Chalkbeat

Rift widens between City Hall and teachers union as UFT threatens literacy curriculum pushback

2026-08-12T22:25:28+00:00

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When New York City officials launched a big shakeup in reading instruction three years ago, they had a key ally at their side: the city’s teachers union.

Now, shortly after a plunge in reading scores, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew is threatening to drop the union’s support of the curriculum overhaul.

That could complicate Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plans to expand the initiative, known as NYC Reads.

“The Department of Ed. is completely incompetent and irresponsible in its implementation, and we are not going to stand by,” the union chief said in an interview, pointing to a series of tasks piling up for teachers as they adopt the curriculum changes. Without reforms, “we’re going to just have to pull our support for it.”

Mulgrew’s criticism of the reading curriculum is the latest point of tension between the union and City Hall. Mamdani recently backtracked on campaign pledges to support a boost in pay for paraprofessionals and swiftly reduce class sizes — both major union priorities.

Mulgrew said he still thinks it is a good idea to require common reading curriculums in all elementary schools instead of giving each principal the authority to pick their own, the biggest shift under NYC Reads. But other burdensome requirements have been layered on top of the mandate, he said.

He criticized the number of student assessments — at least three every year in reading — as excessive. Another point of contention: As of last year, schools must use additional city-approved intervention programs for struggling readers, a major priority of Chancellor Kamar Samuels. Those programs, however, don’t always line up with the reading curriculums, Mulgrew said.

Mulgrew also accused the city of rolling back earlier promises to give teachers flexibility to implement the curriculum at a pace that makes sense for their students and schedule.

An Education Department spokesperson said the union’s claims are untrue, noting there were no changes in the district’s assessment or pacing policies last year. The only change was to require that schools use approved intervention programs, officials said.

Mulgrew’s comments came days after officials revealed that just half the city’s students in grades 3-8 were proficient in reading on the state tests administered in the spring, a decline of 6 percentage points from the year before.

Even as union officials initially blamed the test score decline on flaws with the Education Department’s implementation of NYC Reads, Mulgrew said he does not believe the tests accurately measure student learning. (Some experts have raised questions about whether the unusually large fluctuations reflect problems with the test.)

The reading curriculum overhaul has won mixed reactions from educators. Some have welcomed the changes as long overdue, while others have been frustrated with the programs city officials have required them to use.

Still, Mulgrew’s comments came as a surprise to some teachers.

“What he’s saying is coming out of nowhere,” said Kate Gutwillig, who retired from Manhattan’s P.S. 134 in June.

She agreed with Mulgrew’s criticism that schools are being asked to assess students too often using tools that don’t map well onto the school’s curriculum.

Still, the notion that there were major changes in how NYC Reads was implemented last year “does not ring true to my experience,” she said.

Other observers said it would be a significant blow if the union dropped its support of the initiative, which includes union-supported and city-funded centers that offer training connected to NYC Reads.

“Right now, they are a core implementation partner,” said Evan Stone, CEO of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group that supports the curriculum changes.

“I don’t think it stops the program” if the union pulls its support, Stone said, noting that the city has pressed ahead with a math curriculum overhaul over the union’s objections. “But it certainly doesn’t make the work easier.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC official overseeing Mamdani’s childcare expansion for 2-year-olds is stepping down

2026-07-31T21:24:47+00:00

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A top Education Department official overseeing Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s ambitious childcare program for 2-year-olds is stepping down.

Simone Hawkins, the deputy chancellor of the division of early childhood education, is leaving her post in September, city officials said Friday afternoon.

Her departure comes at a key moment for Mamdani’s free childcare initiative. The program, which could be Mamdani’s most operationally complex campaign promise, is set to launch this fall with 2,000 free seats in a handful of neighborhoods. Families are expected to receive offers on Aug. 4.

City officials did not say why Hawkins is stepping down and declined to make her available for an interview.

“Over the last few years, Deputy Chancellor Simone Hawkins was a leader in making New York City more affordable and accessible for working families,” schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said in a statement. He praised her for helping to grow early childhood programs, tackle payment delays to providers, and expand programming for preschool students with disabilities.

The news of Hawkins’ departure shocked many early childhood education advocates and others who worked with her in city government.

Brooklyn City Council member Lincoln Restler framed the news as an “enormous loss” for the early childhood education system, noting Hawkins was responsive to his concerns and helped open vacant childcare centers the city was paying for.

“I’ve seen the (Education Department) bureaucracy eat good people alive,” he said. “Deputy Chancellor Hawkins was one of the few people who could tame it.”

Other advocates said she helped shore up the division after former Mayor Eric Adams made cuts to preschool programs for 3-year-olds.

“We appreciate the work that Simone has done over the past two years to strengthen early childhood education,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, including “shoring up 3-K and making sure it would be here to stay permanently.”

Hawkins was appointed deputy chancellor by former Chancellor David Banks in 2024. She assumed the role as the division had long struggled to pay providers on time, undergone a bumpy staffing shakeup by Hawkins’ predecessor, and was rolling out a controversial curriculum mandate for early childhood programs that city officials recently loosened. Early childhood advocates and elected officials praised Banks’ decision to appoint her.

Her portfolio includes the city’s universal pre-K programs for 3- and 4-year-olds as well as subsidized programs for infants and toddlers.

Hawkins has held multiple roles in the city’s Education Department. She served as the chief executive for operations in the early childhood division in 2022, but resigned eight months into the role shortly after testifying at a City Council hearing that focused on late payments to providers. Officials said her resignation had been in the works before the hearing and was for “personal reasons.”

Officials did not say if Hawkins has a new job lined up.

“Over the past two years as Deputy Chancellor, we’ve improved practice, launched 2-K, a historic program that will deliver affordable child care for New York City families, and opened schools that for too long have sat vacant,” Hawkins said in a statement.

“I am truly grateful for the opportunity to have worked with a slate of dedicated and committed public servants at New York City Public Schools.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NY officials propose mandatory science of reading update for teacher prep programs

2026-07-20T19:40:28+00:00

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New York officials want teacher preparation programs to revamp their instruction to align with the science of reading, a longstanding body of evidence about how children learn to read.

Under the proposed regulations, many teacher preparation programs — including those focused on early childhood education, bilingual education, English language learners, literacy, and students with disabilities — would be required to align their instruction with the state’s science of reading framework.

The framework emphasizes evidence-based approaches including phonics, the relationship between sounds and letters, as well as phonological awareness, oral language, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency.

The proposal, introduced at a state Board of Regents meeting last week, comes as some advocates and experts have raised alarms that roughly half of the state’s teacher preparation programs are failing to properly train educators in reading instruction, significantly higher than the national average.

Prospective educators would also be expected to devote a portion of their “field experiences” and student teaching to providing evidence-based literacy instruction and assessing students with reading challenges. The proposed regulations require more explicit training on dyslexia, one of the most common learning disabilities, and officials said the proposal is consistent with recommendations from a state dyslexia and dysgraphia task force.

“The knowledge base that supports the science of reading is not new,” Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young said during the meeting. “It is about ensuring that we’re using what we know about how children learn, grow, evolve, and making sure — by the regulation — that it exists in every teacher preparation program.”

If adopted, the proposal would represent one of the most concrete steps so far from state officials to require higher education programs to adopt stronger approaches to training educators to teach reading.

The proposed changes come as many students are struggling with reading. More than 40% of the state’s fourth graders scored at the lowest level in reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, often considered the gold standard in assessment. That was roughly 10 percentage points worse than in 2013. Reading proficiency on state exams has increased over the past few years, diverging from the federal test.

The proposal is an outgrowth of a multi-state effort New York joined in 2023 to reform teacher preparation programs organized by The Hunt Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with Duke University. Officials said the regulations are designed to ensure all teacher preparation programs are consistently teaching evidenced-based literacy practices. If adopted, many teacher prep programs would be required to comply by September 2028.

Some groups that have been critical of New York’s teacher prep programs said the proposed changes are promising.

“This would be a significant step forward for the state,” said Ron Noble, the chief of teacher prep at the National Council on Teacher Quality, which released the report last month that found half of the state’s teacher prep programs did not adequately teach reading.

Noble praised the idea of beefing up requirements for literacy-focused work in student teaching and other hands-on training experiences. “That is a great idea,” he said, “ one that I haven’t seen in lots of other states.”

Still, several observers and members of the Board of Regents wondered how the Education Department would enforce the requirements, especially because teacher prep programs are reviewed on a seven-year cycle. Some Regents worried the state wouldn’t catch flawed practices for the better part of a decade.

“How will we ensure accountability and follow through?” asked Regent Hasoni Pratts, who represents Brooklyn, during last week’s presentation. “We won’t know if they’re doing what they say they’re doing until we review in 2035, when I know many of us may not be here.”

State officials said they can already require corrective action if fewer than 80% of prospective teachers pass certain certification exams. If teacher prep programs don’t align their coursework with the science of reading, state officials will first provide technical assistance. They could eventually be denied “reregistration,” a state education spokesperson noted, which would prevent the program from recruiting new students, according to state rules.

State officials hope the Board of Regents will approve the new rules in November after a public comment period.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Wildfire smoke forces Summer Rising indoors as officials limit outdoor activities

2026-07-16T19:10:30+00:00

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New York City officials urged summer school programs to limit outdoor activity on Thursday as wildfire smoke wafted into the five boroughs.

The Education Department’s guidance to principals also asked schools to reschedule outdoor trips.

The city’s summer school program, known as Summer Rising, has slots for about 110,000 elementary and middle school students this year, offering a mix of academics, enrichment activities, and trips.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned in a social media post that the “combination of dangerous heat and unhealthy air is a serious threat to New Yorkers’ health.”

Thursday’s pivot indoors marked the latest heat- or smoke-related disruption to the city’s public schools. During a heat wave earlier this month, summer programs were instructed to cancel outdoor field trips on July 1 and July 2, according to an internal email obtained by Chalkbeat. In June 2023, the school system switched to remote instruction for a day due to wildfire smoke (though most students already had the day off).

Education Department officials said they follow Health Department guidelines on air quality to make decisions about whether outdoor activities are safe for children. They did not indicate whether they plan to issue a similar warning for Friday when the smoke is expected to ease.

One Brooklyn principal supervising a summer school site, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the heat and smoke has led them to limit outdoor activities on about half of the days of this year’s summer program, which began July 1 and ends Aug. 7 for middle school and Aug. 14 for elementary schools.

As a result, students are getting less time for recess, basketball, and soccer, because a larger number of students must rotate through the campus’s air conditioned gym. They’re playing games like “7 Up” instead.

“It’s really not ideal — there’s not as much space for free play inside,” the principal said, noting staying indoors is important because many of his students have asthma.

The principal did not receive the guidance that Education Department officials sent to school leaders in advance of the smoke on Thursday and was “literally going off the [New York City Emergency Management] text alerts I personally signed up for” to make decisions about when to limit indoor activities.

Grace Bodenmann, chief education officer at New York Junior Tennis & Learning, said her organization moved programming indoors at the 26 Summer Rising sites they work with as well as the two full-day camps they run at charter schools. They made the move based on instructions from the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, which sent out two emails Thursday morning, she said.

“It’s not that fun to be in a school from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” Bodenmann said, noting that while Summer Rising sites are required to have air conditioning, not all spaces in a building necessarily have AC, particularly some of the larger spaces such as auditoriums, cafeterias, and gyms. “It’s hit or miss,” she said. “And you can’t open the window.”

Under a recent state law, children are not allowed to be in school spaces that reach 88 degrees or higher.

Students at the New York Junior Tennis and Learning's ACES afterschool program at P.S. 9 in Brooklyn.

Another challenge: Some of the Summer Rising sites have multiple community organizations in one building jostling for space.

But it’s clear that families rely on the program: Attendance was barely down over the past two days, she said. Bodenmann was eager to find out what would happen on Friday, which is when many organizations organize field trips. Rescheduling those trips can be difficult.

Meanwhile, many of the air purifiers the city distributed to every school during the pandemic are gathering dust. Many educators have stopped using them because of concerns that the devices the city bought are noisy and are not as effective as other models. Although the city’s guidance to custodians directs them to keep windows and doors closed when possible and and check HVAC systems, it does not mention using the purifiers.

Some experts previously told Chalkbeat that school systems should think more intentionally about indoor air quality, especially in regions like the East Coast that have less experience responding to smoky conditions.

“On the West Coast, wildfire smoke has just been part of life for a while,” said Patricia Fabian, an associate professor of environmental health at Boston University. On the East Coast, “people have really only started talking about it in the last couple of years.”

Clean indoor air is important for student and staff health, she said. And while she wasn’t familiar with the purifiers New York City purchased for schools, she said that air purifiers can help filter particles and reduce the risk of wildfire smoke.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

What’s Mamdani’s agenda for K-12 education in NYC? 6 months in, it’s hard to say.

2026-07-07T21:43:20+00:00

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In his first six months in office, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has issued a steady stream of announcements and policy initiatives in the three areas that powered his affordability-focused campaign: childcare for kids 5 and younger, transportation, and housing.

But when it comes to K-12 public education — the largest operation under Mamdani’s control by both budget and headcount — the story has been quite different.

Out of the hundreds of press releases Mamdani sent out since his term began, just 11 relate to K-12 education, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. Only one announced a new policy affecting what happens inside classrooms serving more than 800,000 elementary- to high school-age students. And even the new policy — expanding a reading and math curriculum overhaul launched under his predecessor Eric Adams — largely continued work already underway.

Other press releases related to winter storms, street safety outside schools, and the opening of new schools that started under a previous administration.

Mayoral press releases are an incomplete measure of Mamdani’s record and agenda on K-12 education, and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has introduced several initiatives of his own. But some longtime education watchers — including Mamdani supporters — said the dearth of attention to K-12 schools and absence of concrete policy proposals one-eighth of the way through Mamdani’s first term raises questions about how he will manage a core function of the city’s government.

“He’s the first mayor that I’ve seen … to have so little apparent interest in our public schools from K-12,” said Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters and a longtime education advocate. She argued that Mamdani could use his “progressive values to really make a difference in our schools,” adding that overseeing public schools “is a very critical part of his responsibilities.”

In many ways, the lack of focus on K-12 schools during Mamdani’s first months in office is not a surprise. Education didn’t figure prominently into his mayoral campaign, which focused on his key priorities and largely avoided political fights that could distract from those efforts. Some observers suggested that an aggressive push to make the K-12 system more equitable — a political minefield for progressive politicians — may feel too risky when Mamdani is still shoring up support for his core agenda.

Keeping up his “laser focus” on expanding free childcare — a broadly popular policy — could pay political dividends by providing economic relief for families while also better preparing children for K-12 schools, said Shael Polakow-Suransky, president of Bank Street College of Education and a former deputy chancellor under Michael Bloomberg.

“That is where the political capital on education will need to be spent over the next few years, if they’re going to deliver on that promise and actually get the educational benefits,” he said.

Polakow-Suransky and others familiar with the Mamdani administration’s education plans said the quiet start on K-12 policy may be a deliberate effort by Mamdani and Samuels to gather input before making potentially disruptive changes.

But other observers noted that while Mamdani still has time to make his mark on city schools, his current approach risks further entrenching a status quo marked by deep problems and inequities.

“The absence of any identifiable priority is a worry,” said David Bloomfield, a professor emeritus of education leadership, law, and policy at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center.

The longterm benefits of an improved K-12 school system take years to materialize, Bloomfield noted, unlike the more immediate benefits of Mamdani’s policy priorities.

“He seems to feel that what’s in place is good enough,” Bloomfield said.

Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for Mamdani, disputed the idea that he has focused less on K-12 education in his early months than predecessors.

“Change isn’t measured by the number of press releases we send out. It’s measured by whether people’s lives are better because they were invited to shape the policies that affect them,” she said. The administration is preparing to “share our broader vision for public schools” by holding listening sessions and gathering community feedback, she added.

What has Mamdani done so far, and how does it compare to past mayors?

Mamdani offered few sweeping education promises on the campaign trail, but did stake out several positions that set him apart from his competitors, including ending mayoral control of city schools and removing kindergarten entry to the city’s gifted and talented program.

Neither has come to pass.

Mamdani reversed his position on mayoral control shortly before taking office. He also backed away from a campaign promise to quickly comply with the state’s class size law, instead asking for an extension to save money this fiscal year.

He has not advanced proposals to change the gifted and talented program or offer prospective new teachers tuition assistance, as he pledged during the campaign. He has made some efforts to reduce the Education Department’s astronomical contracts budget, but those efforts have been complicated by scrutiny over allegations that Samuels violated contracting rules in a previous role. He also continued a pandemic-era policy launched under Bill de Blasio and continued by Adams to spare schools with declining enrollment from budget cuts.

Most longtime education observers said Mamdani has focused noticeably less on K-12 education than his immediate predecessors, Adams, de Blasio, and Bloomberg — though several noted that those mayors’ education agendas didn’t fully come into focus during their first six months in office.

Adams issued 21 press releases related to K-12 education during his first six months, including announcements expanding the gifted and talented program, introducing dyslexia screening, and rehiring district superintendents, a Chalkbeat analysis found. His most recognizable education policy, NYC Reads, was announced more than a year into his tenure.

Bloomberg made controversial and sweeping reforms of the K-12 school system a centerpiece of his agenda. De Blasio, like Mamdani, initially emphasized childcare, but nine months into his tenure launched a major effort to flood struggling schools with additional resources.

