They help blind students learn to navigate the city. They empower autistic students to communicate their needs. They monitor the well-being of children with severe medical conditions. They are the calm voice redirecting students who are struggling and the ones who make sure the most vulnerable children understand the day’s lesson.
They are the 26,000 paraprofessionals who work in New York City’s public schools. Their work keeps the schools functioning, but their pay does not reflect their impact and value. They continue to leave the system, not because they don’t love the work, but because they cannot financially support their own families and children.
We can change that. Right now.
The answer is the legislation before the City Council that would provide a yearly $10,000 “RESPECT Check” to each of the school system’s paraprofessionals. This would be an annual payment on top of their negotiated salaries.
Through struggle, lawsuits, and labor negotiations, paraprofessionals now earn between $32,798 and $54,541 — not enough in a city as expensive as New York.
The United Federation of Teachers and the City Council crafted a legislative solution to address the underlying financial barrier that holds paraprofessionals back.
For decades, New York City has relied on a practice called pattern bargaining, meaning all city workers receive the same percentage increase in wages. In the last 20 years, the starting salary for the highest-paid school-based Department of Education administrator has gone up by $86,000. The starting salary for a paraprofessional has gone up by $12,000.
In a single year, for example, a 3% increase can mean a pay hike of $6,500 for a top school-based administrator. That same 3% hike is roughly $900 for a first-year paraprofessional, or less than $18 a week, essentially three days’ subway or bus fare.
Education is a field where women make up the majority of the workforce, and in the case of paraprofessionals, it is women of color. As the City Council found in its 2018 “Pay Equity Report,” women and particularly women of color too often are concentrated in lower-paid job titles that do not provide financial stability or make New York City more livable for working families.
The RESPECT Check is an opportunity to raise the financial floor and then build a new negotiating system that enables the city to meet the needs of its workforce. It is an annual payment outside of collective bargaining. The city’s reserves, chronically underreported by the current Adams administration, are at more than $8.5 billion and well able to cover this investment in the city’s workforce.
Without the RESPECT Check, paraprofessionals will continue to leave the system. The UFT found the system started last school year with at least 1,600 paraprofessional vacancies, and the DOE later confirmed this number climbed to nearly 3,000 — despite an aggressive program of hiring fairs and workshops. Without the RESPECT Check, this crisis will only get worse.
Our paraprofessionals are struggling to pay rent and basic living expenses. If they do not leave their positions, they are taking second and, in some cases, third jobs. They are cutting corners, turning down the heat, and going without. They are moving their families back in with their own parents and, in some cases, fighting eviction and homelessness. The RESPECT Check would help uplift tens of thousands of city workers and their families.
At the same time, every paraprofessional vacancy means New York City’s children are not getting the services they are legally entitled to.
We can do better. New Yorkers in a clear voice said we want a more affordable city where people can raise their children, and where they don’t have to work two and three jobs to get by.
One way to make that happen is for the City Council to pass the RESPECT Check legislation, Int 1261-2025.
Our paraprofessionals have more than earned this recognition. Now is the time. Let’s pass this bill.
De La Rosa represents Upper Manhattan in the City Council and is chair of the Civil Service & Labor Committee. Mulgrew is president of the 200,000-member United Federation of Teachers.
