Food drive – Page 2 – BOCES Teachers Association

SRP Day

The BTA recognized all our SRPs (School Related Professionals) on Tuesday, November 18th. Thank you for all the work our Aides and TAs do every day!

BTA Holiday Food Drive

The BTA is holding a holiday food drive to support Feeding Westchester. See the flyer above for their most needed items. Boxes are located in the staff room or main office at each site. See a Rep or Exec Board member for more information. Want to donate money instead? Feel free to Venmo Mairead: @Mairead-Schuelein

Are you planning on retiring soon?

Want to learn more about TRS or ERS

A reminder to all Certified Staff that with the new contract, Certified Staff must submit their letter of retirement to HR by January 15th if they would like to retire between the last workday in June and August 31st and would like to use their sick time as Boces Bucks. The form for retirement to submit to HR can be found here.NYSTRS has created a two minute Road to Retirement video which indicates steps NYSTRS members should take at any point in their career to be ready for retirement. NYSUT has also put out a checklist for prospective retirees, which can be found here. Additionally, the NYSUT Tarrytown Regional Office is offering free TRS seminars in January and February. For more information and to register, click here.Are you an Aide or PT or OT interested in more information about ERS? Check out NYSUT’s page and links to the ERS website here.

To learn more about earning service credit, transferring service credit, milestones, etc. see the respective links for TRS and ERS.

SWBOCES HR has the following checklist/timeline for planning your retirement.

Certified Staff contract update/MOAs

The Board of Education President and Dr. Coles will be signing the Certified Staff contract at the December 18th BOE meeting and then the contract will go to print in January.

An MOA subcommittee has been created to negotiate an MOA that will address Back to School night, TA certification stipends and prep/lunch time for programs that are housed in district settings. Thank you to Stacey DiPaola, Tyree Morris and Jane Shields for agreeing to be a part of that subcommittee. The first committee meeting with administration took place this week. Proposals were exchanged and we anticipate meeting again in January.

Know Your Rights

Thank you to all of you who completed the Know Your Rights survey that was sent throughout August and September. Each month I will highlight a different question that was on the survey, how our members responded and the State Education law that explains the answer to the survey.

Question #2: Under New York State Education Law and Commissioner’s Regulations, teachers with good observations/evaluations cannot be dismissed. 95% of members answered it was false. The correct answer is false. Great job!

The following charges are grounds for termination under Ed Law 3020A:

Conduct unbecoming of a teacher

Verbal abuse

Sexual contact/relationship

Corporal punishment

Excessive absenteeism

Failure to maintain certification

Insubordination

Immoral character

Inefficiency

Neglect of duty

Pedagogical incompetence

Physical or mental disability

Free Science of Reading course

Are you in need of free CTLE hours or interested in learning more about literacy? NYSUT is offering a free Science of Reading course that provides 30 CTLE hours. There are 10 modules, with 5 of them being asynchronous courses. Learn more here and sign up here.

Fix Tier 6 Rally on March 8th, 2026

Welcome New Members!

Janice Neal, Transfiguration

Grace Ware, RLC

Natalya Volnova, Irvington/RLC

Save the Date

As seen in the above flyer, NYSUT will be holding a state-wide Fix Tier 6 rally in Albany on Sunday, March 8th.

Changes are coming to the BTA website! More information to come in the next few weeks.

NYSUT is holding free student loan webinars starting on December 9th. Register here if you have questions about your student loans.

Reminders

If you haven’t already done so, please complete your GCN trainings. Log into your account to make sure they are all completed. New hires have 30 days from their start date to complete their trainings.Next Rep Council meeting: The next Rep Council meeting will be held on Wednesday, December 17th at 4pm via Zoom and in person in Hut B on lower RLC. Zoom link to follow.BTA text list: If you wish to receive texts from the BTA, please fill out this form. The BTA does not give out your cell phone number to outside parties. We use it to send reminders about meetings and upcoming events. If you receive an email from your supervisor saying you can bring a union rep to a scheduled meeting, reach out to one of the Reps or Exec Board members listed at the bottom of this bulletin ASAP.

Executive Board and Reps

Mairead Schuelein, President

Jason Poniatowski, Executive Vice President

Stacey DiPaola, Treasurer

Derrick Green, 1st Vice President of Aides

Keith Mattos, 2nd Vice President of ALC

Mike Piccolo, Grievance Chair

Rosalie Consani, Corresponding Secretary

Liz Lopez, Recording Secretary

Julie Crosier, Teacher Rep

Theresa Saive, Teacher Rep

Pierre Fils, CTE Rep

Category: Food drive

December 5, 2025 bulletin – Food Drive, Retirement reminders, Fix Tier 6 Rally