Matt Gonzales, a longtime school integration advocate who served on Mamdani’s education transition team, said preserving programs for vulnerable students in the recent budget agreement between Mamdani and the City Council was a significant early policy achievement. He also argued that introducing new policies in the middle of a school year could be disruptive.

“I want all the big pronouncements and priorities laid out ASAP,” he said. But “there’s a real need to stabilize the system … and then move a vision for education in this new school year.”

What does Mamdani’s quiet start on K-12 education mean for schools?

While the Mamdani administration hasn’t offered a detailed public agenda for K-12 schools, officials have negotiated the budget and an extension of the state’s class size law deadline, said Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University Teachers College. (The Education Department issued a press release with a quote from Mamdani detailing the new class size plan).

He added that making meaningful change in a system as sprawling as New York City is difficult and that “on the ground level, a lot can continue in a positive way without high-level policy pronouncements.”

But if outcomes such as test scores and graduation rates slip, Mamdani may face “pressure to do more,” he said.

Some advocates hope Mamdani will focus on increasing racial and socioeconomic integration, and merging underenrolled schools — two longtime priorities for Samuels. Others want him to stake out a firm position against artificial intelligence in schools.

Whatever the agenda looks like, some supporters hope Mamdani will bring the same public attention campaign he’s launched for childcare — including a jingle contest judged by Cardi B — to K-12 education.

“I’m hopeful that we see more of that kind of skill around education, especially as they really get to take the reins of things this school year,” Gonzales said. “That’s going to really need the mayor’s messaging and savviness.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Most high schoolers no longer need to pass Regents to graduate. Schools are in the dark on what’s next.

2026-06-24T19:07:52+00:00

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By next fall, the majority of students in New York high schools will not be required to pass the state’s Regents exams to earn a diploma, a major shift that state officials hope will reshape teaching and learning.

There’s just one problem: The state Education Department has not yet revealed what the new graduation requirements will look like — even as the Class of 2027 will be the last cohort that must pass the exams to graduate under the current timeline.

That disconnect is alarming advocates and educators who worry that schools will not have enough time to seamlessly transition to new graduation standards.

In interviews and responses to a Chalkbeat survey, educators and families said they felt confused about the transition and unsure what it means for their schools. One member of the state Board of Regents, Hasoni Pratts, said during a public meeting this month that her own child is unclear on whether they need to pass the exams.

“Teachers are going to need time to figure out what the requirements are and how to translate that,” said Robert Effinger, a teacher at the Bronx High School of Business. Right now, he said, “There’s no information.”

State officials have been planning for years to transition away from the Regents, exit exams that date back to the mid-1800s. In their place, state officials have outlined a list of six high-level attributes students must have to graduate, known as the “portrait of a graduate,” such as effective communication skills and critical thinking. Students will be able to demonstrate those skills in a wider variety of ways, such as research projects and internships, state officials have said. The Board of Regents, which oversees the Education Department, must approve any changes to the graduation requirements.

Many educators have cheered the move away from graduation exams, which research suggests do little to promote student learning and have fallen out of favor across the country. The move could free them up to ditch test prep and pursue more creative learning experiences and hands-on projects. Several also hope it will help quell some students’ test anxiety.

Educators pointed to existing models of how to assess students in other ways. Some schools have waivers from the state Regents exams and rely on performance-based assessments, where students give presentations — but those efforts, educators say, require lots of planning and buy-in. International baccalaureate schools also have a well-developed system of assessments and emphasizes collaboration with peers and applying learning to real-world contexts. Again, that approach requires extensive teacher training and support.

Samantha Schmoeger, the principal at The Boerum Hill School for International Studies, which uses the IB curriculum, said she appreciates that the state is planning to allow students to demonstrate knowledge in a variety of ways, and she feels confident that the IB framework aligns with the state’s changes.

“That said, the uncertainty around future graduation requirements does present challenges,” she wrote in an email. “Long-term planning for curriculum, assessment systems, staffing, counseling, and student pathways requires clarity.”

State is slow to share details on graduation changes

State officials have emphasized that the transition away from Regents exams will be gradual — and local districts may continue to use them as one possible graduation pathway even after the new requirements take hold.

A state Education Department spokesperson indicated that officials will reveal more details about the standards early next school year and are collecting public input this summer.

The new graduation measures — along with overhauled credit requirements — will fully take effect for students who enter high school in 2029.

State officials recently suggested that schools should begin experimenting with different ways of assessing students and boosting access to opportunities like work-based learning, even before the actual graduation requirements are available. They’ve secured $2 million to help schools adapt to new graduation requirements and are requesting additional grant and state funding.

Multiple school leaders said they are reluctant to make changes before the state releases more details. Some are wary of telling families that the Regents will no longer be required because they want students to still take them seriously.

“We’re all sort of in limbo,”said one Brooklyn high school principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As Regents exams exit, equity concerns rise

The transition away from Regents exams has prompted concerns from some educators and advocates about maintaining consistent standards across hundreds of school districts and thousands of schools.

Erick Espin, a teacher at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning, said his school already emphasizes fieldwork, expeditions, case studies, and project-based learning. More recently it introduced career-focused programs through FutureReadyNYC.

But he worries that if schools have more control over graduation measures — along with pressure to keep graduation rates high — there may be incentives for schools to push students to graduate even if they haven’t mastered key skills.

“The state needs to strongly consider how to more objectively evaluate the skills of New York students,” he said.

Effinger, the Bronx high school teacher, raised a similar concern. “It’s going to be too easy to set up a race to the bottom for graduation requirements without serious guardrails,” he said.

State officials said there will be protections to ensure graduation standards are applied equitably. “This is not about lowering standards,” Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young said earlier this month. “This is about redefining how all of our students meet the standard.”

Without a detailed plan, some advocates are wary.

Alren Benjamin-Gomez, the executive director of the advocacy group Education Trust-New York, said the state is setting up a “wild west” where schools are trying to guess how to prepare for the new graduation system.

It makes sense to move away from the Regents exams, Benzamin-Gomez said, but she would like to see a new system that is “rigorous and comparable across the state.”

“The reality is that an alternative is actually challenging to create,” she added. But “I think it’s poor policy, I think it’s poor rollout, I think it’s poor implementation to leave people so unclear on what is the new approach,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

What will school look like in a post-Regents world? Officials tease a ‘competency-based’ approach.

2026-06-15T23:20:46+00:00

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For years, New York officials have been talking about what it should take to earn a high school diploma as the state gradually moves away from standardized Regents exams. But they have shared few details about how a new system would work.

On Monday, they touted a new “competency-based” model as part of the state’s broader effort to phase out the Regents, which current ninth and 10th graders do not need to pass to graduate, under the state’s current timeline. The new graduation measures are expected to be fully phased in by the 2029-30 school year.

Under the new framework, the state would overhaul credit requirements that specify the number of hours of instruction students receive in each subject, a change officials said would free students up for projects, work-based learning, and dual-enrollment programs. It could allow schools and local districts to think more creatively about how to assess students using portfolios, performances, and other measures beyond tests and grades.

Angelique Johnson-Dingle, a deputy commissioner in the state Education Department, referred to traditional school schedules, in which students move between classes at set times, as an outdated “factory model” of education during a presentation to the state Board of Regents.

“It is about time for us to rethink this factory model and to provide districts with the support to transform antiquated structures, reimagine the use of time and space, and refocus on deep, authentic, connected learning,” she said.

But state officials have not offered a detailed vision of what the competency-based approach would look like and indicated local districts and schools would have flexibility in how they implement it. Officials have also yet to explain what specific graduation measures will replace the Regents exams.

“I think it’s well-intentioned, ” said Jeff Smink, the deputy director of the advocacy group Ed-Trust New York. He said the state’s explanation of the competency-based approach involved “a hell of a lot of buzzwords, but not a lot of detail on what it would look like in the classroom.”

Many states have adopted competency-based education policies to varying degrees, often because of a belief that students need to be prepared for a changing economy. However, there is limited evidence that the approach boosts student performance and it can be tricky to implement. Officials in Maine wound up rolling back a similar initiative after local districts had trouble defining proficiency and teachers struggled to communicate how students would be assessed.

Board of Regents members unhappy with lack of detailed plans

Several members of the Board of Regents said they were excited by the competency-based approach. But some also expressed frustration that there were few specifics about how it fit with new graduation requirements that will replace Regents exams.

“The teachers are saying to me, ‘I don’t know what this means, and I do not know how to prepare for it,’” said Regent Hasoni Pratts, who represents Brooklyn. “This presentation today, I don’t think gave them a little bit more clarity on that.”

Pratts noted that her own ninth-grade son is confused about whether he needs to pass Regents exams to graduate. “He’s asked me, ‘Do I take the Regents now, or do I not take the Regents?”

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa acknowledged some questions around the competency-based approach and stressed that more information would eventually be shared by state officials, local districts, and even Regents themselves. Students would still be required to master state learning standards in civics, math, science, and other subjects, officials said.

“Yes, we’re going to have many, many questions as we go through this, but the idea is that we do have to change,” Rosa said. The state is soliciting feedback on the framework over the summer and final changes must be approved by the Board of Regents.

Even without clear guidance on the new competency-based framework, state officials encouraged school districts to begin experimenting with different ways of assessing students and boosting access to work-based learning in the meantime.

Other members of the board raised questions about the workload involved for educators in transitioning to the competency-based approach.

“I think the concept and the idea is wonderful,” said Regent Susan Mittler, who represents several upstate counties. But if a teacher is pursuing more ambitious projects with larger classes, “How do I get everything graded?” Mittler wondered. “How do I make sure that all the students working on a capstone project have access to me when they have a problem?”

Some advocates also raised questions about how the state will make sure that the approach doesn’t lead to uneven expectations in different schools and districts across New York.

“We already have too many districts that are simply passing students — particularly students of color from low-income backgrounds — even though they’re not prepared,” Smink said. “This just raises a lot of both equity and rigor concerns.”

State officials vowed to release “common criteria” for demonstrating each of the competencies and other guardrails to ensure rigor across the state.

“This is not about lowering standards,” said Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young. “This is about redefining how all of our students meet the standard.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

New York teachers union calls for aggressive limits on AI and screens for youngest students

2026-06-01T21:43:05+00:00

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The tide is quickly turning against screens and artificial intelligence in schools — at least in New York state.

The state’s teachers union is the latest to join the grassroots parent efforts to limit screens and AI, passing a resolution this weekend calling for a ban on individual students’ screen use in prekindergarten through second grade, including online assessments.

It also calls for banning student-facing AI for these young learners, as well as prohibiting AI chatbots for students under 16.

Gov. Kathy Hochul also expressed concerns on Monday about screen time in schools.

The resolution from New York State United Teachers, or NYSUT, which is the umbrella union of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers, comes on the heels of a push for a nationwide strategy to curb technology use in schools from its parent union, the American Federation of Teachers. AFT President Randi Weingarten last week called for similar limits in her “devices-down, eyes-up, hands-on” plan.

The resolution from the state teachers union comes as New York City is rethinking its policies on artificial intelligence in schools. Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels recently called AI the “most invasive technology that we’ve seen” and signaled the Education Department may create clearer guardrails for the city’s youngest students, after significant criticism of the city’s initial draft policy.

“Educators are not anti-technology. We are pro-child,” NYSUT President Melinda Person said in a statement on Monday. “Every decision made in the name of innovation must actually serve the students in our classrooms.”

Meanwhile, Hochul said Monday that it is “definitely worth looking into” limiting screen time for younger students. She would take a similar approach to studying this as she did before implementing banning cell phones, she said at a press conference celebrating the first year of the state’s school cellphone ban.

“I spent a year going around the state, gathering information, assessing it, analyzing it, and coming up with a really solid policy,” Hochul said, “so I would engage in that before I would give an answer on how I feel about this, but I’m learning a lot as a parent and grandparent.”

Several districts or states are limiting or looking into limiting screens in schools. Los Angeles schools are moving to ban screens until second grade. Iowa recently passed a law limiting screens in schools. Tennessee and other states are considering limits.

How the national backlash to education technology will affect classrooms in the nation’s largest school district remains to be seen. An upper Manhattan superintendent instituted a “screen break” last week at a parent advocate’s request. But the state teachers union is pressing for broader change.

NYSUT’s resolution, for instance, calls for banning online assessments for young children. Since the pandemic, schools across the five boroughs have been giving students assessments in reading and math three times a year to gauge their progress. Many schools use online tools from i-Ready or MAP Growth starting in kindergarten for the math assessments. (The Acadience Reading assessment for K-2 students is not device-based.)

As New York transitions to digital standardized exams for students across the state in grades 3-8, some educators have raised concerns that test preparation will increasingly rely on devices, too. The union’s resolution calls on the state to maintain paper and pencil options.

Students are “spending excessive time preparing for computer-based testing, completing mandated screen-based programs, and engaging in passive technology use that interrupts student-teacher engagement,” the resolution states.

A spokesperson for the state’s Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The union’s resolution also calls for requiring that using AI in any grade must be “educator-led” and designed to “promote critical thinking, digital literacy, and civic readiness, rather than replace human instruction, creativity or judgment.”

Teacher unions are also trying to walk a tightrope as they navigate the latest education technology backlash. The AFT and New York City’s teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, launched a partnership last year with OpenAI and Microsoft to help train educators.

“There are conversations at every level about how to scale back screen time for students, especially our youngest,” Mary Vaccaro, the UFT’s vice president for education, said in a statement.

“At the same time, the UFT and its national union, the AFT, are trying to help educators better understand and navigate AI, whether that’s learning how to protect their students or how to harness the tool for their own work.”

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NY lawmakers to give Mamdani 2-year extension to comply with NYC class size mandate

2026-06-01T21:09:51+00:00

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A widely anticipated last-minute deal will give New York City two additional years to comply with a state law to shrink classes, according to legislation introduced Monday.

And in a separate agreement between the United Federation of Teachers and the city’s Education Department announced Monday, educators will be eligible for a pay bump if their classes are above the caps, union officials said.

The 2022 state law had required the city to cap 80% of its classrooms by this fall at 20 to 25 students, depending on grade level. By the 2027-28 school year, all classes were expected to meet the mandate. Now, the city will instead have to bring 70% of its classes into compliance this school year with an additional 10% in each of the next three school years, giving the city until the 2029-30 school year to meet the mandate.

Those changes — which state, city, and union officials have been negotiating for months — are a significant part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to balance the city’s budget. City officials banked on the delayed rollout of the law to save hundreds of millions of dollars to help close a multibillion dollar budget gap.

Mamdani’s campaign to convince state officials to give the city more time to comply represented a departure from his campaign pledge to swiftly implement the class size law, which he accused former Mayor Eric Adams of slow-walking. Mamdani voted for the law when he was a member of the state assembly.

“I am proud that our administration is implementing it in good faith,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Extending this timeline gives our schools the opportunity to reduce class sizes in a way that is sustainable and responsible.”

The city’s teachers union acknowledged Monday that the city is unlikely to reach the 70% compliance rate without relying on exemptions allowed under the law. (This school year, the city relied on thousands of exemptions to meet the 60% threshold required by law.)

“If giving this new administration two more years gets us a partner committed to building the necessary seats, then it is the fastest way to turn the law into reality,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement.

The union secured an “accountability incentive” that will put financial pressure on the city to avoid exemptions in the long run, union officials said. In cases where the city issues exemptions from the law because a building doesn’t have additional space to shrink classes or can’t hire enough staff, teachers will be eligible for additional pay.

Neither the Education Department nor the union provided a copy of the agreement. But in a email to UFT members, union officials said teachers could be eligible for up to $8,500 next school year and $9,500 the following year. The recipients of the pay bumps will be determined each November and “not every teacher whose class is out of compliance with the class size limits will receive the differential,” the email noted.

The deal is likely to renew equity concerns, as more affluent schools tend to be more crowded and stand to benefit the most from the class size law. Union officials said additional pay would be distributed to schools based on their economic need, though it was not immediately clear how that would work.

“We hope a differential will be an incentive to do the recruitment, hiring, and construction needed to fulfill the law,” Mulgrew said.

An Education Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the incentives.

The legislation extending the deadlines to comply with the class size law was initially expected to be folded into the state budget, which was finalized last week nearly two months past the April 1 deadline, but negotiations dragged on. The legislative session ends Thursday.

Calls for transparency on city’s class size plan

Research suggests smaller class sizes tend to boost student learning and are broadly popular with families and educators. But the law would benefit relatively more affluent schools the most because they tend to be more crowded, multiple analyses have found, sparking concern from the state’s education commissioner.

City officials have argued that reaching 80% compliance this fall would have been difficult without a major influx of funding. They also expressed doubt about whether the city could recruit thousands of additional teachers.

In Mamdani’s February preliminary budget, he earmarked $547 million in new spending to lower class sizes, and officials had previously indicated they would need to hire 6,000 additional teachers. But anticipating a rollback to the class size law, Mamdani’s executive budget plan released this month included just $122 million to hire 1,000 teachers.

The mayor’s budget proposal also added $1.5 billion in capital funding, as many schools need additional space in their current buildings to shrink classes.

The Education Department has so far avoided more contentious measures to reduce classes that could avoid costs associated with building new classrooms, such as capping enrollment at popular campuses and sending students to schools with empty seats or rethinking school zones.

