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Good morning! Reema Amin here with our top story today about an awkward fight playing out in my old stomping grounds, focused on a name I’m sort of obsessed with: The “Respect Check.”

The respect check is shorthand, apparently, for a one-time $10,000 pay bump that New York City Council unanimously approved for their public school paraprofessionals, who typically work with students with disabilities. They’re among the lowest paid in the system.

But Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pro-labor administration — which technically controls the school system over there — is suing, not because he disagrees with the pay bump itself, but because it happened outside of the collective bargaining process.

“The City is filing a lawsuit to protect the right of every union to negotiate on behalf of its members,” one of his spokespeople said.

The teachers union there, plus city lawmakers, described the administration’s move as shameful. One para, who plans to use the extra cash to install a ramp for her elderly mother, told my colleague Alex Zimmerman, “I am so sad that the city is choosing to fight us — and fight some of the most underpaid, dedicated workers that they have.”

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A new school year needs strong local reporting. Help Chalkbeat’s reporters keep asking the questions that matter.

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