July 2023 to the Present

We heard the complaints about your years-old grievances with the district.  We began addressing the decades-old backlog of unaddressed, outstanding grievances.

We heard you loud and clear - and designed these meetings to work through issues with various District departments.  In addition, multiple MOUs were signed and they're outlined below.

We listened to your comments - and saved us over $12,000 annually in the process!  THANK YOU!!

You deserved a greater benefit for each of these, so in February 2024 and January 2025, these increased.  

We couldn't agree more that our elected building representatives deserved training to cover day-to-day issues that they face.   To date, we've trained over 220 teachers including delegate chairs, delegates, alternates, Building Committee members, SBMT members, and other teacher members!  We are very proud of this accomplishment - and look forward to training more of you!

Created separate school groups within the app so building delegate chairs could easily communicate and share information with the teachers in their schools.  We also created separate tenure area groups so that teachers could discuss issues pertinent to their subject and the challenges specific to the work they do.  

These members now serve on various teams and committees, including:

• Social Justice Academy
• NYSUT Local Action Project
• APPR Renegotiation Team

Designed to bolster union engagement and organizing efforts.  When we all have a voice, we all succeed.

Designed to help pay for software and website upgrades - these will make all our lives easier. 

This change has resulted in various improvements, including a $2,000 annual savings!

• Ability for members to leave voicemail after-hours
• Voice-to-text message transcription so messages can be redirected to appropriate person

Rich and Melinda have also attended dozens of Building Committee meetings to support members when difficulties arose with building leadership. 

You asked for an easier way to pay for parades, bowling, other social events, as well as BTF swag, and we heard you.  You can now pay for anything using Venmo!

You wanted more accountability from the district.  We discussed and proposed solutions to whatever BTF concerns were relevant at the time of each meeting.  

We listened to your concerns here.  These meetings have aided in resolving dozens of outstanding grievances and in the execution of several Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) that benefit our members  These MOUs include:

-- Negotiated the APPR Performance Chart MOU which broadens the Effective range of a teacher under the current 3012-d APPR evaluation system. 

--  Negotiated the Teacher Center MOU increasing teacher facilitator/presenter pay. 

--  Negotiated the Medicare Part D IRMAA MOU which resolved a 2018 grievance impacting individuals who were subjected to a Medicare Part D assessment. Resulted in monetary repayment in the form of an HRA account for those affected. 

--  Negotiated the last two Transfer MOUs codifying the transfer start date and increasing the transfer window from six weeks to two months allowing more teachers to take part in the process. 

--  Turning your Voice into Action, the last two School Calendar MOUs we signed have, for the first time, teachers working fewer days than the maximum 188 days. 

We fought hard to get the APPR changed in NYS.  We now have a path to secure a fair evaluation tool for all of our teachers.

You've told us how tired you are of signing a new contract that is 3 or 4 years old.  We heard you - and of course WE AGREE!  You've already received our survey asking for your input on our new contract.  Thank you for responding in a timely manner.  We will continue to fight for YOU!

This may seem like a lofty goal, but it is one worth fighting for as we blaze a new APPR Path.

This will represent the first time in a long time that the Federation and BPS have an agreement in place before the current one expires - a contract that is commensurate with your professionalism and hard work.

We will continue to make forms like the Extended Pay Plan and others available to you electronically.