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens lawmaker who championed the class size law and sponsored the changes to it, said he was open to giving the city more time to comply with the law if the Education Department came up with a clear plan. On Monday, Liu said in a statement he was satisfied the city had “clear and accountable teacher recruitment and classroom construction plans.”

But neither Liu nor the city’s Education Department provided copies of those plans, and some advocates for smaller classes demanded transparency.

“Let’s see the city’s class size plan to confirm it’s not all smoke and mirrors,” Leonie Haimson, the executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters, said in a statement. “At the very least, the Department of Education should have to present it before the [city] council votes on the education budget and the capital plan.” The city’s budget must be finalized by the end of the month.

Asked about the class size legislation, Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters it will give the city “more breathing room to roll out the cost of it,” according to a transcript.

“This was a budget issue that the city asked the teachers for relief from,” she said.

This story has been updated with additional details about pay bumps that were sent to union members Monday afternoon.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC promises new scorecards and more efficient routes for dysfunctional school bus system

2026-05-18T21:10:54+00:00

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New York City’s sprawling school bus system, notorious for no-show buses and hourslong routes, may soon get a software overhaul that has been in the works for years to make routes more efficient.

“We’re pressure testing it to release this September,” Kevin Moran, the deputy chancellor for school operations, told families of children with disabilities at a town hall meeting last month.

And beginning in June, the city plans to release “vendor scorecards” that rate bus companies on a slew of metrics, including driver safety and staffing levels.

Officials say they are finally following through on promises to modernize the bus system, which includes some 9,000 routes operated by about 52 different companies at a cost of more than $2 billion a year — nearly $13,800 per rider.

Any improvements would help some of the city’s most vulnerable students. Of the 145,000 students reliant on yellow bus service, roughly 43% are children with disabilities. When the system falters, students often miss out on instruction and may become chronically absent.

Even as some families are cautiously optimistic that the new administration is taking school bus problems seriously, they are also wary after years of promises that have yet to fully materialize.

“Do I believe this is moving somewhere different than what we’ve seen before? Yes,” said Christi Angel, president of the parent council for District 75, a network of public schools that serve students with more complex disabilities. On the other hand, she is skeptical changes will happen quickly. They are “a day late, a dollar short,” she said.

City officials are also considering a broader overhaul of school bus contracts, many of which have been in place for 46 years, which could help reshape the system. But rebidding the contracts is a complex process that will likely require approval from lawmakers in Albany.

Vendor scorecards could bring more accountability

The new scorecards will include data on crashes, school bus ages, driver staffing levels, breakdowns, and contract violations, such as drivers not logging onto an app that allows families to track the bus location. They will also have a separate safety score based on GPS data.

The scorecards will “actually hold our vendors accountable,” Moran said.

But the list provided by the Education Department does not mention one important metric: how often the buses drop students off at school on time.

NYCSBUS, a nonprofit school bus operator overseen by the city, publishes on-time performance data on its own website, raising questions about why that information won’t be disclosed for all bus companies.

The city already releases some statistics about school bus delays, but they are self-reported by the companies rather than tracked automatically with GPS systems. As a result, official figures may mask the extent of delays, a Gothamist investigation found.

On-time performance figures drawn from GPS data are in the works, officials said. They did not indicate when that would be available.

Carolyn Daly, a spokesperson for several bus companies, said they welcome the scorecards.

“Our contracts require accountability, and accountability is a good thing,” she said.

Sara Catalinotto, the executive director of the advocacy group Parents for Improving School Transportation, believes families will appreciate the data, but she wondered what happens next. Would the city shift more routes to companies that perform better or take action against others at the bottom?

“What are the consequences?” asked Catalinotto.

There are good reasons to wonder how aggressively the Education Department will act based on the scorecards’ information. An audit last year from former Comptroller Brad Lander found the city does not adequately oversee school bus vendors and has failed to collect tens of millions in possible fines when bus drivers did not log into the system that allows families to track their child’s bus.

“The Department of Education has not proactively or systematically used the data that’s available to hold school bus vendors accountable,” said Brooklyn City Council member Lincoln Restler, who recently introduced legislation to require the city to release more information about school bus service. “That needs to change.”

Education Department spokesperson Onika Richards argued the city has always held its bus vendors accountable, including issuing fines for various violations and issuing “corrective action plans” for companies that don’t measure up. That information, Richards indicated, will be included on the scorecard.

After delays, new routing software could finally be coming

The city currently uses two pieces of software to devise routes, one of which launched in 1994 and has not been supported by regular tech upgrades in more than a decade, the comptroller’s office found.

Now, city officials say they are planning to roll out long-delayed routing software from a company called Via Transportation, which has won about $50 million in contracts with the Education Department in recent years to help modernize the bus system’s technology. Officials said the routes should be shorter and more efficient. The comptroller’s report indicated that it should also be able to adapt in real time to traffic conditions.

Still, the city has promised new routing software through Via for years, only to face repeated delays.

Officials first said it would be implemented in 2021 and later rescheduled it for September 2025 citing the pandemic and other setbacks. Last year, the city put out a request for proposals for new vendors to provide the same technology but wound up sticking with Via.

“Since DOE did not hold Via Transportation accountable for implementing technology it was contracted and paid to do, DOE continues to rely on outdated and inefficient routing technology,” the comptroller found.

A spokesperson for the company did not respond to questions.The Education Department did not comment on why the routing software has not yet been implemented.

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Kamar Samuels’ cabinet: Your guide to the Education Department’s new leadership team

2026-03-05T19:54:48+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels announced his top deputies Thursday, replacing some of the system’s top leaders while keeping several others.

Of his 11 cabinet members, all have deep roots in the nation’s largest school system — and six are staying in the roles they assumed under the previous administration.

Samuels named Danielle Giunta as first deputy. She will helm his cabinet and oversee a slew of key areas, ranging from academics to district leadership, including managing two newly created roles of supervising superintendents. One will supervise elementary and middle school superintendents and another will oversee high schools and alternative program superintendents.

“I spent two decades of my career in roles across NYC public schools — from math teacher to principal to superintendent — and I’ve seen many iterations of our organizational chart, iterations that often lacked cohesion, efficiency, and clarity,” Samuels told a packed audience at the Education Department’s Lower Manhattan headquarters. “I needed to make some structural changes.”

The changes Samuels announced on Thursday do not completely overhaul the system’s leadership. Simone Hawkins, the deputy chancellor of early childhood education, will keep her position — a key post as Mayor Zohran Mamdani prioritizes universal child care and shoring up the prekindergarten system. Kenita Lloyd will stay in her role as chief of staff, which she held under former chancellors Melissa Aviles-Ramos and David Banks. She previously worked with Banks to support the Eagle Academy network of public schools, which he helped launch.

Lloyd compared herself to a professional basketball player changing teams.

“The coaching philosophy shifts, culture evolves, and expectations have risen, yet the responsibility remains the same,” she said. “Elevate performance, protect the star, and help the team win.”

It remains to be seen whether Samuels will make other structural changes.

Former Chancellor Richard Carranza added a new layer of executive superintendents. Banks scrapped those positions and required all of the city’s local superintendents to reapply for their jobs.

Here are the new faces in Samuels’ cabinet.

First Deputy Chancellor: Danielle Giunta

As first deputy, Giunta will oversee district planning, enrollment, new school development, and policy as well as academics and instruction, with the two supervising superintendents, one for elementary and middle school, and the other for high school and alternative programs, reporting directly to her.

Giunta most recently served as the chief of school leadership development, tapped by Banks to fill that new role. Prior to that she spent about a decade as the superintendent of District 26, a high-performing and affluent part of Queens that includes Bayside, Douglaston, and Little Neck. She was a principal at P.S. 154 in Flushing.

Supervising Superintendent of Elementary and Middle Schools: Maribel Torres-Hulla

Supervising Superintendent of High Schools and D79: Alan Cheng

In these newly created roles, Torres-Hulla and Cheng will oversee the implementation of the city’s curriculum mandates, NYC Reads for literacy and NYC Solves for math. They will oversee work around career readiness and apprenticeship programs. And as the state is changing graduation requirements, the high school supervising superintendent will have a massive job helping schools figure out how to shift their practices.

Torres-Hulla, born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn, rose through the ranks from elementary school teacher to literacy coach, assistant principal, principal, deputy superintendent, and superintendent of the Bronx’s District 10. Most recently, she served as chief of school support, working with superintendents of 18 local school districts across Brooklyn and the Bronx to help them align instruction with citywide initiatives.

Cheng’s career has had a similar trajectory, starting as a math teacher and working his way up as a principal, deputy superintendent, and superintendent. He most recently has served as the superintendent for Outward Bound schools and international schools — serving newcomer immigrants — as well as New York Performance Standards Consortium schools, which require students to do performance-based assessments, such as capstone projects or other presentations rather than Regents exit exams. Consortium schools could potentially serve as a model as the state overhauls graduation requirements.

Former Deputy Chancellor for School Leadership Danika Rux previously oversaw all superintendents; she will no longer have a cabinet position and will advise the office of the general counsel. Samuels, who previously served two tours as local superintendent in Manhattan and Brooklyn, said the new roles are meant to help support superintendents as they navigate reading and math curriculum overhauls and implement a new set of graduation standards in the coming years.

Deputy Chancellor of the Division of Family Partnership & Community Support: Flavia Puello-Perdomo

Attendance, students in temporary housing and foster care, language access, school wellness and counseling programs, and community schools providing wraparound support will be among the areas that Puello-Perdomo will oversee. She will also be in charge of Family and Community Empowerment, or FACE, the office that supports parent leaders on parent-teacher associations, school leadership teams, and Community Education Councils — along with running the elections for these councils, which have been plagued by low turnout.

Puello-Perdomo most recently served as the chief of schools for the office of community supports and wellness where she worked across agencies to support community school programs, students in temporary housing and foster care, after-school, and summer programs. She also focused on attendance initiatives.

Deputy Chancellor of the Division of Finance, Administration, & Human Resources: Michael Cheatham will serve as acting deputy chancellor until June, when Lindsey Oates takes over

This role will be responsible for administrative services, finance, human resources, and procurement.

Cheatham previously served as a senior advisor to the chancellor and chief financial officer and as senior executive director and acting chief of finance and human resources for the Division of School Leadership. He’s currently also the Education Department’s interim chief savings officer, a role Mamdani established to find cost-efficiency strategies.

Oates previously served as the Education Department’s chief financial officer during the de Blasio administration. She’s currently the interim chief financial officer at the Legal Aid Society.

Here’s who is returning to their former post.

Chief of Staff Kenita Lloyd. Lloyd joined the Education Department as a deputy chancellor of family engagement under Banks. She was elevated to the chief of staff role in 2024, and Samuels is keeping her in that role.

Deputy Chancellor of the Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning Christina Foti. The division oversees special education, multilingual learners, and District 75, a network of schools that serve students with more significant disabilities.

Deputy Chancellor of the Division of Early Childhood Education Simone Hawkins

Deputy Chancellor of the Division of School Operations Kevin Moran

Chief of Safety and Prevention Partnerships Mark Rampersant

Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel Liz Vladeck

Correction, March 5, 2026: Alan Cheng most recently oversaw Outward Bound schools, the Internationals School Network, and consortium schools.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Kamar Samuels to unveil new Education Department cabinet as old deputies exit

2026-03-05T02:17:12+00:00

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After two months helming New York City schools, Kamar Samuels is expected to announce his cabinet members on Thursday as top Education Department officials say their goodbyes.

Acting First Deputy Chancellor Isabel DiMola, the school system’s second in command, announced plans to retire in a Wednesday evening letter to staff. She was tapped to fill the role by former Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos after a previous top deputy, Dan Weisberg, stepped down.

Also leaving her post: Deputy Chancellor for School Leadership Danika Rux, who supervises 44 superintendents charged with directly managing principals. Rux oversaw the system’s reading and math curriculum overhauls, a major priority under former Mayor Eric Adams.

In a Wednesday letter announcing plans to step down, Rux said she is “excited to see Samuels deepen the work and build his team.” Samuels has previously said he plans to keep the literacy mandate changes in place but has suggested there could be tweaks to the math program.

Cristina Meléndez, the deputy chancellor of family, community, and student empowerment, had previously announced her departure.

The flurry of staff changes is not surprising, as Samuels is expected to assemble his own cabinet to replace the one he inherited from the prior administration. Any new appointees will play an important role implementing Samuels’ priorities. The new administration’s vision for the larger system remains a question mark, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said little about his plans for the city schools.

In a message to principals, Samuels wrote that he is making an announcement Thursday about the system’s “organizational structure” and planned to convene school leaders shortly after the official announcement.

In her letter to school staffers, DiMola reminisced about her 30 years in education. She started at the age of 22 teaching social studies at Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island, Brooklyn, working her way through the ranks as an assistant principal, principal, and superintendent. For 16 years, she served as the superintendent of Brooklyn’s District 21, the same district where she attended public schools growing up.

Rux also began her education career 30 years ago, starting as a teacher and working her way up from a school leader to superintendent.

“Each step along this path has strengthened my belief that leadership in education is ultimately about people,” she wrote in her farewell to staffers. “It is about the relationships we cultivate, the trust we build, and the collective responsibility we carry for the success of every student in our care.”

Rux is leaving her post as a deputy chancellor to become a senior advisor to the Education Department’s Office of the General Counsel, she wrote.

Former Chancellor Aviles-Ramos announced a new job of her own this week. She has a senior role at HMH, a curriculum company with strong ties to the school system, a move that has raised eyebrows.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Former Chancellor Aviles-Ramos takes job at firm with ties to NYC schools: ‘It should raise eyebrows’

2026-03-03T20:52:53+00:00

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Former New York City schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos has accepted a senior role at HMH, a major education company at the center of the city’s reading curriculum overhaul.

Aviles-Ramos started at the company on Monday as a senior advisor with the title “executive in residence for innovation and analytics,” company officials said.

“In my new role at HMH, I will spend time engaging with leaders in large districts across the country, listening to their experiences and learning from their challenges to inform how HMH supports districts at scale,” Aviles-Ramos wrote in a statement. “My role will be advisory, forward-looking, and focused on developing insights on best practices for impact and implementation.” Her new job was first reported by the Daily News.

The former schools chief’s decision to work for a firm with millions of dollars in business with the city’s public school system swiftly drew strong reactions from parents, teachers, and experts.

“They’re a provider for one of the most widely used reading curricula in the City of New York,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College. “At the very least, I think it should raise eyebrows.”

HMH, formerly known as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, gained traction in New York City under former Mayor Eric Adams’ signature initiative to standardize elementary school reading curriculums. Although city officials approved three reading programs, HMH is required in 22 of the city’s 32 local districts — owing in part to a savvy marketing strategy that allowed schools to use some materials at no charge during the pandemic, giving the company a strong foothold.

Aviles-Ramos was not chancellor when that program launched, but she became responsible for supervising the effort when she took the helm in October 2024. The school’s chief hoped to stay on the job, but was passed over by Mayor Zohran Mamdani in favor of Kamar Samuels.

HMH, which is organized as an anthology-style textbook packed with passages specifically designed to teach reading skills, has drawn mixed reactions from parents and educators. Some contend that it relies too heavily on excerpts rather than full books and is not culturally responsive. The company disputes both claims. As the city has expanded the curriculum mandate to middle schools while Aviles-Ramos was chancellor, local superintendents largely steered clear of HMH.

The company did more than $40 million in business with the Education Department last year, according to records maintained by the comptroller’s office, and the city has paid HMH over $28 million so far this fiscal year.

Under city law, Aviles-Ramos may not work with the city’s Education Department on behalf of HMH for two years. The law also prohibits her from seeking or negotiating the terms of the job while she was working for the Education Department.

Aviles-Ramos, who declined an interview request through an HMH spokesperson, said in a statement that she will not work with the city’s public schools “in any capacity” and sought out guidance from the Education Department’s ethics office as well as the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board.

“I value this guidance and will continue to abide by all ethical requirements,” she wrote.

Aviles-Ramos is not the first chancellor to decamp to the private sector. Former Chancellor Joel Klein accepted a job running Amplify, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, and later served on the board of Juul, an e-cigarette company. And Richard Carranza, who served as schools chief under Mayor Bill de Blasio, joined IXL, an education technology company.

Other schools chiefs have stayed in the public or not-for-profit realms. Dennis Walcott, who was chancellor under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, leads the Queens Public Library system.

“That kind of movement to the private sector is really not unusual,” said Tom Liam Lynch, a former Education Department administrator during the Bloomberg administration who now runs an organization focused on teacher training in New York City.

Lynch said Aviles-Ramos’ experience at all levels of the system — as a parent, teacher, principal, and school system leader — could be an asset in improving their curriculum offerings and help strengthen implementation in big school systems.

“She’s a razor sharp educator,” he said. “I would trust her to navigate the ethics involved.”

Others accused Aviles-Ramos of profiting from her position leading the nation’s largest school system.

“This, to me, is evidence and an example of the corruption that we all expect is there,” said Alina Lewis, a parent at the Brooklyn School of Inquiry who has criticized HMH and pushed the city to give the school an exemption from using the curriculum.

“They’re paying her for the contacts and influence she has at DOE,” she said.

Some teachers took to social media to vent. “We are so tired of this,” one educator wrote on X. “HMH took away the READING OF WHOLE BOOKS.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Deputy chancellor for family engagement is stepping down. Will a broader reshuffle follow?

