lection season is here, and NYSUT is once again putting the power of our membership behind the ballot box. This fall’s midterms will decide control of Congress and shape the direction of state and local government for years to come, and NYSUT voters will have the tools to be informed.

Watch your mailbox in October for NYSUT’s 2026 Voter Guide. Inside, you’ll find our full slate of endorsed and recommended candidates for federal, statewide and state Senate and Assembly races, along with practical voting information to help you make a plan before Election Day.

ontract ratifications get the headlines, but the work begins long before negotiating teams put pen to paper and members vote. For United University Professions President Fred Kowal, that work began over a year ago.

“Realizing what was happening in Washington and the effects of the Big Ugly Bill and the effects on the state budget, we knew we needed to get negotiating,” Kowal said. The state landscape was also an important one: UUP’s contract was set to expire in June 2026 with the Legislature out of town, the governor in the middle of a gubernatorial campaign, and tighter budgets.

So the UUP team got to work through the summer of 2025 into the fall, narrowing down their demands and putting together a tight set of proposals before a meeting with the governor in September. After some delays, the team got to the negotiating table in February. They had a tentative agreement by June 2.

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Mother-to-be Maddie Sollecito, Babylon TA, and her husband share sonograms of their daughter. Sollecito said she’s grateful she won’t have to sacrifice financially to spend more time at home with their newborn, thanks to improved paid parental leave in her contract.

abylon Teachers Association member Maddie Sollecito is expecting her first child this November, a baby girl. Along with the excitement of welcoming her daughter, she said she’s grateful she will have at least three additional weeks at home to bond with her newborn, thanks to an enhanced paid parental leave benefit secured by her union.

“I’m feeling all the nerves as a first-time parent, so this is a huge relief,” Sollecito explained.

The high school math teacher said she’s working toward buying a house with her husband and was stressed about potentially needing to take unpaid time to stay home with their baby.

“We’re just trying to take the next step for our family and so the fact that we now get those extra paid weeks at home definitely gives me peace of mind to know that we won’t be set back financially. It just takes one less thing off our plate in terms of worry,” she said.

At the end of the 2025–26 school year, the Babylon TA ratified a new four-year contract that provides an additional 15 school days of
employer paid maternity/paternity and adoption leave. BTA members can then take an additional six calendar weeks from their own personal sick bank.

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Shaun Keturi, day-to-day operations manager for Ithaca City School District’s transportation department and a member of the Ithaca City School District’s Employees Association, with two of the district’s electric buses. Currently, inadequate power infrastructure in Ithaca has created excessively long charging times for the buses.

his year’s state budget included welcome news for many districts struggling to conform to the 2022 statewide electric bus mandate: districts will get five more years to figure out the best route forward.

“This is a common-sense adjustment to the timeline, not an abandonment of the goal,” said NYSUT President Melinda Person. “Everyone wants cleaner school transportation and a successful transition to electric buses — but districts need more time and flexibility to do it right.”
In 2022, New York announced all new buses purchased or leased after July 1, 2027, must be zero emission and that every school district in the state must convert their bus fleet to electric no later than July 1, 2035. This year, thanks to NYSUT advocacy, the deadline to purchase zero-emission buses was moved to 2032; the deadline to convert New York bus fleets to electric was moved to 2040.

“The decision to extend the deadline for districts to transition to electric bus fleets is a wise one,” said NYSUT Second Vice President Ron Gross. “We know our members want to help create a more sustainable future for New York, but they need appropriate time and the resources to make this policy a reality.”

The postponement comes as a relief for many members who still have lots of concerns about how to implement the mandate.

“It was a smart decision,” said Rebekah McMillan, vice president of the Queensbury School Transportation Employees Association, adding, “The grid can’t sustain all these school districts in New York state going full electric.”

“We’re just not there yet,” said Shaun Keturi, day-to-day operations manager for Ithaca City School District’s transportation department and a member of the Ithaca City School District EA.

his summer, local unions returned to the annual LAP conference in Lake George brimming with news about the wins they have scored so far, thanks to the lessons they learned right here.

NYSUT Second Vice President Ron Gross welcomed attendees and encouraged them to make the most of the program. “We do such amazing work in this setting, and it really is going to be transformational for your locals.”

