In presenting the Cogen Award to UFT Treasurer Debra Penny, UFT President Michael Mulgrew spoke of her compassion. “It’s the humanity she brings to her job at all times,” he said. “She’s just a person who never stops caring.”

The expectations that society puts on teachers are as old as time, but this year, it’s gone to a whole new level. I knew going into this year we would have our work cut out for us.

Most of us have stressful jobs with long hours and a range of challenges, and we may experience burnout as a result. Here are some signs of burnout and ways to address it.

Si Beagle trips make a seamless transition from in-person walking tours to virtual excursions for Retired Teachers Chapter members.



The Labor Solidarity Project connects RTC members with opportunities to support the labor movement as a whole. Members boost unionized workers' spirits, showing up on the picket lines in support of unionized workers as varied as those for theater...

April is National Stress Prevention Month. Learn ways to manage stress that can benefit you all year round. You may not be able to fully eradicate stress from your life, but you can lessen it.

Middle school teacher Rachele Domond and paraprofessional Daquan Harris of the Catherine and Count Basie Magnet School for Multimedia and Performing Arts, in Jamaica, Queens, took on the roles of choreographers and proudly watched their middle school...

In a sign that the pandemic has drawn fully to a close, the city Department of Education’s special COVID-19 leave policy ends this school year. Absenses related to COVID-19 will be charged to members' sick bank.

The UFT in December launched its “6” Days campaign to “Fix Tier 6 in ’26.” Members across the city are making the issue visible, making it human and making it loud, with educators set to head to Albany on March 8 to rally and lobby state lawmakers to...

We want to create classrooms that acknowledge the diverse talents, gifts, and learning styles of each and every student. The entire point is to ensure that the materials used better reflect the myriad of identities contained in each school and...

The UFT calls for more flexibility in the nomination of substitute teachers and paraprofessionals, and for the DOE to consider a Hard-to-Staff differential for substitutes serving schools that have had difficulty filling positions.

I am in my 20th year with the DOE. Increasingly, we have assigned curricula for each subject. I am fine with teaching curricula chosen by my district, but it has to be sound and doable. One serious problem with many of these curricula is the...

UFT President Michael Mulgrew emphasized in his Delegate Assembly report on May 22 that, besides 2024 being a presidential election year, New York State Congressional races might be just as important.


The days are longer and there’s joy to be found in slowing down and taking in the season’s bounty. There’s plenty to do, whatever your pleasure.

Learn how to tap into daily moments of joy that can have a profound impact on our mood and happiness.

More than two dozen women educators were nominated by their peers and recognized for their inspiring efforts to serve their school communities at the union's fifth annual HERstory celebration.

A new high school teacher shares her inner thoughts about the day teaching Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" sparked fear in her heart -- until she switched things up and helped her ELA students make modern connections to the old text.

Educators know that speech is integral to fluency so it's no wonder many classroom assignments and projects revolve around public speaking. Here are some tech tools to help practice and perfect speeches.


At its June 12 meeting, the Delegate Assembly passed four resolutions, including one on the overassessment of elementary school students.

This school year, as outside consultants took over most of the training, teachers grew increasingly frustrated with their lack of voice and the lack of support. So we headed to the bargaining table to demand changes. The revised curriculum policy...

Thirty-five members donated at the March 13 blood drive sponsored by the UFT Paraparofessionals Chapter and the union's Staten Island Borough Office.

The Broadway League on Feb. 2 kicked off the 2023 season of its Broadway Bridges program to offer $10 Broadway tickets to thousands of high school sophomores and their teachers. To mark the occasion, the league invited 500 educators to Teachers’...

Any significant changes to members’ healthcare will be submitted to the Delegate Assembly for approval, and the UFT will never agree to forcing any retired member into a Medicare Advantage Plan.

With the new ban on internet-enabled personal electronic devices in New York public schools, we are not taking anything away from our students — instead, we are giving something back. We are giving them back their ability to focus, and we are giving...

The DOE and the UFT shall reassess existing safety plans to enhance preparedness for climate-induced incidents. The city should err on the side of safety and proactively utilize remote instruction when impending emergencies are detected.

"Good job!" Ilyana Frias told a 5-year-old kindergartener from PS 92 in Harlem as he worked at a craft table during the UFT’s Thanksgiving Luncheon for children in need on Nov. 19 at union headquarters in Manhattan.

Online simulations make it easier for students to explore settings that would be difficult to reproduce in real life. They are interactive and allow students to be in control of their learning.

The latest online mapping tools can do much more than get us from point A to B. With features such as data collection and media integration, online maps can be used in the classroom to take student activities in completely new directions. 


Retiree Lorraine Castro has traded in lesson plans for shopping lists since joining forces with her daughter, an in-service teacher at DeWitt Clinton HS in the Bronx, to launch Flavor Bandits, a food truck business that serves up empanadas and other...

Burnout can steal the joy from your life and make you feel like an empty shell of your former self. If you are feeling inexplicably exhausted, uninspired and questioning the value of the work you do, you may be suffering from burnout.

Since February 2022, the New York State Education Department has changed the requirements for a number of different state certifications. Read the following Q&A for the details.

A Manhattan teacher who has been injured on the job expresses appreciation for a recent Q&A on the Issues in the New York Teacher informing members what to do if they suffer a line of dury injury (LODI).

Delivery drivers, hotel staff, fast food workers, teachers and thousands of other workers went on strike this summer, as did the people who play them on TV.

Roughly 60 public high schools across the country are piloting a new Advanced Placement course called African American Studies, the first new College Board offering since 2014.

Mauri Small is a school social worker at the Williamsburg HS for Architecture and Design in Brooklyn, where she handles all the mandated counseling for students with IEPs as well as crisis intervention and mediation.

The Department of Education has recently encouraged special education and integrated co-teaching teachers to prioritize targeted small-group instruction, including station teaching. That shift has meant that I’ve had to learn new classroom management...