2026-02-18T21:48:16+00:00

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As New York City school insiders eagerly await to see how the new chancellor reshuffles top brass, the Education Department has its first high-profile departure.

Cristina Meléndez, the deputy chancellor of family, community, and student empowerment, is leaving her post on Feb. 27, she wrote in an email to parent leaders on Wednesday, thanking them for their work.

“The most important thing you can do is stay engaged in your schools and keep building your child’s confidence day by day, conversation by conversation, and moment by moment,” she wrote. “That steady belief you offer your child becomes their strength.”

She did not say where she planned to head next. Education Department officials did not respond to questions about her replacement or whether the departure is related to a broader cabinet shakeup.

“We look forward to sharing more soon,” Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said in a statement commending Meléndez for her service.

Meléndez assumed her role as deputy chancellor more than a year ago, after serving as the executive director of the Education Department’s Office of Family and Community Empowerment, known as FACE, which among other things, oversees the Community Education Council elections.

The elections have had notoriously low turnout, with roughly 18,000 households, or just 2% of eligible families, casting ballots in 2025. A 2023 Chalkbeat investigation highlighted numerous concerns in how FACE conducted the election process, uncovering how the office was gripped internally by turmoil and factions, potentially affecting the election process. A New York City comptroller report called on the Education Department to implement a series of changes in the voting process, but the participation rate remained unchanged.

“It’s indefensible what happened with the election,” said Robert Murtfeld, a former Community Education Council member in Manhattan’s District 1, who runs an advocacy committee at The Neighborhood School.

Given Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to include families in governance of the nation’s largest school system, Murtfeld suggested there’s an opportunity to find someone who can engage not only the estimated 1.6 million current parents in the system but also include millions more alumni.

“It needs to be someone who is inspiring,” he said. “It can’t be a bureaucratic robot.”

Meléndez took over at FACE in January 2022 after serving as a lead on the education transition team for former Mayor Eric Adams.

A former bilingual education teacher in the Bronx and assistant principal, Meléndez earned a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania in educational leadership. While there, she wrote a thesis entitled “Dominican parenting across generations” and examined difficulties the city had engaging Black and Latino parents.

Before that, Meléndez served as a district supervisor for the city’s controversial renewal initiative aimed to turn around failing schools, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC might miss class size targets, education leaders say

2026-01-30T00:22:28+00:00

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Top state and city education leaders raised serious doubts about whether New York City schools will be able to meet the mandates requiring them to reduce class sizes.

New York State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa and New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels testified Thursday at a hearing held by state legislators in response to the executive budget Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed last week.

Both officials said that the city would need a significant increase in funds, building space, and teachers to meet targets in a state law that requires schools to limit classes to between 20 and 25 students, depending on the grade. The law mandates that 80% of classes meet the limit next school year. State officials can withhold funding if the city’s Education Department fails to comply with the law.

The class size law, which was enacted in 2022 with a five-year implementation plan, requires city schools to ensure that the number of classrooms meeting the mandate increases by 20% each year.

New York City met this year’s target of 60% compliance, but only after declaring thousands of classes exempt from the cap, a Chalkbeat analysis found. The city spent approximately $450 million on a teacher hiring spree this fall to help meet that target.

“We are going to have a major difficulty getting to 80%,” Rosa said.

The city would need $602 million annually to hire 6,000 additional teachers on top of its standard annual hiring needs, Samuels told legislators. Even with that funding, there are not enough teachers in the workforce pipeline to meet the mandate and achieve the state’s class size goals, he added.

In addition to hiring more teachers, officials previously projected that the city would need to spend up to $18 billion on construction to create space for additional classrooms.

Samuels told legislators the city was looking for ways to better utilize existing school space, including by merging schools that have underutilized space with those that are overcrowded. The chancellor also said that of the city schools that don’t have enough space to meet the mandates, 25% need just one to four additional classrooms. So there may be solutions that don’t require new construction.

In response to legislators’ questions, Rosa repeated her previous concerns about the class size law’s unintended negative consequences for high-poverty schools. A 2023 Chalkbeat analysis found that because poorer schools already have smaller class sizes, they stand to benefit least from the cap. When there are hiring sprees, high-needs schools are also at risk of losing teachers to schools with more resources.

If new construction is targeted in neighborhoods with the highest enrollment, lower-income districts could lose out, Rosa said.

Beyond the class size cap hurdles, Rosa and Samuels also raised concerns about the state’s Foundation Aid formula, which accounts for the majority of education spending. Because of changes made to the formula last year, New York City lost out on $314 million it would have received without the changes, Samuels said. Barring legislation that would tweak the formula again, the city will take a similar hit this year.

Samuels called on the state to adjust the formula to provide additional funds for students in temporary housing, English language learners, and students with disabilities, as well as better accounting for the higher cost of doing business in expensive districts like New York City.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Dinowitz is City Council’s new education chair. Here’s what he wants to prioritize.

2026-01-28T21:39:07+00:00

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The nation’s largest school system is now under new oversight.

City Council member Eric Dinowitz, whose district spans the northwest Bronx, was recently tapped to chair the council’s education committee. He’s taking over from Rita Joseph, who held the post over the last four years. Joseph will now helm the council’s higher education committee, the post Dinowitz previously held.

Among the committee chair’s most significant powers is to convene oversight hearings that require top Education Department officials to publicly testify on crucial issues facing the city’s schools. Past hearings have drawn attention to flaws with the special education system, school segregation, and a botched attempt to pivot to remote learning during a snowstorm.

Dinowitz’s first oversight hearing next month will focus on mayoral control of the city’s schools, a governance system Mayor Zohran Mamdani criticized during the campaign, but now says he wants to keep.

The new committee chair’s ties to city schools run deep — “K through career” — Dinowitz recently quipped. He grew up attending public schools in the Bronx and graduated from Bronx Science, one of the city’s vaunted specialized high schools. He taught in the public school system for more than 13 years before running for City Council in 2021, following in the footsteps of his father who represents the Bronx in the state assembly.

We caught up with Dinowitz about his experience with the city’s schools, his assessment of the system, and what issues he wants to prioritize. Here are six takeaways from that conversation.

He got his start teaching students with disabilities

Dinowitz launched his career in education through the city’s Teaching Fellows program, a fast track into the classroom for career changers and recent college graduates. The experience was overwhelming. But he wound up in a classroom that included a mix of students with disabilities and general education students, which meant he had a co-teacher to learn from.

“You’re thrown right in,” he said. “I got to experience teaching with another teacher, seeing what they did, what worked, what didn’t work.”

He mostly taught at schools in his home borough, including Bronx Theatre High School, Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music, and then briefly at NEST+M, a Manhattan gifted and talented program.

Special education is a perennial focus of the education committee, and Dinowitz indicated he will prioritize it, too. He pointed to the city’s growing costs for special education placements in private schools, the need to better integrate students with disabilities with general education peers, and ensuring student learning plans, known as individualized education programs, or IEPs, reflect the help students actually need rather than being a compliance exercise.

Phaseout of Regents exams is top of mind

The requirement that students must pass Regents exams — standardized tests that students must pass to graduate — has created perverse incentives, Dinowitz contends.

“If a superintendent comes in and says, ‘We’re going to strictly look at your Regents scores and your credit accrual,’ you’re incentivizing principals to take money out of things like the arts,” he said.

Officials are in the process of phasing out Regents exams, and Dinowitz said he will be watching closely as city and state leaders think through new graduation standards and how they will affect teaching and learning.

“We have to make sure that the assessments measure what we want the kids to do and who we want them to be,” he said.

Small schools should be merged

As enrollment declines have accelerated since the pandemic, the city is facing a glut of small schools that are expensive to run and often struggle to offer a full range of programs.

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has indicated mergers may be necessary to tackle the problem, moves that often generate fierce pushback. Dinowitz said he agrees with Samuels, noting some small schools can’t support specialized programs for students with disabilities — or electives that draw in students.

“There typically isn’t critical mass for a lot of those programs,” he said. “I do believe mergers should be on the table.” He noted those decisions should be made carefully with opportunity for community input.

Looking for a clearer vision from City Hall

Mamdani said little about how to improve the city’s public school system on the campaign trail — and Dinowitz said he’s looking for a larger vision.

“We need to be talking a lot more about education,” he said. “It sounds like Mayor Mamdani is still formulating exactly what he wants to do.”

Open to school integration efforts — but don’t touch the SHSAT

Mamdani and Samuels have indicated that they want to pursue school integration efforts, which former Mayor Eric Adams largely ignored, though they have said little about their plans.

On the campaign trail, Mamdani suggested he was open to rethinking admissions to eight specialized high schools that admit students based on a single test and enroll few Black and Latino applicants. He wound up reversing that position, saying the exam should stay.

“I’m glad he backed away from that,” said Dinowitz, who, along with Mamdani, attended Bronx Science.

Still, Dinowitz said he is open to other modes of school integration such as rezonings or merging schools with different racial demographics, something Samuels pursued as a superintendent in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Dinowitz emphasized any changes should include community input.

“People who are going to be affected by policy need to have a seat at the table,” he said.

Creative solutions to class size mandate

One of the biggest challenges facing the Education Department is a state mandate to slash class sizes, which will require hiring thousands of new teachers and cost billions of dollars.

The state should pony up more funding to fulfill that requirement, Dinowitz said. He also encouraged the city to pursue creative solutions like staggering school schedules on campuses that have limited space to shrink classes and avoid capping enrollment.

“I’m not sure there’s any single variable more impactful to student learning than class size,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani must work with Eric Adams’ school board, at least for now

2026-01-27T23:37:47+00:00

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A day before taking office, Zohran Mamdani said he wanted to retain sweeping power over New York City’s public schools, abandoning a major promise while campaigning for mayor.

But Mamdani will have to wait at least six months before he gains one of the biggest powers under mayoral control: appointing the majority of the school board. That body, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, votes on major Education Department contracts, changes to agency regulations, and school mergers and closures.

Of the panel’s 24 members, 13 are mayoral appointees. Under tweaks to state law shortly after Mayor Eric Adams took office, panel members serve one-year terms that run through June — meaning for the next six months, Mamdani is mostly stuck with his predecessor’s appointees. He’s the first mayor since the city transitioned to mayoral control in 2002 who cannot immediately appoint the majority of the board.

That sets up an unusual dynamic, as Mamdani must navigate a school board that he does not control. Meanwhile, he’s continuing to get pressure to give up major elements of mayoral control. A group of 43 advocacy organizations called on state lawmakers Tuesday to phase out the mayor’s majority on the board after two years while a commission rethinks the governance system.

“In some ways it’s a good test in terms of what it would look like to have a more independent board,” said Greg Faulkner, the current board chair who was selected by Adams from a list created by state lawmakers and is serving on a term that runs until September. “We want to work cooperatively.”

Experts and Education Department insiders largely agree that the board is unlikely to be a major obstacle to Mamdani until he can choose a full slate of appointees. Adams left behind two vacant mayoral seats, which Mamdani can fill anytime. (Aside from the mayoral appointees, five members are selected by parent leaders and each of the five borough presidents appoint a board member to represent them.)

“There’s a lot of goodwill towards the mayor that could tamp down efforts of the panel to go rogue,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College who has studied the city’s public schools. “I’m not expecting there to be a lot of conflict around the mayor’s priorities,” he added, “not least because we don’t have much of a sense of the mayor’s priorities.”

Still, the board has sometimes thrown curveballs at new mayors. Just a few months after Adams took office, the board voted down the city’s school funding formula, creating pressure for the administration to make tweaks later on.

In recent months, the board repeatedly bucked City Hall, voting down millions worth of AI contracts, refusing to approve long-term extensions of school bus contracts, and raising concerns about administrative spending. Kiddom, a company that offers a digital platform for teachers to access curriculum materials and had been previously voted down, is back on the board’s agenda for a vote on Wednesday evening — the first panel meeting under Mamdani.

Kamar Samuels, Mamdani’s schools chancellor, has signaled interest in merging schools to address the growing number of small campuses and to promote integration. Those proposals, which often generate pushback from families and educators, are subject to board approval — though observers said it’s unlikely the new administration will propose many of them right away.

Still, one contentious plan to relocate an Upper West Side campus while eliminating the middle school grades of another Manhattan school is already in the works. Samuels helped launch conversations about that plan in his previous role as the superintendent of District 3, though it has not been formally proposed for a vote.

Mayoral control debate isn’t going anywhere

Questions about how the nation’s largest school system should be governed will be front and center in the coming months.

Mamdani must negotiate with state lawmakers over extending mayoral control, which is set to expire at the end of June. Gov. Kathy Hochul gave Mamdani’s effort a boost last week by proposing a four-year extension of the power.

The new mayor is also under scrutiny from advocates and progressive groups, dozens of whom are pressuring him to make good on his promise to make the system more responsive to students, parents, and teachers. Their Tuesday letter urged Mamdani to create a commission to help think through how to make the school system more democratic.

“Mayor Mamdani must partner with communities to build a governance model with meaningful checks and balances and far greater community leadership,” the letter states.

City Hall did not reply to questions about whether Mamdani is open to changes to the school’s board’s structure or when he plans to fill the remaining vacancies on the board. A Mamdani spokesperson, Jenna Lyle emphasized that the mayor is committed to “clear accountability and genuine community empowerment.”

“Building thoughtful and productive relationships with current and future Panel for Educational Policy members will be a priority,” she added.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mayoral control, school funding boost, and 2-care: What to know about Hochul’s budget proposal

2026-01-20T22:52:03+00:00

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Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed to extend mayoral control of New York City’s public school system, boost funding for public schools across the state, and pay for child care for 2-year-olds in the five boroughs — a major campaign promise of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Those proposals came as part of Hochul’s executive budget plan on Tuesday, which drew some criticism from school funding advocates who raised fresh concerns that the state’s main funding formula is shortchanging New York City.

The governor acknowledged the challenges confronting the state in the face of significant cuts from the federal government and pledged her budget would be responsible but not “austere.” Overall, public schools across the state would get about $39.3 billion of the proposed $260 billion budget. The governor plans to increase school funding by $1.6 billion, or 4.3%.

“This budget invests in the next generation with nearly $40 billion in school aid, and we’re continuing to ensure that high need districts are funded appropriately,” Hochul said during her Tuesday budget address.

The governor’s proposal kicks off negotiations with lawmakers about how the state will allocate its budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in April.

Mamdani said in a statement that the governor’s proposal “makes meaningful investments that move us closer to an affordable and livable New York — especially through critical advancements in early childhood education.”

And while he noted that the state may be on “solid financial footing,” the city is not, he said, pointing a finger at his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams. Mamdani is expected to release the city’s executive budget in April.

Here’s what you should know about the governor’s budget proposal and the reaction to it.

New York City schools stand to get more money, but no big changes to ‘sorely outdated’ formula

The Foundation Aid formula, which represents the bulk of state education spending, would send $15.1 billion to New York City under the governor’s plan. That’s 2.5% more than last year — or about $371 million — according to state budget documents.

The formula is designed to funnel more money to high-need districts, and Hochul tweaked it last year by updating a metric for student poverty. As a result of the governor’s changes, New York City schools last year received $314 million less than they would have under the original formula.

Experts, advocates, and state lawmakers are pushing for further changes to the two-decade-old formula to account for differences in costs like salaries in different parts of the state and adding additional weights for homeless students and those in foster care.

The formula “relies on outdated and incomplete measures of student need, and has not evolved to reflect rising costs, particularly in large urban districts,” the Coalition for Equitable Education Funding, a constellation of more than 100 education groups, wrote in a statement. “We are concerned that the budget proposal released today fails to address these shortcomings.”

A Hochul spokesperson noted that funding for the city’s schools has increased on the governor’s watch and blamed some of the funding fluctuations on enrollment declines.

Expanding access to child care

As the governor has pledged in recent months, her budget plan includes a push to significantly expand access to free and affordable child care and early education. Hochul proposed to increase state child care spending by $1.7 billion, bringing the total to $4.5 billion.

That spending would include $73 million this year for New York City to roll out a new 2-Care program, with a commitment to invest $500 million over two years. 2-Care is expected to create 2,000 new child care seats for 2-year-olds in high-need areas of the city in the fall, and then grow to 8,000 seats next year. Mamdani said he will make the program available to all of the city’s 2-year-olds by the end of his first term.

However, many early childhood teachers and advocates say that the expansion will fail unless the city fixes problems in its existing early education system. Currently, large disparities in teacher pay make it difficult for community-based child care centers to hire and keep staff, and there is a severe shortage of seats for kids with developmental delays and disabilities.

Both Hochul and Mamdani have promised to make programs available to students with disabilities, “but past expansions of early childhood education have shown that good intentions are no guarantee of equity,” wrote Maria Odom, the executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, in a statement.

“3-K is not ‘for all’ if three-year-olds with autism are sitting at home because there are no classes that can meet their needs,” Odom continued.

Statewide, Hochul has said she wants to make Pre-K available to every 4-year-old in the state by the 2028-29 school year. To that end, her budget proposes increasing per-seat funding to a minimum of $10,000 this year.

The executive budget also proposes a 40% increase to funding for child care vouchers, which are available to families below earning 85%of the state median income. Total funding this year would come to $3 billion.