“This was just defining for us,” said Jennifer Austin, president of the Fillmore Faculty Association, a third-year local. Austin came on as president three years ago and said LAP helped her build a driven group of leaders, united around a common mission. The local also used what they’d learned at LAP to run a successful election to flip their school board and coordinate additional community resources to support students and their families. “LAP was really a jumpstart for us,” said Austin.

elegates to the 2026 NYSUT Representative Assembly voted for candidates for NYSUT officers, At-Large director positions, Election District director positions and AFT State Federation delegates and alternates.

Below are the total votes cast for each candidate. The winner in contested races is indicated by +.

The American Arbitration Association assisted with tabulating the ballots and certified the election results.

Complete election results including roll call votes cast are available at nysut.org/Election2026 (login required). Procedures for Notice of Nomination and Election and Campaign & Elections Procedures were published in the January/February 2026 issue of NYSUT United.

ocial justice work — having tough conversations, standing in the gap and supporting our communities wherever the need may be — is exhausting work.

“This is not an assignment that we take lightly,” said NYSUT Secretary-Treasurer J. Philippe Abraham, whose office coordinates the union’s social justice agenda. “Those of us who believe in the power of collective action understand this is not easy work, but it is necessary. We are fortunate at NYSUT to have thousands of members who are committed to uplifting our union, our community and each other.”

The yearlong Social Justice Academy brings together locals and members over two sessions to engage in conversation, community building, and reflection that shifts power and promotes social and racial justice within our schools, locals and communities.

This is work that does not exist in a vacuum.

Many students need assistance moving from elementary to middle school. I assist these students in science and social studies classes throughout my day. I am also able to help with Spanish classes, if needed. It is not uncommon for me to step in as a teacher when my district has a shortage of substitutes.

I love my job because of the students and my coworkers. I enjoy the look on a student’s face when they worked hard on an assignment and have been successful.

I was not hugely involved with my local until I finally decided to accept my invite to an SRP Leadership Conference. The conference showed me just how important my involvement is to our union. After that, I joined one of the committees and started attending union meetings. Since 2024, I have served as treasurer of my local.

I feel like I make a difference to the students because they know I am always there to help with their needs. As far as the union, I learned my voice, my participation and my being present makes a huge difference.

I have many hobbies but my ultimate favorite is camping. I love how relaxed it makes me feel. To unwind and refocus on my work, union and personal life is necessary. I enjoy doing crafts and working in my flower garden also. My family, time with them is more than a hobby; it is the best time spent.

“Each year this conference gives us an opportunity to reach out to our SRP leaders and offer them valuable professional development and training,” said NYSUT Second Vice President Ron Gross, whose office coordinates initiatives for SRPs. “I encourage all of our SRP locals to send a team to take full advantage of the conference, share learning across workshop tracks, and return back to your districts with ideas that can strengthen leadership, engagement and solidarity throughout your local.”

For more info, including conference registration and workshop titles, visit nysut.org/srpconference.

The third Tuesday in November is annually celebrated as New York State SRP Recognition Day, an opportunity to build union solidarity, build coalitions, honor the union’s more than 100,000 SRP members and reap the benefits of a stronger union.

Visit nysut.org/SRPDay for celebration ideas and to order your free celebration kit, including placards and SRP pins. Materials are free; president log in is required to access the ordering page. Orders are due by Nov. 6.

Tell us about your 2026 SRP celebration and enter to win funding for your 2027 SRP Recognition Day Celebration. Share your photos, videos and stories on social media and tag @NYSUT on all platforms or email us your pictures and local name to social@nysut.org.

fter six years as an elementary teacher, Kenneth Aubin had a calling to teach middle schoolers.

“I have always felt that I worked better with the older end of the spectrum of students,” said Aubin, a member of the Green Island Teachers Association. “I like the depth of conversations that you can have with middle schoolers and listening to how they process things.”

“It was nice having the percent discount because of my NYSUT membership,” said Aubin. “It made it much more affordable.”

For decades, NYSUT ELT has been partnering with higher education institutions to deliver high-quality graduate education programs to members, on their terms, at prices they can afford. Educators who are looking to make the move from initial to professional certification can choose from an array of master’s degree programs at Mercy University or Empire State University — all offered conveniently online.

Educators can also complete additional certifications to advance their careers, including in-demand titles like School Counselor, Career and Technical Education, Literacy, and TESOL. All ELT courses have been reviewed and approved by the New York State Education Department, plus many are offered on accelerated schedules.

ne day you’re a mechanic. The next day, you’re a chef. The day after that, you’re a welder.

It may sound unbelievable, but that’s the exact experience rising eighth-, ninth-, and 10th-graders had at the weeklong Questar III BOCES CTE Summer Camp. Students got to try out five different in-demand careers to see how they fit.

On the day NYSUT United visited, students were trying their hand at making homemade pizza in the culinary program. In the construction unit, students learned to use chop saws and drills to build birdhouses.

“That’s what CTE is about; hands-on,” said Chef Mary Nescot, a culinary arts instructor and member of the Rensselaer-Columbia-Greene BOCES Teachers Association.

At the end of each day, students had a product they could take home, whether it be a chocolate dot cake or a birdhouse — and that’s powerful. “They’re leaving with something they made with their bare hands and that goes a long way,” said Rensselaer-Columbia-Greene BOCES TA member Mike McGillycuddy, a construction technology instructor. Usually, students don’t have access to Career and Technical Education classes until their junior or senior year of high school, but educators hope that giving kids a quick taste of these popular trades might whet their appetites for more.

Read more about the summer program at nysut.org/cte.

More than 700,000 of us One of you

We’re teachers, teaching assistants, aides and counselors. Bus drivers and custodians. Food service workers and school secretaries. Professors and college staff. Nurses and healthcare workers. And the retirees who built all of this before us. Some of us work in one-room rural schools, some on campuses of thousands, in hospitals, libraries and beaches — nearly 1,400 local unions, different jobs, one membership.

Whatever your job title, there’s a local union for it, a contract behind it and 700,000 colleagues backing it.

“Being in my union as a teacher is everything”

Coolican worked in several other districts before she joined the Frontier Central Teachers Association in 2021 and put down roots. “My union at Frontier has a very large mentor program that stood out from the other districts I worked at,” said Coolican, a middle school ELA teacher.

Many districts have programs in place for first-years, but the Frontier Central TA program provides sustained support for teachers until they get tenure.

Coolican met with her mentor, union president Amber Chandler, every week. She also attended the events the union hosted for new and untenured teachers, or NUTs, as they’re colloquially known.

The union fights for you. Your pay, benefits and rights on the job aren’t handed down. They’re negotiated by members like you, backed by your union and defended every day after.

oquet Valley Central School District students know where their cafeteria food comes from because they had a hand in growing it.

Last year, Boquet’s third-, fourth- and fifth-graders helped plant a school garden so they could harvest fresh herbs and vegetables for the school’s pesto pasta, coleslaw, and pumpkin crunch. This year, the students and their families helped establish a chicken flock to get a steady supply of fresh eggs for baking and breakfast.

The garden and chickens are part of Boquet’s ongoing commitment to local foods; the district sources 31 percent of its ingredients from local farms.

“We always source a farm first,” said cook Sasha Pulsifer, a member of the Boquet Valley Support Staff Association, who heads up the garden project. “For one, it tastes better. It’s fresher. It’s usually more nutrient-dense because it was picked a few days ago, not shipped across the country.”

Boquet Valley is one of Champlain Valley Educational Services BOCES’s nine component districts participating in the New York State Farm-to-School Program and the 30% NYS Initiative, a local food incentive that increases lunch reimbursements from 5.9 cents to 25 cents for districts that source at least 30 percent of their ingredients from New York farms and producers.

t’s early August, but you wouldn’t know it by the buzz of student activity at CiTi BOCES. In one classroom, students are studying shoreline erosion along Lake Ontario using painted pebbles. Next door, students have built water filters to trap microplastics and, just down the hall, students are creating videos to highlight lake wildlife. Meet the new Guardians of Lake Ontario, a group of 70 Oswego County fourth- and fifth-graders who are attending the Guardians of Lake Ontario Sanctuary Camp, a week-long, hands-on summer camp at CiTi BOCES in Mexico, New York.

Funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the camp is designed to raise awareness about this national marine sanctuary. But the camp also serves as an authentic learning lab, where students get to choose from nine different camp themes, each of which is rooted in real-world issues and features a high degree of project-based learning and problem-solving.

Each unit was designed by local educators, whose own curiosities were awakened during three days of professional development hosted by CiTi BOCES. The goal of the training was to help educators incorporate more authentic learning experiences into their classrooms, in preparation for the transition to New York’s new Portrait of a Graduate framework.

onna Graham knows just how much one person can change the course of a career. In her youth, Graham wanted to be a flight attendant and was accepted into a training program, but she had never been on a plane. During her first flight, she learned that turbulence made her motion sick, and she couldn’t wait to be back on the ground.

Her career as a flight attendant was over before it started, but that was the perfect lesson for her new career — helping others find their calling.

“That’s why I’m so passionate about career counseling,” said Graham, who retired from Monroe 2 BOCES in 2023 after 25 years as a career counselor. “I always share that story with students, and tell them ‘you think you know what you want to do until you try it.’”

She credits her older sister as an inspiration for the work she does now; when they were younger, her sister worked at a summer camp for students with disabilities. She saw the care her sister put into her work and knew she wanted to work with the same population of students.

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The Middletown Teachers Association team at Making Strides of the Hudson Valley last year.

his October, NYSUT members will join the thousands of people who are taking to the streets to fight breast cancer.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the collaboration between NYSUT and the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. Last year marked the third consecutive year that the statewide union has been the top donor for this national organization.

Altogether, NYSUT members have raised $20 million to support groundbreaking breast cancer research, ensure greater access to quality care, influence public policy, and provide critical patient support.

“NYSUT is proud to support Making Strides Against Breast Cancer,” said J. Philippe Abraham, NYSUT secretary-treasurer, whose office coordinates the statewide union’s social justice initiatives. The annual fundraiser is deeply personal to Abraham, who lost one of his sisters to the disease. “We are moved to action by those we have lost, and we are inspired to keep going by those who remain. We are thousands strong, and together, we will defeat this deadly disease.”

Mike Grosso

or the first time in nearly four decades, Mike Grosso’s end-of-summer routine does not include preparing for back to school. Grosso joined the ranks of newly minted retired teachers as of July 1.

“This is the first September I don’t have to prepare to go back. I feel great,” Grosso said. “You don’t realize how much the job demands until you’re unburdened by it.”

Grosso taught for 38 years, the last 29 in the

Grand Island Central School District. He held several leadership positions in the local and finished his term as Grand Island Teachers Association president on Aug. 31.

He encourages all educators preparing for retirement to know their contracts and to educate themselves on their retirement health insurance. “You can’t wait until you are 55 or just about to retire to figure it out,” he cautioned.

Grosso is prepared for this next phase, in part, because of the great work of retirees who came before him, including Grand Island TA retiree rep Nancy Keller.

ach September, NYSUT Member Benefits provides an update on how our department operates, our thorough endorsement process, and an overview of the exclusive benefits available through your NYSUT membership.

Member Benefits is composed of the Member Benefits Trust (created in 1983), the Member Benefits Corporation (2008), and the Catastrophe Major Medical Insurance Trust (2015). These three groups were designed to provide quality benefits to members and expand upon the variety of offerings available.

A board of appointed trustees/directors oversees each of these with the goal of ensuring the health and vitality of all endorsed benefits. Member Benefits is under the leadership of NYSUT Secretary-Treasurer J. Philippe Abraham, chairperson of the Member Benefits Trust, and Peggy Jacobsen, director.

Is Member Benefits supported by my NYSUT dues dollars?
No. Member Benefits has negotiated revenue endorsement arrangements with our endorsed program partners. These funds cover department expenses (including, in some cases, a percentage of premiums paid). They are also used, when appropriate, to enhance existing programs, maintain competitive rates, facilitate the development of new benefits, and defray the costs of operating our department.

here’s good news for members of the New York State and Local Retirement System. If you’re in Tier 5 or 6, new laws passed recently will improve your benefits.*

As of Oct. 1, 2026, Tier 6 member contribution rates will be:

• $45,000 or less: 3% (no change)
• $45,000.01 to $55,000: 3% (currently 3.5%)
• $55,000.01 to $75,000: 3% (currently 4.5%)
• $75,000.01 to $100,000: 4% (currently 5.75%)
• $100,000.01 to $125,000: 5.25% (currently 6%)
• $125,000.01 or greater: 5.75% (currently 6%)