are on payroll at the time of ratification, you will receive a $1,000 signing bonus upon contract ratification. You will also get the following rate increases:

• 1 percent retroactive to May 1, 2013 and an additional 1 percent retroactive to May 1, 2014, which will appear in your paychecks.
• Raises over the next four years of 1 percent in May 2015, an additional 1.5 percent in May 2016, an additional 2.5 percent in May 2017 and an additional 3 percent in May 2018.
• Two 4 percent rate increases from 2009 and 2010 that will be calculated into your paycheck as follows: 2 percent in May 2015, an additional 2 percent in May 2016, an additional 2 percent in May 2017 and an additional 2 percent in May 2018.

See the salary schedule for guidance counselors in the proposed contract »

All in-service guidance counselors and other members will by 2020 receive 100 percent of the money we are entitled to, back to Nov. 1, 2009.

Even if you started as a guidance counselor after 2010, you will still receive lump sum payments between 2015 and 2020 if you remain in active service, since the two 4 percent rate increases are being phased in starting next year.

And if you retired or are retiring anytime before June 30, 2014, you will receive all of your retroactive in one lump sum. If you retire after that date, you will receive your retro on scheduled payout dates.

This agreement preserves your health benefits. You will have the same insurance and the same co-pays. You will pay no premiums.

Under the agreement, you will also be able to use three personal days, instead of two, to care for a family member. These come out of your 10 self-treated days each year.

This proposed contract does not change your 6½-hour workday. We no longer have to attend faculty meetings. We will instead attend a portion of two new parent-teacher conferences in September and May. The repurposing of time for teachers during the workday does not otherwise affect us.

Many of you will also be happy to know that the proposed contract will help to reduce burdensome and unnecessary paperwork. It has secured for educators a voice and created new rules around written and electronic forms of paperwork. A joint UFT-DOE central paperwork committee and joint committees for each district or high school superintendency will be established to create systemwide standards to reduce and eliminate unnecessary paperwork. In addition, the UFT won the right to file grievances for violations of the systemwide standards.

The contract will also establish our own citywide Guidance Counselors Staff Development Committee. Your chapter leader will be on this committee and will select half the members of the committee, with the DOE selecting the other half. This committee allows us as guidance counselors to review and develop training that meets our needs.

If you have any more questions, please be sure to visit our special Contract 2014 section on the UFT website, where you'll find the Memorandum of Agreement, easy-to-read summaries of the most important new provisions, an FAQ and other information.