A 4-year extension of mayoral control

Hochul is pushing for a four-year extension of mayoral control, which would give Mamdani authority over the nation’s largest school system for his entire first term, Blake Washington, the governor’s budget director, told reporters in a Tuesday briefing.

In 2024, Hochul proposed a four-year extension of mayoral control, which grants the mayor power to appoint a majority of the city’s school board, appoint the schools chancellor, and generally set the district’s policy direction. The final budget included a two-year extension.

Mamdani campaigned on ending mayoral control to give families and educators more of a say over the education system, but he recently reversed course. He must now persuade lawmakers in Albany to extend that power to him.

Overhauling math, training teachers, and tutoring students

The budget proposal includes $4 million to train teachers in evidence-based math instruction and support districts that perform poorly in math — both part of Hochul’s initiative to get “back to basics” in math instruction — and $9 million to support individualized tutoring in high-need schools.

In an effort to recruit and retain teachers, Hochul also proposed $2 million for an accelerated teacher preparation program and $2 million for high school students interested in entering the teaching profession to earn college credit in relevant subjects.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail atakramer@chalkbeat.org.

Q&A with Emmy Liss: NYC’s new head of child care shares her vision for the city’s youngest kids

2026-01-16T18:15:16+00:00

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When Emmy Liss publicly accepted her appointment as head of the Office of Child Care at the New York City Mayor’s Office, she acknowledged the people taking care of her own kids. “I would not be standing here today without the caregivers and educators in my children’s lives,” she said.

In addition to her experience as a user of child care in New York City, Liss brings a long history in child care policy and strategy. As the chief operating officer for the city’s early childhood education program under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Liss was central to the rollout of universal prekindergarten.

Now, she’ll oversee another expansion of New York’s sprawling, unwieldy system of day cares, child care centers and pre-K programs. The job comes with major challenges. While Gov. Kathy Hochul promised to pay for the first two years of a new child care initiative for 2-year-olds, many of the city’s current child care providers are struggling to stay afloat. Low salaries, high staff turnover and onerous regulations hobble programs’ ability to accept kids, even as families clamor for seats. Meanwhile, hundreds of kids with disabilities sit on waitlists for preschool classrooms that can meet their needs.

In an interview with Chalkbeat, Liss discussed the new administration’s vision for free, universal child care.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What has your experience been with child care in New York City?

I think about this every day, that without all of the caregivers in my children’s lives, I literally would not be sitting here doing this work. My own children have been cared for in multiple different settings, including now in a public pre-K program. I am so grateful for the caregivers and educators who have cared for them, looking out for their development and supporting their growth.

I want that for every parent in New York City – to know that their children are safe, that their children are learning, that their children are being recognized for the wonderful, tiny, hilarious little people that they are. And then be able to enjoy time with their families because they will not be going into debt to pay for that care.

You were very involved in the rollout of Universal Pre-K, which, while vastly increasing access to early education, has also been criticized for destabilizing community-based providers and for leaving out kids with disabilities. What do you see as the most important lessons from that rollout?

I think one of the most important lessons to take from [pre-K] is its universality. There are families, and particularly children with disabilities, whose needs were not fully met in the initial rollout and we still need to do important work there. But in starting with the premise of a universal program, we built the support from families and communities and the expectation that this would be there for them, and then we rallied all of government around delivering it. That’s a really important lesson as we think about what it will take to marshal the resources to deliver on universal child care.

We also recognize that we cannot build a universal child care system without community-based and home-based child care providers, and that not all providers had their needs met in the initial rollout of 3-K and pre-K. We want to work closely in partnership with them in this next phase of work, because we cannot do this work without them.

We’re still working through the policy details but we really want to make our commitment clear: that this program and our commitment is to all children.

What is the role of family child care providers in this expansion?

When we think about where families are choosing to send their children for care, for so many families that choice is family child care. These are providers who are important pillars of their community. As we think about expanding the system, we plan to really engage with and listen to providers about what they need in order to be successful in a program like this.

What can the city do to address salary disparities between teachers in public schools and teachers in community-based child care programs?

That’s something we’re going to be looking at closely, in collaboration with our partners in labor and others. If we want our child care providers to be able to expand and to serve more children, they need a workforce, and that workforce needs to be respected and well paid.

Finding space for new programs is clearly a challenge. How will you approach that?

We’re going to start by looking comprehensively, neighborhood by neighborhood, at what our supply looks like and what we anticipate the demand is. Where we see unmet demand for child care services, we will work across all of the city agencies that touch physical space to think about [how we can] use existing space and create new space.

How do you think about ensuring program quality, especially with such a large number of small-scale providers? Is there a tension between ensuring quality and allowing programs to be culturally responsive and flexible to meet kids’ interests?

It is absolutely possible to have a system that promotes and ensures quality, and that includes programs that are culturally responsive. Not all programs will look exactly the same. There is often a narrative that you have to choose [between] access or quality, and I disagree.

The way that we rolled out Pre-K for All is a good case study. When you look at the data from that expansion, you see that at the same time that we were rapidly increasing access for families, we were also delivering results for children, as measured by nationally normed assessments. We saw that those classrooms and programs were high quality.

It requires being really thoughtful about how we use our resources and how we coach and support programs. But it’s a false choice to suggest that quality means uniformity, or that we can’t have programs that really meet the needs of each cultural community of the city.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Who is Kamar Samuels? Meet Zohran Mamdani’s schools chancellor.

2026-01-15T16:23:05+00:00

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Shortly after Mayor Zohran Mamdani tapped Kamar Samuels to run New York City’s public schools, the two visited a Brooklyn campus where they were swarmed by students jockeying for selfies.

Mamdani soon peeled away, but Samuels toured the school, Arts & Letters 305 United, where he ducked into a room of third graders and began counting students.

As a local superintendent overseeing dozens of campuses, first in Brooklyn and then in Manhattan, Samuels often informally surveyed classroom headcounts on his visits. He’d later check official registers to see how many students were missing that day, a key measure of whether students are engaged at school.

“I really don’t have to do this,” Samuels said with a laugh after leaving the room of 21 third graders. “It’s kind of like muscle memory.”

Mamdani told Chalkbeat he selected Samuels, 48, because of his granular knowledge of the city’s classrooms, learned during more than two decades as a teacher, principal, and superintendent. The mayor also cited Samuels’ track record of pursuing ambitious change.

In both of the racially diverse New York City local districts he oversaw, Samuels used school mergers to address declining enrollment and persistent segregation. He led a transition away from gifted programs, replacing them with International Baccalaureate offerings available to all students. And he helped guide a plan to diversify several Brooklyn middle schools by setting aside a portion of seats for low-income students.

Those moves sometimes generated pushback. But Education Department colleagues saw him as a leader who doesn’t shy away from thorny problems and crafts solutions based on input from schools and families. In nearly 20 interviews with educators, parents, and former and current city officials, Samuels was described as someone who builds deep community ties, listens to critics, and focuses on student outcomes.

“He has not been afraid to touch the third rail and have difficult conversations — be it around equity, low enrollment, the concept of rigor, and the disparities in test scores throughout our district,” said Jill Rackmill, co-president of the parent council in District 3 in Manhattan, which Samuels supervised as superintendent. “Ultimately, he makes the hard decisions and does the tough things.”

In his first week on the job, Samuels told principals that he will build on some of the prior administration’s biggest initiatives, including new career education programs and an overhaul of elementary school reading.

And the new schools chief has pointed to other big problems facing the system, including cratering enrollment and alarming rates of chronic absenteeism, in which 1 in 3 students now miss more than 10% of the school year. He recently gave the system’s overall performance a “C” grade.

Shael Polakow-Suransky, the president of the Bank Street College of Education and a former top Education Department official, said he believes Samuels is up to the challenge.

“He’s politically gifted in a way that’s similar to the mayor,” Polakow-Suransky said. “He’s someone who inspires people and really gets them excited about his vision and supporting change.”

Samuels’ built a reputation for listening early on

Samuels, who moved to New York from Jamaica at age 15, originally pursued a career in finance, landing an accounting job at the National Basketball Association. He hated it.

He saw a subway ad for the city’s Teaching Fellows Program, a fast-track initiative that funnels career-changers into city classrooms. Within a few months, he was teaching sixth grade math at P.S./M.S. 194 in the Bronx.

Over the next two decades, Samuels rose through the ranks at the Education Department, earning a reputation for his strong rapport with community members.

Page Best-Hardy, a retired family leadership coordinator in District 23, which includes Brownsville and Ocean Hill, recalled that when Samuels was a deputy superintendent there nearly a decade ago an attendee at a back-to-school event confronted him about the poor performance of local schools. Samuels wasn’t defensive and won over the crowd by saying he needed their help to improve student outcomes.

“He didn’t say things were all rosy,” Best-Hardy recounted. “They didn’t expect that.”

As the superintendent of District 13, which runs from Brooklyn Heights to Bedford-Stuyvesant, Samuels not only cared about getting to know nearly everyone at the schools he oversaw, but he also was laser-focused on assessment data, said Emily Paige, principal of The Urban Assembly Unison School in Clinton Hill.

During one visit to the school, when he had come to evaluate Paige, she found him in the cafeteria introducing himself to the kitchen staff and sampling the food. He also spent time with Paige reviewing students’ scores on citywide reading assessments.

Samuels took a look at a chart of test scores Paige had prepared and homed in on a single student. “‘What is that telling you about this one child? What does that score mean?’” Paige recalled Samuels asking her. The conversation prompted Paige to think more carefully about how teachers should use the assessment data to tweak their instruction for students who are behind in reading.

That was a “really important moment for us as a school,” Paige said.

Mergers have tested Samuels’ leadership

As superintendent of District 13 and District 3 in Manhattan — a diverse district that includes the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights, and parts of Harlem — Samuels became known for carefully crafting mergers.

In both districts, he combined schools with different demographic profiles to foster integration while addressing declining enrollment. The proposals sparked fraught conversations about school resources and race. But Samuels stuck to his plans, drawing on the relationships he had forged with community members.

In his first full week as chancellor, Samuels highlighted that record by hosting Mamdani at Arts & Letters 305 United in District 13. The school is the result of a merger between Arts & Letters, a more affluent and overenrolled Fort Greene school that served a disproportionate share of white students, and P.S. 305, an underenrolled majority-Black campus in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

“I see a model and an example for the rest of the city,” Samuels declared to a group of parent leaders, school staff, and elected officials.

Samuels told Chalkbeat that mergers may become increasingly necessary, as K-12 enrollment has plunged in recent years. About 793,000 students attend the city’s public schools this year according to preliminary figures, a loss of well over 100,000 children since 2020. As schools shrink, they often struggle to afford basic programs because funding is tied to headcount.

P.S. 305 had slipped below 100 students, making it a prime target. But the merger, finalized in 2020, was at times contentious. Several P.S. 305 families feared it was a takeover of their school. Meanwhile, some Arts & Letters families worried about moving to Bed-Stuy — concerns that had racial undertones connected to neighborhood crime and the school’s concentration of homeless students, according to a case study on the merger released by the city comptroller’s office.

Education Department officials involved in the process were impressed with how Samuels engaged the school communities to build support and diffuse conflict — a sharp contrast with many other consolidations.

“By the time we got to the vote, there was broad consensus,” said Karin Goldmark, a former deputy chancellor who led a public hearing with Samuels about the merger. “It’s a testament to the depth of engagement that he did.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels visit students and staff at Arts & Letters 305 United, a campus Samuels helped merge in 2020.

Samuels’ track record of building community support was likely a selling point for Mamdani. On the campaign trail, the mayor vowed to give educators and families more input in Education Department decisions, though he backtracked from a promise to end mayoral control of the system. Samuels’ experience shifting schools away from gifted programs also lines up with another Mamdani campaign pledge.

Still, not everyone has been impressed with Samuels’ approach to community engagement.

Morana Mesic, a former parent at West Side Collaborative, an Upper West Side middle school, was devastated when the school merged into Lafayette Academy in 2023 — a proposal from Samuels that drew considerable backlash in District 3.

“We will always consider it the closure of our school,” said Mesic, who was the PTA president at West Side Collaborative at the time. The merger disrupted her son’s education. Mesic declined to send him to the newly merged school and struggled to find a campus that was a good fit, ultimately transferring her son to two different middle schools.

Mesic felt some details were left out of initial conversations, including that the school would lose its longtime principal and parent coordinator. She acknowledged that Samuels set up many community meetings to hash out the details but they felt performative to her. “They put a lot of dates on the calendar so they could say to reporters and the media, ‘Look how much effort was put into the process,’” she said.

Still, Mesic is a fan of Mamdani and is willing to give Samuels time to prove himself as chancellor.

The new schools chief has wasted little time trying to earn that trust. His first order of business was to launch a whirlwind tour to visit schools in each of the city’s 45 districts during his first two months in office.

Many of those early visits have included informal roundtable discussions with students, parent leaders, staff, and local elected officials. At Arts & Letters, Samuels gave a short overview of his background and high-level priorities around rigor, safety, and integration before taking questions on the tiny number of school librarians and how he would support parent leaders.

Unlike some of his predecessors, Samuels has avoided making waves in his first days in office.

Before he lays out how he thinks the system should change, Samuels said he needs input. The goal isn’t to get everyone to like him, he said. It’s to generate buy-in for the solutions he ultimately proposes.

“It’s not just about, ‘Do parents like you?” Samuels said during his first meeting with the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council. “It’s about: What are we achieving when we work together? And are we solving the biggest problems together?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Hochul calls for math instruction overhaul in State of State address

2026-01-14T00:53:59+00:00

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to revamp the way the state’s schools teach math.

Hochul announced the plan in her annual State of the State address on Tuesday, along with several child care and education initiatives she has previewed over the past week. The governor’s broader agenda includes funding a new, free child care program for 2-year-olds in New York City; expanding pre-K and child care vouchers statewide; growing a mental health training program for high schoolers; bolstering the state’s teacher training pipeline; and building on free community college for adults who want to train for high-demand careers.

The governor’s office released few details about the plan to overhaul math, but in its 2026 State of the State Book outlining Hochul’s priorities for the year, state officials compared it to existing efforts to revamp literacy instruction. The governor has worked with teachers and school districts to adopt evidence-based “science of reading” practices that focus on phonics and explicit reading instruction, state officials wrote.

Similarly, Hochul said in her Tuesday speech that it is time to get “back to basics” in math. “My hope is for New York students to be the most academically prepared in the country,” Hochul said.

To that end, she will introduce legislation to require the State Education Department to provide school districts with best practices for teaching math and guidance on selecting math curriculums that align with state standards.

The state will also require the State University of New York and the City University of New York to offer extra training in evidence-based math instruction to teachers, especially in New York’s districts with the lowest math performance.

“With these proposals, New York parents can rest assured that there is no better place for their children to learn and thrive than here in our state,” Hochul said.

New York City is already several years into an experiment in mandating and standardizing school curriculums in the name of evidence-based teaching practices. Well before the state rolled out its curriculum recommendations, former Mayor Eric Adams introduced a teaching overhaul called NYC Reads, which required elementary schools to use one of three city-approved reading programs.

At the same time, under a math reform called NYC Solves, the city required high schools, and later some middle schools, to adopt a standardized curriculum for algebra.

Some educators and experts contended that it didn’t make sense to introduce a math overhaul in high school, when many students were already far behind and lacked the vocabulary or tools to follow what was being taught.

New York City’s new schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, seems to agree.

Math reform should start with elementary schools, he recently told CBS. “If we don’t do math well,” Samuels added, students won’t “be ready for the jobs that exist, much less the jobs that don’t.”

Samuels also argued for a balancing a “back-to-basics” approach to math that emphasizes memorization and math facts with a focus on creative problem-solving. Conceptual understanding is important, Samuels said, but parents “look back at me and say, ‘My kid is in fourth grade and doesn’t know the times tables.’”

“We think of [times tables] as an old thing, but we absolutely need to incorporate it so that our parents can believe in what we do again,” Samuels said.

The jury remains out on whether New York City’s curriculum mandates have improved performance. The Adams administration pointed to assessments they said were evidence of positive results, but education experts say it’s too soon to draw conclusions.

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org.

Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz seeks to transfer a NYC charter school to her husband

2026-01-13T00:55:50+00:00

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Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz, who runs New York City’s largest charter school network, wants to give up one of her schools.

Moskowitz has proposed turning over a school in the Bronx to her husband, Eric Grannis, who has long been involved in the charter sector.

The move was approved by the State University of New York, the charter’s authorizer, in October but has raised eyebrows among state officials, who questioned its legality.

With a strict cap on charter schools in New York City enshrined in state law, no new charters can be issued without action by lawmakers in Albany. Success submitted its proposal as a revision to an existing charter. But State Education Department staffers wrote in a January memo to the Board of Regents that such a move was a “circumvention of the cap.”

The Education Department recommended that the Board send the proposal back to SUNY without approving it.

At a public meeting Monday, the regents did just that. “I think the larger issue is that SUNY doesn’t have any accountability for this at all,” said member at large Brian Krist, of Manhattan. “This is a joke.”

The regents’ vote may be symbolic, however. The proposal will now go back to the SUNY Board of Trustees, who do not need regents’ approval to move forward. SUNY can send the transfer proposal back unchanged and, short of legal action, it will happen.

