Mohammed Hossain, a UFT CTE Award winner and engineering teacher at the High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture in Queens, found his way to a career in education after realizing he found joy in helping people have their own...

Dual-language pre-K teacher Gema Campusano of the District 25 Pre-K Center in Queens has found that bilingual education not only supports students' language development but also builds their confidence and a strong sense of identity.


A high school where students do maintenance work on airplanes. A student-created clothing brand that sells out of a student-run, brick-and-mortar store. These were just a few of the innovative Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs represented...

About 1,000 UFT members and guests attended this year's CTE Awards Recognition Ceremony where the union celebrated the 40th anniversary of Success Via Apprenticeship, a program that trains the career and technical education teachers of tomorrow.

A pre-K teacher and the UFT chapter leader at PS 150 in Queens, Jeanine Bradley has found her voice as an advocate, both in the community and at her school, for people with Crohn’s and for her fellow educators. And she makes sure her students, no...

Will Dulin, a third-year teacher at Pathways to Graduation in Jamaica, Queens, takes pains to truly see his CTE students, helping them to forge pathways to educational success even when they can't quite envision them themselves.

Teacher Robyn Matty speaks to the challenges teachers and students face in the wake of a severe shortage in paraprofessionals.

Teachers' virtual travelogue allows students at the High School of Economics and Finance to travel and learn all around New York State during the pandemic without ever leaving the comfort of their lower Manhattan campus.

The teacher leader team at IS 145 in Jackson Heights, Queens, has stepped up to help keep pace with the changing needs of the students and the teachers at the school, which is located in one of the city’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods.

Jennifer Figueroa believes that anyone can be an artist. And the Bronx native, now in her third year of teaching art at PS 178 in Co-op City, knows that an expansive definition of "artist" helps kids take pride in all kinds of creativity.

Kappa League, a program that offers Black and Latino high school boys a chance to develop leadership skills while preparing for college, now has a small but growing presence in New York City public schools thanks to the efforts of two UFT members.

Dial-A-Teacher, the UFT’s homework help line that offers K–12 students free assistance from city Department of Education teachers in all school subjects in seven languages, is back for its 41st year.

The UFT traveled to IS 145 in Queens on Sept. 4 to celebrate the school's achievement in bringing all 6th-grade classrooms into compliance with the state class size law limits. This year, 6th-grade classes will have a limit of 23 students, down from...

Candy Jorge, a Spanish teacher at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School in Manhattan, came to the United States from her native Dominican Republic at the age of 17 with nothing. Now the 9th-grade team leader develops and implements...

A team of teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists and other related service providers create an environment where students with autism and general education students can learn in their 5th-grade Nest classroom at PS 682 in Brooklyn.


A Queens elementary school teacher writes of discovering their own voice along with their newcomer students' during the struggles and triumphs of their first year of teaching in this latest entry of New Teacher Diaries.

An elementary school teacher shares what a math lesson taught him about a new way to measure success in this latest installment of New Teacher Diaries.

After a year in which instruction was disrupted by the pandemic, that back-to-basics approach of phonics-based reading instruction may be especially important to help struggling readers take concrete steps toward progress.

As COVID-19 ravaged New York City and forced schools to shut down, Brian Nagy enjoyed a unique position. He was ready for remote.

When Cara Jacofsky began her teaching career 23 years ago, she was determined to become the best teacher she could be for her students, so she connected with the UFT Teacher Center. “The first few years of my teaching career, they would plan lessons...

CTE Award winning teacher Craig Cannizzaro has a knack for getting his students in his video design class at Ralph McKee CTE HS on Staten Island animated about coding and other key software engineering skills.

“There is no music like live music. It’s a transcendent experience,” says Thomas Wright, the new music teacher at Edward R. Murrow HS in Midwood, Brooklyn. 
Wright, who previously taught elsewhere in the country, took the job in September, attracted...

Heaping pallets of high-interest books greeted new teachers on Aug. 13 at the United Federation of Teachers’ Bronx borough office, where they were able to choose 50 volumes each from among the thousands offered to build their classroom libraries as...

Ninety-nine-year-old Thomas Naegele retired from teaching industrial art at the HS of Art & Design in Manhattan 32 years ago, but his legacy lives on in two generations of art teachers that he inspired in his wake.

Helping students rebound from the pandemic, both academically and emotionally, is a union priority as all students return in September for in-person learning.

Erica Boyce, a 4th-grade special education teacher at PS 677 in Brooklyn, turned to the UFT Peer Intervention Program (PIP) to help her adjust to her integrated co-teaching classroom. Since 1988, PIP has helped educators reexamine, refresh and...

New teacher Gabrielle Vega was drawn to her 8th-grade social studies teacher's flair for the dramatic, and her affinity for theatrics is serving her well as she teaches that subject at MS 936 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, a District 20 middle school...

Queens middle school teacher Laeticia Charles offers a sense of emotional connection and safety to the students she teaches in her second year at MS 137, elevating her students' academics in the process.

It started with a bag of used clothing that Bambi Falvo meant to donate. Now Falvo, who retired in 2019 after 32 years of teaching, is an online entrepreneur who specializes in reselling new and used clothing.

Each year, RoseAnn Victoria and LeeAnne Thristino, art teachers at IS 34 on Staten Island, team up to present an art show, which includes works from about 300 students who selected art as their minor.

Former paraprofessional Sherwin Persaud made the transition to teacher last school year, finding his niche working with autistic children and those with behavioral issues in the early grades at P233 in Forest Hills, Queens.

This Brooklyn teacher uses immersive, engaging lessons and storytelling techniques to bring the past to life for his middle school students.

The arrival of vaccines against the coronavirus is the news we have been waiting for — the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. But we can’t let that good news lead the city to abandon a careful approach to getting and keeping our schools open.

Paraprofessionals at P256 in Queens, a District 75 school for high-school-age boys, pooled their Teacher's Choice funds to refresh a key space used by their students to calm themselves and reflect on their emotions. They celebrated the grand opening...

UFT Assistant Secretary Michael Sill submitted testimony before the Rockefeller Institute of Government's public hearing on updating the state's Foundation Aid formula.

Eleven busloads of UFT members and school community members were among the tens of thousands of demonstrators who gathered at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, Aug. 26, to mark the 60th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom...