New Educator To-Do List
Here are some items to take care of right away and others that will help you prioritize and stay on track.
Especially for first-year teachers
If you are new to the Department of Education, this fall you should receive a welcome enrollment email from the Teachers' Retirement System of the City of New York, which will provide you with a guaranteed retirement allowance upon meeting certain age and service requirements. You must complete the enrollment form and a designation of beneficiary form and return them to TRS. You must include proof of your date of birth when you file the forms, which can be completed on the TRS website. If you didn’t receive a welcome email, you may not have been automatically enrolled and will need to complete the enrollment process on the TRS website yourself.
The welcome email from the DOE included your license code and what it means. Your New York State certificate must match your DOE license appointment code. The New York State certification allows you to continue working in the New York City public school system. If you have any questions about keeping your certificate valid or want to know what you need to do to complete state certification requirements for your permanent or professional certificate, you can call the union at 212-331-6311 and ask for a certification specialist or review the UFT certification hub on our website. You can also check with your chapter leader about scheduling an appointment with a UFT education liaison to visit your school to speak to members about certification.
Observation & evaluation
You should have had your initial planning conference with your supervisor by the end of October. There are several important steps you’ll need to take before Thanksgiving to be prepared for the observation cycle. See materials and deadlines regarding teacher evaluation on the UFT website.
If your tenure status is not readily available, to confirm your status, check your initial planning conference printout. If you’ve been granted tenure, you’ll see that you’ve been assigned a minimum of two informal observations for the year instead of the three informal observations and one formal observation required for probationary teachers. If you receive tenure after the window for holding initial planning conferences closes (Oct. 31 for this school year), the minimum number of observations will not decrease until the following school year. See more information about tenure »
Rights & benefits
Are you covered by an NYC health benefits plan but also covered by the noncity health insurance plan of your parent, spouse or domestic partner? During the fall transfer period, you may enroll in the Health Benefits Buy-Out Waiver Program, which allows eligible city employees to receive an incentive payment for waiving their city health coverage. To enroll, log in to your DOE employee self-service account.
Make sure you have designated beneficiaries with the city DOE, your pension system and the UFT Welfare Fund. Your beneficiaries are entitled to benefits if you die. Review your beneficiaries on record with the DOE by logging in to your employee self-service account. You can add or remove beneficiaries or change the percentage you leave to each beneficiary by logging in to either the Teachers’ Retirement System, or the Board of Education Retirement System. You can make necessary changes to your beneficiaries on record with the UFT Welfare Fund by updating your information online. If you do nothing, your beneficiaries will remain the same as your last designation.
Staying connected with the union
Sign up for a UFT website account to receive emails about important information, including alerts about union campaigns and your rights and benefits. Sign up for UFT text messages and be the first to be notified about events such as remote school days when there is a severe storm.