Under the proposal, Success Academy, which runs 59 schools in New York City, would transfer an elementary school in Mott Haven to a new entity called Strive Charter Network. Grannis, who has founded and sat on the boards of several charter schools as well as running a charter school incubator, would be the founding executive director.

Moskowitz is a fierce advocate for expanding the charter sector, often pointing to demand at her own schools. But enrollment at several charter networks, including Success Academy, has fallen in recent years, which may give the network room to transfer a charter without diminishing its own headcount. Moskowitz has also eyed expansions elsewhere and begun laying the groundwork to open schools in Florida.

Strive would receive a newly renovated school building and have access to Success Academy curriculum “at minimal ongoing costs,” according to a description of the school that Grannis circulated among charter supporters.

Both Grannis and Success Academy declined to comment on the record, referring Chalkbeat to SUNY.

Strive’s new model would add before-school, after-school, weekend, and summer programs that would result in the school being open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, all year round. The extra hours would be optional for students but could represent a major draw for families that need child care beyond the traditional school day.

More than half of the staff would consist of teaching assistants, including college students and community members, who would assist with reading, tutoring, and math support, and be able to enroll their own kids at the school. Strive also plans to use “AI tools to streamline operations, cut administrative costs, and eliminate much of the mid-level bureaucracy common in schools,” according to the description Grannis circulated.

The SUNY Trustees voted to approve the charter revision on Oct. 15. Combining Success Academy’s “highly effective academic program with an extended-day, year-round model” is “the type of innovation that SUNY seeks to cultivate,” wrote Mike Lesczinski, director of strategy and communications at the SUNY Charter School Institute, in an email to Chalkbeat.

In response to the Board of Regents decision, Lesczinski wrote, “We are aware of the Board of Regents’ action. SUNY will review it and consider the appropriate next steps.”

The New York City Charter School Center, an advocacy organization, defended Success Academy’s effort to hand off one of its schools.

The move “is entirely consistent with state law, and the Board of Regents should approve it,” James Merriman, the organization’s CEO, wrote in a statement.

“If we didn’t have nonsensical rules and caps preventing high-quality charter schools from opening and serving children,” he added, “we wouldn’t be wasting precious time with fights over technicalities that distract from the major issues impacting NYC students and families.”

Abigail Kramer is a reporter in New York City. Contact Abigail at akramer@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Exclusive: NYC schools chancellor Kamar Samuels on mergers, integration, and screened schools

2026-01-08T23:32:01+00:00

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On Kamar Samuels’ fourth school day as chancellor, he brought Mayor Zohran Mamdani to a Brooklyn school he views as a blueprint for tackling two major problems: segregation and sagging enrollment.

Samuels played a leading role merging two different school communities into Arts & Letters 305 United five years ago. The move combined P.S. 305, an underenrolled majority Black campus in Bedford-Stuyvesant, with Arts & Letters, a highly coveted more affluent school in Fort Greene serving one of the district’s largest shares of white students.

“I see a model and an example for the rest of the city,” Samuels told a group of parent leaders, educators, and elected officials, vowing not to “ugly cry” during Thursday’s visit. “It’s beyond what I had dreamt about.”

Deploying school mergers with an eye toward integration has been a hallmark of Samuels’ leadership. He used the strategy from his time overseeing schools in Brooklyn’s District 13 and brought it to his next role as superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3.

In an exclusive interview with Chalkbeat, Mamdani said he selected Samuels because of his deep knowledge of the city’s public schools and his track record taking on thorny problems.

“I told him that we needed a leader who was fluent in the system,” Mamdani said. “In him, I have seen someone who has been able to tackle the challenges that we have become used to as well as deliver the results that we haven’t always seen.”

Before the opening bell, Mamdani greeted dozens of families who circled him in the schoolyard. Some parents snapped selfies while students rushed into the scrum to shake the mayor’s hand. “Have a great day at school,” Mamdani scribbled in fifth grader Rafi’s notebook before offering his autograph. “Yo, I’m crashing out,” a student shouted after recognizing the new mayor.

After Samuels toured the school, Chalkbeat caught up with the schools chief to ask how he hopes to address school segregation, boost results for students who are struggling academically in the wake of the pandemic, and whether he agrees with the mayor’s assessment that charter schools siphon resources from district schools.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You moved here when you were 15 from Jamaica. I’m curious what your schooling was like both in Jamaica and when you moved here.

I started out in school in Jamaica — in a school that was one of the first schools that integrated physically disabled students with able-bodied students.

It was an experiment that they were doing in Jamaica. There was a lot of stigma associated with physically disabled students. And my parents signed up. They believed in having an inclusive environment. It was called The Hope Valley Experimental School.

And then after that, in Jamaica, you can take a test, or you could, at the time in fifth grade, it was called the common entrance test. And then you could go to what we call high school, which essentially is from seventh grade to 12th.

I went to this high school, Jamaica College, and then I ended up graduating high school in Jamaica when I was 15 and I moved here. It was too late to apply to college, and my mom was like, ‘You’re too young to do any of that.’ So for the first semester, she sent me to Evander Childs High School in the Bronx. I was there for probably a semester after which we applied to the CUNY system. Bronx Community College was close to me. So I went there for a little bit, and then I transferred to Baruch College. I graduated college when I was 20.

My mom said, ‘You are good at math, you should go do accounting.’ So I did accounting. I absolutely hated it. I hated it so much. I said to myself, ‘If I try to get a job in sports, just to be an accountant in sports.’ I worked for the National Basketball Association for a little bit, and I said, ‘If I can’t love accounting doing this, I’m never gonna love it.’

I had tutored students with disabilities at Bronx Community College, and I really liked the connection [we had]. And so I’m going home on the train one day, and I saw [a sign] that said, ‘Do you remember your first grade teacher’s name? Who will remember yours?’ It was the New York City Teaching Fellows Program. I went home, applied the same day, and I was in the classroom probably three months or four months later.

One of the biggest challenges facing the education department right now is declining enrollment and the growing number of really small schools. You obviously have some experience as a superintendent pursuing school mergers, so I’m wondering how you’re starting to think about that systemwide. Is there a threshold below which you think a school is too small to be sustainable?

What decides for me whether a school is too small is the resources that it’s able to garner for kids. And there are schools across the city that aren’t able to have the best enrichment programs. An eighth grader might not be exposed to Algebra because they don’t have the resources. That is something we have to take a look at across the city, especially when we think about our class size mandates.

And I don’t think of class size as a mandate. I think of class size as an opportunity to meet the needs of every student in the classroom. We have to use the fact that we’re in this cycle of lower enrollment as an opportunity to think about how we utilize different spaces.

You’ve also talked about wanting to prioritize school integration. What kinds of integration efforts might you be interested in pursuing?

I really believe that a school that’s socioeconomically integrated — especially as we think about our city and the diversity that it brings culturally — is a school that I want my own children, who are in the public school system, to be a part of.

I remember my first parent-teacher conference when I realized I had the cab driver’s kids, the police detective’s kids, the home health aide’s kids. It hit me that all these people want the best for their kids, and it was my job to really make sure that their kids were seen and heard. And I think that’s the part of school integration that people often miss: We want to make sure that we have high expectations for all kids, and we want to make sure that they feel affirmed in school.

A larger share of New York City middle and high schools screen students for admission than almost any other school system in the country. Will you be looking at ways to reduce screening?

There are fewer screened schools today than they were prior to the pandemic — and the way that we’re doing screens today is different. Instead of focusing on test scores, like we used to do, we’re now focused on academic report card grades. If we’re going to do screens, [course grades are] more aligned to what I would want to support.

When we look at [District 3] where I was a superintendent, we didn’t bring screens back wholesale, except for our citywide [gifted] program under the Anderson School. It was because that was a community-driven process that I listened to folks. Not everybody was in favor of it, but certainly there was a majority of parents in favor of that, and we moved in that direction.

We’re going to continue to listen to parents. If there are places where people don’t necessarily want to do that, then we’ll listen.

New York City’s lowest performing students have been struggling to recover from the pandemic. Do you have ideas about how specifically the system should better support those students? What about schools serving mostly students below grade level?

We have invested incredibly in New York City Reads. And a part of New York City Reads is this idea of MTSS [multi-tiered system of supports], which I know is confusing for folks. What is that? It’s essentially a structure that makes sure every child gets what they need when it’s implemented well, and that during the school day. So during the school day we’ve been clearer than ever on what interventions mean, when we do them, how we create time to do them.

We’ve done so much work around that during the school day. Some schools do great work with high dosage tutoring and we’re going to have to continue that. The one thing I do think gets in the way of all of this is chronic absenteeism.

And so since the pandemic, no matter your demographics, what we’ve noticed is that you’re likely to come into school fewer days than before. And folks need to understand that if we’re not in school your child is going to miss work. I’m doing a lot of thinking about different ways to address chronic absenteeism.

During the campaign, Mayor Mamdani indicated that charter schools siphon resources away from traditional public schools, shouldn’t have space in city buildings, and also should be audited. Do you agree with that position?

Kamar Samuels believes in a great school, no matter what kind of school it is. I know there are some charter schools that do really, really good work. I think charter schools will continue to do that work, and I know that they can do that work within the cap that they have.

And I do believe that there are charter schools, like some district schools, that may not be doing as well as we want them to do, and I think those schools should be held accountable.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Kamar Samuels says NYC will double down on literacy mandate — but signals changes to math overhaul

2026-01-06T22:05:29+00:00

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A reading curriculum overhaul launched by Mayor Eric Adams isn’t going anywhere, schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels told principals Tuesday. But he signaled changes could be coming to the prior administration’s math mandate.

“I completely believe in academic rigor and excellence — that’s why we are doubling down on what we’re doing with New York City Reads,” Samuels told principals during a Tuesday morning webinar, according to a recording obtained by Chalkbeat.

“We’re going to probably take a little bit of a different approach to New York City Solves, so you might see some shifts there,” Samuels said of the math mandate. Neither Samuels nor an Education Department spokesperson elaborated on what changes he is considering.

Under Adams, the city required all elementary schools to adopt one of three approved literacy curriculums. The program, known as NYC Reads, marked a major shakeup for a system that has long given principals freedom to choose what materials their schools use. Meanwhile, high schools had to adopt a standardized Algebra 1 curriculum, and a growing number of middle schools have been required to use new math programs, too.

Samuels’ comments indicate that key pieces of Adams’ education agenda will continue despite the transition between mayoral administrations — echoing sentiments shared by Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail. The new schools chief also told high school principals “not to worry” about the fate of another key Adams initiative that created new career education pathways at over 130 schools, known as FutureReadyNYC.

That may be a relief to some school leaders who often fear promising programs could be discarded when the city’s political leadership changes. Still, Samuels indicated he is willing to make changes to the city’s math mandate, which has proved less popular with many educators and school leaders.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said he is encouraged that Samuels is taking a closer look at the math program. Some educators have raised concerns that the Illustrative Math curriculum, which emphasizes open-ended activities and discussion, is not in sync with the state’s exit exams that are currently required for graduation. The program’s critics say it can be a struggle for students who are behind or don’t have enough background knowledge in the subject.

The union leader said many teachers appreciate the curriculum’s approach but are frustrated with some of the implementation challenges. Mulgrew praised Samuels as a “practical” leader who could help troubleshoot. “He’s an educator — he gets the fact that you can’t start the first unit with something children have no baseline knowledge of,” Mulgrew said.

Samuels also praised some of the prior administration’s efforts to ramp up assessments to identify children who are struggling and standardize how schools help them catch up. For the first time this school year, all of the city’s public schools must pick from a list of approved programs to help students who are behind.

“Our most vulnerable students need to learn how to read,” Samuels said. “That is our number one goal.”

Samuels has also recently touted his own record on literacy. As superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, Samuels presided over an increase in reading scores. Scores in his district climbed just over 3 percentage points last year, to 67.4% proficiency, after implementing a new reading curriculum. Citywide, about 56% of students were considered proficient last year, a roughly 7 percentage point increase, matching the gains statewide.

In his address to principals, Samuels reiterated his commitment to school safety and integration, an idea he said should go beyond shifting classroom demographics and focus on culturally responsive teaching.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools chief Kamar Samuels signals integration, culturally responsive education as priorities

2026-01-05T22:26:25+00:00

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In a letter to Education Department staff on Monday, New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels began sketching out some of his priorities, including school integration and lessons that reflect the system’s diversity.

“I believe that every student — starting in early childhood and continuing through graduation — deserves a school that is academically rigorous, safe, and truly integrated,” Samuels wrote in the letter obtained by Chalkbeat.

Families, he added, “should be able to expect that our system reflects New York City’s rich multiculturalism, both through the diversity of our schools and through culturally responsive curriculum and practice.”

Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not campaign on a detailed education agenda, but he cited school integration as one of his goals — an issue former Mayor Eric Adams largely sidestepped. It remains to be seen how Samuels may approach diversifying one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. As a local superintendent, he pursued mergers and admissions policy changes with an eye toward integration.

In recent years, city officials have rolled out lessons that focus on historically marginalized groups — from the global African diaspora to LGBTQ communities. Samuels’ letter suggests he is interested in building on that work.

When Samuels led Brooklyn’s District 13, he worked with school communities to phase out gifted and talented programs and led an effort to bring the International Baccalaureate curriculum to schools across the district. Mamdani has also pledged to scale back gifted programming for the city’s youngest students.

In his Monday letter to school staffers, Samuels emphasized the importance of having “high expectations” and “high-quality learning,” while also noting the importance of foundational literacy skills and “class sizes that allow educators to meet students’ needs.”

Samuels indicated he will take community input seriously. On the campaign trail, Mamdani promised to end mayoral control of the city’s schools, arguing the system has not been responsive enough to community voices. He reversed that position last week, though the mayor has promised to come up with new ways to strengthen community input.

“I also believe deeply in transparency, accountability, and meaningful engagement,” Samuels wrote. “Our work will be strongest when educators, families, and students know their voices are heard — not symbolically, but in practice.”

The new schools chancellor began his first official school day at P.S./M.S. 194 in the Bronx, the campus where he got his start in the city’s school system in 2001 as a sixth grade math teacher. He met with educators, students, and parent leaders, according to an Education Department spokesperson. (The visit was not open to the press.)

Samuels also emphasized in his letter that he has a personal stake in the system. Two of his children — a first grader and an 11th grader — are New York City public school students, while his youngest is not yet school-age.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Who will Mamdani tap to lead NYC schools? Here are some possible contenders.

2025-12-07T18:22:14+00:00

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With less than a month until Zohran Mamdani takes office, he has yet to reveal one of his biggest personnel decisions: the leader of the nation’s biggest school system.

Hiring a schools chancellor will be his first major education test and could signal how he hopes to shape the city’s public schools over the next four years — a topic he largely avoided on the campaign trail.

The mayor-elect indicated he is open to keeping current Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. But he has offered few other clues about who is on his short list, and it is unclear how close he is to a decision. Earlier this week, Mamdani’s team solicited suggestions for major appointees from its education transition committee, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the communications.

Mamdani’s team has kept a tight lid on the selection process, instructing transition committee members this week to avoid talking to reporters — a contrast with his promise to share his power over the school system with families and educators. Some advocates have called on Mamdani to create an inclusive chancellor selection process in the coming months. For now, the mayor-elect has little time to weigh feedback before taking office.

“It would be hard to run a big public process in the time they’ve had,” said Evan Stone, the CEO of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group. Once he has made a choice, Stone added, “there is still a great opportunity to engage families on what the priorities of the chancellor are.”

As the leadership transition nears, several names have repeatedly surfaced as possible contenders, though his transition team has not confirmed who is under consideration. If history is any guide, the final choice could be a surprise. Here’s what you should know about the people rumored to be in the running.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos

Who she is: Aviles-Ramos has been chancellor for a little more than a year, taking over from David Banks after he abruptly stepped down. She’s been at the city’s Education Department for nearly two decades, working her way up as a teacher, principal, and superintendent in the Bronx. She also served as Banks’ chief of staff.

What she has going for her: She has the backing of the city’s influential teachers union, which endorsed Mamdani in the general election. Some parent leaders are in her corner, too, as she has rolled out some initiatives to bolster family engagement. Top officials have previously leaned on her in moments of crisis: Before she was named chancellor, she was tapped to manage the Education Department’s response to the massive influx of migrants into city schools.

Complicating factors: Aviles-Ramos has largely been responsible for keeping Mayor Eric Adams’ education initiatives on track and hasn’t executed a detailed policy agenda of her own. Given the union’s strong backing, some wonder if she would not be independent enough. Her connection to Adams, who ultimately dropped his bid for reelection amid swirling corruption scandals, could also be a liability. And while no mayor has appointed their predecessor’s schools chief, Mamdani kept Adams’ police commissioner, demonstrating he is willing to retain high-level staff.

What she says: Aviles-Ramos, who has met with Mamdani, is campaigning for the role. “If given an opportunity, I would love to stay on,” she told the Daily News.

Meisha Ross Porter

Who she is: A more than 20-year veteran of the Education Department who worked her way up in the Bronx as a teacher, principal, and high-level administrator. She served as chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio for less than a year, beginning in March 2021, overseeing the city’s plans to fully reopen school buildings and convince students to show up after some spent more than a year learning remotely. Porter now serves as a visiting senior fellow at the Center for Educational Innovation, an organization that works with school leaders and families, according to her LinkedIn profile.

