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.


Steven Leaderman, a teacher at P370, a District 75 program in Coney Island, has created an innovative vocational program that has his students sort and deliver school supplies. The program helps the students develop key vocational and life skills...

At the Delegate Assembly on March 19, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said lawsuits filed by unions and a team of 20 attorneys general had fended off the worst cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security — but he warned that the fight was far from...

Thousands of UFT members wore blue to work in solidarity with their paraprofessional colleagues on April 2, which was national Paraprofessionals Appreciation Day and the union’s citywide Day of Action.

Ninth-graders at NEST+m, a gifted and talented K-12 school on Manhattan's Lower East Side, took their science lessons to new heights during a class trip to the Intrepid Museum.

Karina Budhu, an aspiring teacher and SVA apprentice, is a rare woman in tech and the winner of this year's Edwin Espaillat Award at the 2025 CTE Awards Recognition Ceremony.

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...

IS 383 Chapter Leader Syreeta Dixon refused to back down when her principal violated the DOE-UFT contract in multiple ways in her Bushwick school’s teacher schedule and then threatened to lay off staff when Dixon called her on it.


More than 200 religious and community leaders packed Shanker Hall for the union’s faith-based and community breakfast on March 20 to discuss how to rise to the challenges of the current political moment.

The union's third annual UFT Family Day served up a lot of "UFT love" in the form of carnival games, bounce houses, food galore and more to members and their families at a sports complex on Long Island.

School counselors focused on the work of helping children, even in challenging times, during the union's 21st annual School Counselors Conference on March 22. “Our students need us,” said School Counselors Chapter Leader Rosemarie Thompson.

Nearly 1,100 paraprofessionals and other members gathered at the New York Hilton Midtown on March 22 to celebrate the outstanding work of their colleagues, attend professional learning sessions and have fun at a carnival. City Council Education...