Spring is a perfect time to embrace the great outdoors, notice the newly budding leaves and blossoms, feel the fresh air and listen to the lilting sounds of birdsong from all the birds now migrating through.

The following email was sent to DOE-employed UFT members and pre-Medicare-eligible retirees on April 29, 2025, from Geof Sorkin, Executive Director of the UFT Welfare Fund.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew called on the city Department of Education to reimburse employees on time for tuition and mileage costs.

UFT members comment on everything from the value of paraprofessionals to teachers' need for cellphones.

Achieving tenure is an important milestone in a teacher’s career. In this Q&A, probationary teachers can learn more about the benefits of tenure, becoming eligible and how to prepare for your tenure decision.

A total of 67 UFT members have their work on display at the Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition, titled “The Art of the Educator,” is the result of a partnership between the museum and the New York City Art Teachers Association/UFT.

Whether you are preparing for tenure or applying for a transfer to a new school through the Open Market Transfer system, compiling a digital teaching portfolio can be a wise move.

Natalie Sidarous, a 4th-grade ELA teacher at PS 1 on Staten Island, uses this chart of hand signals as a strategy for encouraging all students to participate and be heard in class discussions.




As the school secretary at Pathways to Graduation program on Staten Island, Angela Gheller manages payroll, supplies and purchasing and she keeps track of hours, pay, leaves and absences for her fellow UFT members.

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.

UFT members expressed their growing concern with the Trump administration’s policies and the threat of cuts to education funding by rallying in the streets and wearing red in schools as part of an AFT national Day of Action.

The UFT has improved an important benefit for members who have experienced hearing loss. Effective March 1, members will be reimbursed up to $4,000 for hearing aids every three years. 



UFT Vice President Richard Mantell writes that being a middle school educator is a calling, and it’s high time we recognize our colleagues’ invaluable contributions.
To that end, the union is planning its the first-ever Middle School Awards Night.


Candidates for New York City mayor must fulfill a new prerequisite this year if they want to be considered for the UFT’s endorsement: They have to spend a day in a New York City public school classroom helping educators.

Big Apple Award winner and Bronx special education teacher Benjamin Jones encourages his fellow educators to use artificial intelligence software to quickly and simply alter or adjust curriculum to meet the needs of all learners, including students...

The UFT Delegate Assembly voted on March 19 to endorse UFT Treasurer Victoria Lee for reelection as a teacher-member of the New York City Teachers’ Retirement System board.


Were you a New York City or New York State employee or did you work as a substitute teacher or serve in the military before joining the Teachers’ Retirement System? If so, you may have the option to buy service credit.


Never in living memory has a new president unilaterally attacked public services, public education and worker rights like is happening now. But no one should underestimate the strength and grit that it takes to be a public school educator in New York...

More than 1,600 paraprofessionals and fellow UFT members came together from across the city on April 2 to call on the New York City Council to pass legislation to give paraprofessionals an annual “RESPECT check” of $10,000.

Small union contingents led by paraprofessionals met with New York City Council members throughout March to lobby them to support the RESPECT check legislation.

Weeks after Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed a law prohibiting public employee unions from collective bargaining, a new labor-backed group called Protect Utah Workers is collecting signatures to put a referendum on the ballot to repeal it.

The National Treasury Employees Union has filed a lawsuit that seeks to block President Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order revoking the collective bargaining rights of hundreds of thousands of unionized government employees.

The AFT and the NEA filed separate lawsuits aimed at stopping the Trump administration from dismantling the U.S. Department of Education on the grounds that his executive order to close the agency exceeded his authority.


Fixing Tier 6, providing adequate funding for public schools, banning cell phones in school and supporting union programs such as the UFT Teacher Center were the focus as about 1,000 educators and parents traveled to Albany for UFT Lobby Day on March...

Federation of Nurses/UFT members at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn on Feb. 26 overwhelmingly ratified a contract that provides a 15.8% raise compounded over two years and includes new commitments from the hospital to address the chronic shortage of...

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.


With spring’s arrival, we enter field trip season in schools. But planning a field trip in New York City is no easy feat.

The union has negotiated and advocated strongly for many years to maintain the integrity of lesson plans as a tool created by and for teachers. Here are the rights and responsibilities that teachers have vis-a-vis lesson plans.

All eligible in-service UFT members and their dependents have prescription drug coverage through the UFT Welfare Fund. The Welfare Fund has a three-tier copay structure for generic, preferred-brand and nonpreferred-brand medications. You can save...

The educational team who make up the World Cultures and Languages Academy small learning community at John Adams HS in Queens labor daily to support the often delicate and specialized needs of their predominantly immigrant and English language...

This April, close to 90% of the more than 750 schools that applied for money to lower class sizes found out that they would receive some or all the funding they sought. It was a milestone in our years-long fight to make smaller class sizes a reality...

The new administration has taken a hammer to the U.S. Department of Education, wreaking destruction that is sure to hurt the nation’s public schools and students.