What she has going for her: She is widely considered to be a staunch advocate of equity in education, was the first Black woman to lead the system, and is respected by many educators and department staffers. Porter is already deeply familiar with the system and oversaw an effort to overhaul gifted programs, an idea that Adams scrapped but Mamdani has indicated he’s interested in pursuing. The mayor-elect has shown an interest in recruiting top officials from the de Blasio administration.

Complicating factors: After leaving the Education Department, Porter had a rocky stint running the Bronx Community Foundation that raised questions about her leadership. The organization failed to distribute most of the money it raised, according to an investigation by the news organization New York Focus, and the organization’s board of directors ultimately fired Porter. She was recently considered a finalist to run Chicago’s school system, though that search process has appeared to stall.

What she says: Did not respond to a request for comment.

Angélica Infante-Green

Who she is: Infante-Green is Rhode Island’s education commissioner, and she has a long track record in New York. She served as a deputy commissioner in New York State’s Education Department, spearheading the state’s school integration plans. Before that, she oversaw New York City’s efforts to serve English language learners and expanded bilingual and dual language programs. She’s an alumna of Teach for America and worked in multiple Manhattan schools.

What she has going for her: She has extensive knowledge of the city and state education bureaucracies and would need little time getting up to speed. A daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Infante-Green has focused on vulnerable children, including English learners and students with disabilities, groups that Mamdani has indicated will be a focus of his administration. In Rhode Island, Infante-Green helped oversee the state’s strategy to reduce chronic absenteeism in the wake of the pandemic, a model that is paying off and earned national attention.

Complicating factors: Infante-Green was involved in contentious contract negotiations with the Providence Teachers Union, which passed a vote of no confidence in her and the local superintendent. Mamdani has cultivated a close relationship with the city’s teachers union, and has said he will consult union leaders on his chancellor pick. And Mamdani criticized charter schools, which Infante-Green supported in Rhode Island.

What she says: Did not respond to a request for comment.

Who else?

Several other candidates have been rumored to be in the mix. Kamar Samuels, the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3, was floated as a possible candidate, according to the New York Times. He has previously spearheaded school mergers with an eye toward integration. Moves like that could be appealing to Mamdani as the city grapples with a glut of small schools, and the mayor-elect has signaled he is interested in school integration efforts. (Samuels did not respond to a request for comment)

Alex Marrero, the current superintendent of Denver Public Schools, may be eyeing the job. He has roots in New York as a principal in the Bronx and later in administrative roles in New Rochelle and East Ramapo. He was reportedly a finalist to lead Chicago Public Schools, a job he indicated he would not accept.

In a statement, Marrero said he has “not spoken to anyone from the Mayor-Elect’s team.” He added: “While my ties to New York and its communities run deep, as a matter of respectful practice, I do not speculate on these matters and continue to concentrate my attention and efforts on DPS.”

Alexendra Estrella, the superintendent of Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut, has also been floated. She previously served as the superintendent in Manhattan’s District 4, which includes East Harlem. Her tenure as superintendent included some tensions with families and teachers. (She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Rita Joseph, a long-time Brooklyn teacher and chair of New York City Council’s education committee, has also been rumored but has no high-level administrative experience in a school system. (Her spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.)

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani’s schools chancellor pick: Some parent groups are pushing for him to keep Aviles-Ramos

2025-12-03T19:52:38+00:00

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A growing chorus of New York City families are pushing Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to keep schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos in place when he takes office in January to avoid a leadership shakeup in the middle of the school year.

“Families across this city deserve stability, experienced leadership and continuity during this critical transition,” members of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council, which includes dozens of parent leaders across the city, wrote in a recent letter to Mamdani. “Removing [Aviles-Ramos] would create unnecessary disruption and weaken the progress underway.”

A separate group of local parent leaders are planning to send a similar letter this week.

Ever since New York City’s mayor won control of the school system more than two decades ago, each incoming mayor has appointed a new schools chief when taking office. But Mamdani has said he’s open to breaking that pattern by keeping Aviles-Ramos, who was chosen by Mayor Eric Adams. The mayor-elect has already tapped Adams’ police commissioner to stay in her role.

The latest push from parent leaders may create additional pressure on Mamdani to stick with Aviles-Ramos, especially as he has vowed to include families and educators in decisions about how the school system is managed. The city’s teachers union, which endorsed Mamdani in the general election, also supports keeping Aviles-Ramos.

Aviles-Ramos took over more than a year ago after former Chancellor David Banks abruptly resigned amid a federal investigation of Adams’ inner circle (Banks has not been accused of wrongdoing). She joined the school system in 2007 and worked her way up as a teacher, principal, superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff. She helped lead the Education Department’s response to a massive influx of migrant students. And she has largely continued Adams’ existing agenda.

For months, advocacy groups including New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools have encouraged Mamdani to conduct a thorough process that includes a search committee and public forums. Keeping Aviles-Ramos in her role on a temporary basis would create time to collect feedback from educators and families, they argue. (That group is hosting a meeting on Dec. 8 to discuss the chancellor search process.)

If Mamdani taps Aviles-Ramos, two of the city’s highest-profile agencies would be managed by people selected by Adams, who faced multiple corruption scandals and is deeply unpopular.

“I’ve said time and again that I will consider anyone on the basis of the work that they have done — not hold it against them as to who appointed them,” Mamdani said in October.

Still, Mamdani has not yet released a detailed education agenda, and he has embraced some of Adams’ signature initiatives, including a sweeping reading curriculum overhaul. Aviles-Ramos is well-positioned to keep those efforts on track, the chancellor’s parent advisory group noted in their letter.

The schools chancellor is a major appointment. The post is among the nation’s most visible jobs in public education, and the Education Department is the largest city agency, with roughly 150,000 employees and a nearly $43 billion budget. The mayor-elect’s signature campaign promise — universal child care — will require close coordination with the department.

Mamdani’s transition team did not immediately respond to questions about when he plans to name a chancellor and whether he will collect public input before making a decision.

NeQuan McLean, a parent leader in Brooklyn, said the Education Council Consortium — which is made up of local education council leaders — plans to send a similar letter this week encouraging Mamdani to keep Aviles-Ramos in place.

She “has done some great work around parent empowerment,” said McLean, who helps lead the consortium and is the president of the local parent council in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He cited an initiative that helps connect families to housing support, food benefits, and other services.

But McLean said the group will also push for a more open-ended search process, which he noted could still result in Aviles-Ramos staying on the job. “This is a public-facing position and the public should weigh in on the decision,” he said.

A spokesperson for Aviles-Ramos did not respond to a request for comment, though she has signaled an interest in some of Mamdani’s education priorities. In September, she announced plans to expand a pilot program to support homeless students. Mamdani repeatedly touted the initiative on the campaign trail and plans to scale it up.

Mamdani has said little about who he is considering for the role or whether he will conduct a national search. At least one potential candidate for the role, Meisha Porter, is in the running to oversee Chicago’s public school system, though that process has slowed to a crawl. She is a veteran of New York City’s Education Department who briefly served as chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Cities are in a new cycle of changing who runs schools. Are they just running in place?

2025-11-24T10:54:00+00:00

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The election of a progressive mayor who has said he wants to end mayoral control of New York City schools might seem like a bellwether.

The next largest school systems, Los Angeles and Miami-Dade County, have been run by elected boards for years. Chicago is transitioning to a fully elected board after decades under mayoral control.

But don’t bury mayoral control just yet.

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani hasn’t laid out clear plans, and his references to “co-governance” could mean a lot of things, including an ongoing role for the mayor.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, another progressive, supported a “majority-elected” school board when she ran in 2021, but vetoed legislation to create an elected board once she was in office.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, has continued to exert his influence over the city’s schools in support of union priorities.

And in Indianapolis, some community groups are calling for the mayor, who already authorizes charter schools, to take on a larger role in an increasingly fractured school system.

Many large cities have repeatedly overhauled their school governance to try to address perceived shortcomings and real failures of the previous model. Now a new set of existential threats — declining enrollment, looming school closures and layoffs, persistent academic challenges, and threats from the Trump administration — are reviving conversations about who can claim to exercise legitimate power over schools.

Who gets to make decisions on behalf of students and families feels particularly high stakes in this moment.

Yet there is little evidence that voters consistently prioritize student outcomes at the ballot box, whether they’re voting for mayors or school board members. Nor is there strong evidence that any particular system consistently delivers better results for students, better financial management, or more responsive leadership.

“It’s like getting dirty and changing clothes and expecting to smell good without taking a bath,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. “That’s what you’re doing when you change your governance structure.”

School closures put focus on who makes decisions

Education reform policies such as expanding school choice, closing low-performing schools, and welcoming charter schools have been supported by both mayors and elected school boards, sometimes under threat of state takeover. Those changes have reshaped communities in complicated ways.

New schools proliferated, and students got more opportunities. At the same time, the connections between neighborhoods and schools have frayed, competition for students and funding is fiercer, and multiple entities are now responsible for school oversight. These new realities are testing old ways of running schools.

In Indianapolis, the mayor already authorizes charter schools independently from Indianapolis Public Schools, which is run by an elected board. More students now attend charter schools than district-run schools. Legislation from earlier this year that would have dissolved the district failed, but a state-created advisory group, chaired by Mayor Joe Hogsett, is charged with figuring out how city schools should share buildings and transportation services.

Mayoral control over Indianapolis schools could untangle big knots — or create new headaches

The Indianapolis Local Education Alliance is also considering proposals that would give the mayor a much larger role in school governance, including appointing most or all of the board.

Historically, groups associated with education reform have supported mayoral control. Yet the Mind Trust, an influential pro-charter nonprofit that supported an appointed board in the past, hasn’t taken a position yet. Several potential Indianapolis mayoral candidates for 2027 are charter skeptics and supporters of an elected board.

Cleveland, where mayoral control has been firmly entrenched for nearly three decades, is grappling with similar challenges.

As in Indianapolis, a large share of the district’s school-age children attend charter or private schools after decades under the Cleveland Plan, and enrollment in district schools has plummeted. Supporters of mayoral control sometimes hold up Cleveland as an exemplar, but Mayor Justin Bibb’s aggressive school closure plan is causing some community members to demand a greater voice.

Ideastream Public Media reported an exchange at a recent community meeting between Bibb and teacher Sarah Hodge.

“Are you gonna go with us on the plan to make sure that the voters are re-enfranchised to vote for their school board?” Hodge said. Bibb responded that voters can seek a new system if they wish, but he has full confidence in his appointed board and in schools CEO Warren Morgan.

The ability to push ahead with a school closure plan is one of the benefits of mayoral control, said Aaron Churchill, Ohio research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a center-right think tank. He contrasted Cleveland with Columbus, where the elected school board has moved more slowly in response to many of the same pressures.

“They’re controversial, they’re hard to do, and it does take leadership,” Churchill said. And there is still a democratic check on the process. People vote for the mayor, he said, and most people know who their mayor is — unlike their school board members.

Hodge has a very different view. “It’s not bold to upset the entire city,” she said in an interview.

She believes an elected school board would listen to parents and ultimately come up with a better plan for what she agrees are necessary closures.

Hodge is working with a small group of other teachers and activists to explore options for restoring the elected board. But Ohio’s Republican trifecta state government is unlikely to go along willingly.

Hodge and other Cleveland activists have watched conservative groups like Moms for Liberty exert their influence on school boards. She wonders why people in Cleveland have fewer rights.

“If the people of Cleveland want to make an idiotic decision, that’s our right,” she said. “Since when do legislatures get to tell people, ‘You don’t get to vote. You’re too terrible to make decisions for yourself?’”

Voters often don’t care much about test scores

If mayoral control of schools is undemocratic, elected school boards raise their own questions about representation.

Most school board members are elected by small numbers of voters who don’t have children themselves and who aren’t representative of the families served in the schools. Once in office, they spend very little time talking about how to improve schools, surveys show.

Vladimir Kogan, a political science professor at Ohio State University, said that’s because voters don’t give them any incentive to do so.

Voters in school board elections might care about home values, taxes, jobs, or “symbolic virtue signaling that they are [on] team red and team blue,” Kogan said, before they care about how well schools are serving students.

School board elections are one of the few places parents can pull on the levers of power, said Keri Rodrigues, a Boston parent and president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy group. But they can turn out to be “democracy in name only.”

It doesn’t have to be that way, said Scott Levy, author of “Why School Boards Matter.” Many school board members would benefit from more training, including on how to understand academic data and budgets.

“If you look at education reform efforts, you can find every permutation except investing in school boards,” he said.

But if school boards don’t spend enough time on schooling, it’s not clear that mayors who do reap big benefits.

Kogan points to former District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty. Public opinion polls at the time showed voters believed the D.C. schools had improved under his controversial appointed chancellor, Michelle Rhee. But he lost the next election anyway: Voters didn’t like the disruptions and job losses that accompanied the overhaul of D.C. schools.

“Reformers have a wrong theory of change about mayoral control,” Kogan said. “The idea is that mayors are more visible, and it’s easier to hold them accountable. That assumes that voters care about academics.”

Progressive mayors want a role in schools

Fights over who gets to control schools often reflect racial and political divisions. Predominantly white business interests, Black- and Latino-led community groups, and teachers unions wrestle for influence. Republican legislatures try to control Democrat-led cities.

Mayoral control spread in the 1990s and 2000s as white flight and shrinking tax bases undermined school systems. Mayors, the thinking went, could elevate the importance of education, marshal resources, and insulate governance from the influence of teachers unions.

Some of these political assumptions have eroded as voters choose more left-leaning mayors.

In last year’s Chicago school board elections — held amid a leadership and budget crisis that pitted Johnson against the superintendent — the mayor’s union-backed allies picked up only four of the 10 elected seats. But with 11 appointees on the 21-member board until 2027, Johnson still controls the school board.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson speaks outside of Austin College and Career Academy on the first day of school in August. Johnson has played an active role in Chicago schools as the district transitions to an elected board.

During recent union contract negotiations, Johnson pressed the district to hire more staff and cover a larger share of pension costs, which district leaders feared would be financially unsustainable. The teachers union also wants Johnson, not the board, to pick the next superintendent.

Wu, Boston’s progressive mayor, became a firm believer in mayoral control once she was in office. During a 2023 WGBH call-in show, a caller reminded Wu that the idea of an elected school board “got more votes than you.”

Wu pointed to frequent superintendent turnover and the recent threat of state takeover to argue against the idea.

“We need to have a focus on stabilizing and getting our school facilities up to date and mental health supports and some of the academic changes that we’re making,” Wu said.

Voters haven’t penalized Wu — she ran unopposed this year and handily won re-election.

New York parents, community groups want more say

Mayoral control in New York City is up for renewal in 2026. If Mamdani goes to Albany and advocates for less authority, he’ll be the first New York mayor to do so.

When Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman, successfully lobbied for mayoral control in 2002, people were concerned not just about student achievement but basic safety. Some of the city’s local community boards, which ran 32 regional school districts, were corrupt or dysfunctional.

Zohran Mamdani wants to end mayor control of NYC schools. It has eroded under Eric Adams.

Bloomberg gained the sole ability to appoint the chancellor and the majority of the city’s school board. He adopted a suite of reforms that included charter school expansion and greater school accountability. Test scores and other metrics improved. New York City represented a “victory lap for mayoral control,” said Collins, the Columbia professor.

But Bloomberg also introduced Lucy Calkins’ now-discredited “Units of Study” reading curriculum into city schools. Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams, who was elected on a public safety platform, overhauled the reading curriculum — initial results are promising but the rollout frustrated teachers. Now Mamdani, who ran on affordability, may give schools and teachers more autonomy.

“That whiplash is a real problem,” said Jonathan Greenberg, a Queens parent and member of the Education Council Consortium, a coalition of parent leaders. “So much of the really deep-seated changes we think need to happen take more than two years or more than four years.”

Mayoral control already has weakened under Adams, with the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, expanding and exerting more independence.

Finding the right balance for an exceptionally large and complex school system may not be easy. The coalition is proposing a short extension of mayoral control — but with the mayor no longer appointing the majority of school panel members.

Greenberg hopes that policy experts can help the city design a system that allows for community control and a healthy central system that can do things at scale.

Low voter turnout in both mayoral and school board elections should be treated like a crisis, Collins said. A better system would allow for more meaningful participation, and not just at the ballot box.

Unless more people are engaged, Collins said, “there’s going to be a small fraction of people who decide who serves, and the people who are serving are going to be disconnected from the true needs of the folks who are sending their kids to school.”

Erica Meltzer is Chalkbeat’s national editor based in Colorado. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani wants to end mayor control of NYC schools. It has eroded under Eric Adams.

2025-11-21T21:29:39+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani campaigned on ending mayoral control of New York City’s public school system — by far his most significant education promise.

As debate intensifies over whether the mayor-elect should follow through on that pledge, a significant shift has flown under the radar: Under Mayor Eric Adams, the chief executive’s power over the school system has weakened.

On paper, the city’s mayor still exerts near-complete authority over the city’s schools. The mayor hires and fires the head of the school system and appoints a majority of the school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP.

But from his first months in office, Adams struggled to manage the board, which voted against several administration proposals. During his term, state lawmakers diluted the mayor’s power, adding new parent representatives to the panel while preventing the mayor from removing appointees who vote against the administration’s proposals.

More recently, as a lame duck, Adams has ceded more power. He has allowed three of his 13 mayoral seats on the 24-member board to go unfilled, handing the majority to board members selected by others.

And in recent months, the panel has repeatedly voted against City Hall’s proposals — an extraordinary departure from boards under previous administrations that only occasionally bucked the mayor. On Wednesday, in an unusual move, they voted down the Education Department’s budget.

“The idea that we are rubber stamps and aren’t making judgments — that’s in the past,” Greg Faulker, the chair of the board who was appointed by Adams, said of the board’s larger role.

Six months after Mamdani takes office, it will be up to lawmakers in Albany whether to extend mayoral control in its current form. The question for Mamdani is whether he will lobby lawmakers for sweeping reforms or embrace a PEP that has become detached from City Hall.

PEP seen as ‘mere formality’ under some mayors

During the campaign, Mamdani pledged to end mayoral control and replace it with a system that shares power with families and educators, though he has not said what that means.

His critique of mayoral control has zeroed in on the PEP, which he contends does not take community input into account, especially on contentious school closure, mergers, or re-location proposals.

“They go to a hearing about the future of a school that their children go to — eight hours of testimony,” Mamdani said in a recent television interview. “Meanwhile, the decision was actually made weeks and months prior, and this is just a mere formality.”

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg won mayoral control of the school system in 2002. He did not tolerate dissent from the PEP — and famously fired two of his own appointees for opposing a plan to end “social promotion” of students from one grade level to the next. After replacing them in what was dubbed the “Monday night massacre,” the proposal passed.

Ultimately, Bloomberg’s board passed numerous controversial proposals, including dozens of school closures despite community resistance.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who ran in opposition to many of Bloomberg’s education policies, vowed to give the board’s mayoral appointees more independence. But little changed in practice. The board typically voted in lockstep with the administration’s wishes, with only a few exceptions. In one episode, a mayoral appointee cast a decisive vote against two school closures proposed by the administration. In short order, she was off the board.

Adams loses his grip on mayoral control

From his first months in office, Adams lost the tight grip on the PEP that other mayors have enjoyed.

Adams was slow to appoint panel members early in his term and was forced to hastily withdraw one of them after her anti-gay writing came to light. With a vacant slot, City Hall lost a routine vote to approve the city’s funding formula. (It was approved at the next month’s meeting after the chancellor vowed to review the funding scheme.)

But managing the board has also grown more complex. The PEP has nearly doubled in size since 2019 — a response from state lawmakers to concerns that the governance system is not responsive to community input.

It now includes 24 voting members, including five selected by parent leaders, one chosen by each of the five borough presidents, 13 mayoral appointees, and a chair selected by the mayor from a list devised by state lawmakers. (The schools chancellor, a secretary, two students, and a representative from the comptroller’s office serve as non-voting members.)

The city's Panel for Educational Policy has voted down some Adams administration proposals at recent meetings.

Members serve one-year terms, and the mayoral appointees can’t be removed if they vote against the administration’s wishes, a change state lawmakers made just months after Adams took office.

“Having PEP members who can’t be summarily dismissed as Bloomberg did is an important structural difference,” said Jeffrey Henig, a political science professor at Columbia University. “It can be a more vital body that sometimes stands up to the mayor.”

The larger board means more panel members are weighing in on any given decision, making it harder to forge a majority if there are more dissenting voices. City Hall must also devote more effort to recruiting panel members to fill the mayor’s 13-member majority.

Asked why the mayor has not filled three vacancies on the board, a City Hall spokesperson said it can be difficult to quickly find qualified people. The position is unpaid and requires attending monthly public meetings that sometimes stretch past midnight.

“Our administration continues to work hard to ensure this panel is well-staffed,” City Hall spokesperson Zachary Nosanchuk wrote in an email.

Notably, Mamdani may not be able to appoint a majority to the PEP when he takes office because the current members’ terms won’t expire until June.

‘You need to listen to us’: A more independent PEP opposes the administration

No issue has reflected the changing power dynamics between the mayor and the PEP more than the recent negotiations over school bus contracts, which cost nearly $2 billion each year.

After the contracts expired over the summer, city officials agreed to a five-year extension with the bus companies. But dozens of parents and advocates flooded PEP meetings to argue that they should approve a shorter extension to give officials more room to overhaul the troubled system entirely.

“Don’t reward bad behavior,” parent Christi Angel said at the September PEP meeting. “This is a broken system.”

Despite the companies’ handshake agreement with the city for a five-year contract, the PEP passed a resolution saying they wouldn’t support it — including the mayoral appointees. The bus companies later threatened to lay off their workers, potentially grinding the whole system to a stop. The PEP held firm.

“Once that resolution passed, it was game over,” Faulkner said, noting the administration encouraged the PEP to approve a five-year deal. “And the fact that it passed unanimously was a further indication that you need to listen to us.”

On Wednesday evening, the PEP approved a three-year extension of the contracts.

Shortly after, the chancellor, who is in the running to keep her job under Mamdani, signaled her support of a more independent PEP.

“With an incoming administration that has really spoken about its values around community engagement, it’s a great time to reset,” Aviles-Ramos said.

Her comments came at a remarkable moment. Minutes earlier, the board voted down the Education Department’s budget after concerns surfaced about growing administrative spending, including on the chancellor’s office. (The budget could be approved at a future meeting.)

Growing PEP independence stirs debate

The panel’s newfound power has earned varied reactions.

Last month, the board voted down more than $4 million in technology contracts after families and educators raised concerns at a PEP meeting about the companies’ use of artificial intelligence.

One of them was a deal with an AI company launched by former football star Colin Kaepernick, who appeared at a conference alongside Aviles-Ramos a week before the vote. It was an embarrassing setback for the chancellor, who has recently touted efforts to bring AI into schools.

“I was really surprised and thrilled,” said Leonie Haimson, a student privacy advocate who criticized the AI contracts before the vote at last month’s panel meeting. Still, Haimson believes the PEP should have even more independence from the mayor, noting that the board has still approved proposals under Adams despite intense community pushback.

“A lot of important decisions are made without the transparency and accountability that should be required,” she added.

Others have been frustrated that the mayor has lost power over the PEP, arguing the increasingly sprawling board doesn’t always have expertise in what they’re voting on. One technology contract they voted down was a $1.5 million deal with Kiddom, a digital platform that helps teachers access curriculum materials.

Abbas Manjee, Kiddom’s cofounder and chief academic officer, said the company’s use of artificial intelligence is teacher-facing and felt the PEP members didn’t seem familiar with the platform before lumping it in with other AI companies.

He noted the company helps schools access reading and math materials that are at the center of Adams’ curriculum mandates, a top mayoral education priority.

“It’s almost like you’re shooting yourself in the foot,” Manjee said. “Where is mayoral control?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC officials declare victory on class size caps after quietly exempting thousands of classes

2025-11-18T01:29:05+00:00

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday that the city met a high-stakes test under the state’s class size reduction law: ensuring 60% of this year’s classrooms fell under the new limits.

But he failed to mention that the city only cleared that hurdle by quietly declaring thousands of classrooms exempt from the requirements. A Chalkbeat analysis of data released Monday found that without the exemptions the city would have fallen just short of compliance, potentially putting it at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in state aid.

Officials declared roughly 10,500 of the city’s more than 150,000 classes exempt. With those classrooms removed from the equation, 64% of classrooms citywide were in compliance — the rate city officials reported to the state. The city’s rate without the exemptions? 59.5%.

Several administrators and parents at schools with exempted classrooms said they were unaware they had won exemptions — and hadn’t requested them.

“I was a little surprised to see we were listed as exempt,” said one principal who didn’t ask for the exemptions and didn’t know they were coming.

“It’s ironic because they ask us to come up with a plan for our school … but then when they make larger decisions, they don’t ask us anything,” said the principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The state’s sweeping class size law, which limits classes to between 20 and 25 students, took effect in 2022 and requires that an additional 20% of classrooms fall under the caps each year. This year’s 60% mandate was the first major test the city faced, since only 47% of classes were under the caps last November. (Classes that require larger groups like physical education are not subject to the caps.)

The challenge gets more daunting over the next year as the city races to get 80% of classes under the caps, soliciting another round of class size reduction plans from principals, who can request changes to their building configuration and money to hire additional teachers. City officials project the annual cost of hiring additional teachers could be as high as $1.7 billion when the caps are fully implemented, with up to $18 billion in school construction costs on top of that.

Some critics said the flood of exemptions this year heightens their concerns that the city will only lean more heavily on them in the years to come.

“It just underlines and emphasizes the fact that they don’t have a serious plan, and they never have,” said Leonie Haimson, the executive director of the advocacy group Class Size Matters and a key advocate for the state law.

To meet the state’s 60% threshold, the city spent roughly $450 million on a teacher hiring spree this fall — and took advantage for the first time of a clause in the law that allows some schools to ignore the requirements if they have limited space, are overenrolled, are in financial distress, or face a shortage of licensed teachers. The city exempted classes at more than 120 schools, Chalkbeat’s analysis found.

Teachers union officials confirmed Monday that principals were not directly involved in the exemption process. Under state law, the chancellor of the Education Department and the presidents of the unions for teachers and administrators can — and did — make the decisions.

“It’s not up to the school,” teachers union President Michael Mulgrew told Chalkbeat. “This is a law for the school system.”

An Education Department spokesperson said the exemptions must be renegotiated every year and schools that received exemptions this year should still aim for full class size compliance.

“Surpassing 60 percent of our class size reduction target for the 2025–2026 school year is a major step forward, and we’re not slowing down," Adams said in a statement.

Schools can get a pass for “overenrollment” or space limitations

A handful of the exemptions were already agreed to over the summer. In a class size plan released in July, city and union officials agreed to exempt the city’s eight specialized high schools, coveted programs like Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech that admit students based on a single test, on the grounds they are “overenrolled.”

Another set of schools could qualify for exemptions based on lack of space if a new annex or school building was in the works nearby, officials said in July. In the city’s two current capital plans, from 2020-24 and from 2025-29, a total of about 26,000 seats are supposed to be added in coming years through a combination of annexes and new buildings.

But people at several of the schools that received exemptions Monday said they were unaware of any annex or school construction plans nearby. At least three schools receiving class size exemptions had no new construction projects listed in their districts, according to the city’s data.

At P.S./I.S. 187 in Washington Heights, where 91 of 118 classes were issued exemptions, an annex project was recently added to the city’s capital plan to deliver 342 seats — but with no estimated completion date.

Olympia Kazi, a parent at the school who has been pushing for years for lower class sizes, said she was “saddened and dismayed” to learn about the exemptions.

“An annex may materialize at best in three to four years,” she said. “That means a generation of kids will still go through elementary school in overcrowded classes.”

Kazi noted that she suggested several other strategies for reducing class sizes while the school awaits additional space, including staggering start times for different groups of students and capping incoming kindergarten enrollment. Those ideas haven’t gone anywhere.

“I believe class size is a major issue for every school, and especially the overcrowded schools,” she said. “I wish there had been real community engagement before they decided any of this and an explanation of the reasoning behind this.”

Haimson believes granting the exemptions without including school communities in the process violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

Having union officials help decide on exemptions at schools “where the principals don’t necessarily even want those exemptions, is bizarre,” she said.

Haimson added that new construction isn’t guaranteed to bring schools under the class size caps if the city doesn’t limit enrollment at overcrowded schools. Hundreds of schools don’t have the space to meet the class size caps, officials say, but the city has largely rejected requests to cap their enrollment.

Restricting enrollment is also a non-starter with the teachers union.

At the Boerum Hill School for International Studies, a 6-12 campus, more than half of the school’s 222 classes are exempt from the new class size caps. Antonia Ferraro Martinelli, the parent of a ninth grader at the school, said the campus is crunched for space in part because it houses four schools and there is little room to shrink classes.

News of the exemptions came as a surprise to parent leaders and the school administration, however, because they hadn’t requested them. The school’s principal is “putting her efforts toward being in compliance so this is coming out of left field,” said Ferraro Martinelli, who spoke with the principal on Monday. (The principal did not respond to a request for comment.)

Several educators and parents at schools that received exemptions said they plan to continue pushing to reduce class sizes.

In general, the city’s highest-need schools stand to benefit the least from the class size caps because they already tend to have smaller classes. A disproportionate share of spending to reduce class sizes is flowing to more affluent campuses, city data show. Because of that, some advocates with equity concerns called on city and state leaders last week to pause the class size caps entirely, a move permitted under the law.

Still, Education Department officials declined to request a pause, even as they previously raised similar equity concerns. Their reason: They’re making plenty of progress without it.

Correction: Nov. 20, 2025: A previous version of this story used the incorrect name for P.S./I.S. 187.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Charter leaders, union officials, and education advocates rush to influence Mamdani’s schools agenda

2025-11-05T21:51:33+00:00

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After Zohran Mamdani’s election victory on Tuesday night, education advocates across New York City swiftly offered words of encouragement and began pitching ideas to help shape the mayor-elect’s schools agenda.

Some groups urged Mamdani to continue Mayor Eric Adams’ signature curriculum reforms. Others praised his focus on affordability and expressed excitement about his pledge for universal child care. And charter school leaders said they want to build bridges with the incoming mayor, even though the Mamdani campaign criticized the sector on the campaign trail.

Mamdani has said little about his vision for the nation’s largest school system — giving outside groups an opening to help shape his thinking. Mamdani has signaled he is willing to listen to new ideas and has pledged to give families and educators a greater voice.

On Wednesday, Mamdani announced a handful of advisors to begin his transition to City Hall. They include Melanie Hartzog, the leader of New York Foundling, which operates some early childhood and other education programs. Hartzog previously served in city government, including as a deputy mayor and top budget official under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Mamdani also tapped Grace Bonilla, CEO of the United Way of New York City, which also operates education programs. She previously worked in the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. None of the leaders of the transition team Mamdani announced on Wednesday have deep experience in K-12 education.

Teacher groups push to keep Adams’ signature education initiative

Under Adams, the school system made big changes to reading and math instruction, mandating specific reading programs for elementary schools and for Algebra 1 in high school. Curriculum shifts are underway at middle schools, too.

Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group, said Mamdani should keep those efforts going. The group pointed to rising test scores as evidence of success, though experts have cautioned it is difficult to directly attribute the gains to the curriculum changes. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which endorsed Mamdani, also said he hopes the mayor-elect stays the course.

“Changing the curriculums constantly is not a good thing for us,” Mulgrew told Chalkbeat.

Mamdani has indicated he is open to keeping some of those curriculum changes in place, though he has also said teachers should have more flexibility in how they are used.

Charter leaders offer an olive branch

Mamdani has made no secret of his skepticism of charter schools, which educate about 15% of the city’s public school students, arguing they divert resources from city-run public schools. While the mayor’s power over charter schools is limited, Mamdani said he plans to conduct audits of them. (Charter schools are publicly funded but privately managed.)

Charter school leaders staged a massive rally weeks before the primary, warning of threats to the sector. But some charter leaders took a warmer tone after Mamdani’s win on Tuesday, noting that his message on affordability resonated with many families.

“We look forward to a mayor who will unite us, strengthen us and provide us the resources our children and families deserve,” James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center, said in a statement.

Some Mamdani critics hope to work with him

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, has been a major critic of Mamdani’s education proposals — including ending mayoral control of schools and scrapping gifted programs that begin in kindergarten.

Yiatin Chu, the group’s co-founder, still hopes to find common ground with the mayor-elect on issues like chronic absenteeism, the state’s class size reduction mandate, and attracting more families to the public school system amid declining enrollment. (PLACE endorsed former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.)

“I believe that we have the pulse on public school families,” Chu said. “Of course we would like to work with him and his chancellor.”

Education advocates praise focus on universal child care, affordability

Multiple education groups expressed excitement about one of Mamdani’s central campaign pledges: to roll out universal free child care starting when children are 6 weeks old.

The Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group, praised Mamdani’s focus on affordability and noted he is the first mayoral candidate the organization has ever endorsed.

“We have fought for a future where every child can learn in a well-funded school, where child care is accessible to all, and where people do not have to choose between caring for their children and paying rent or putting food on the table,” the organization’s co-directors, Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari and Marina Marcou-O’Malley, said in a statement. “We believe Zohran shares that vision.”

Union officials also cheered Mamdani’s win. Mulgrew, head of the teachers union, said he and the incoming mayor are aligned on many of the union’s priorities, including ramping up teacher hiring and boosting pay for aides who work with students with disabilities. The union chief also praised Mamdani’s comment to bolster the city’s prekindergarten program for 3-year-olds, launch free child care, and root out wasteful spending.

Still, the union chief acknowledged that it remains to be seen what Mamdani will prioritize.

“I’m not sure exactly what his signature issue is going to be,” Mulgrew said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mamdani campaign quietly convenes education advocates to shape schools agenda

2025-10-28T12:30:00+00:00

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Though New York City’s public school system has not been a focal point of Zohran Mamdani mayoral agenda, his campaign has quietly started reaching out to education advocates to collect ideas.

Last week, a handful of Mamdani campaign staffers organized a roundtable discussion with dozens of education advocates, parent leaders, and experts to solicit input on what Mamdani should prioritize if he is elected on Nov. 4, multiple people in attendance told Chalkbeat.

The conversation covered several broad topics in virtual breakout rooms, including funding, community schools, literacy, “privatization,” youth groups, students with disabilities, English language learners, children experiencing homelessness, and artificial intelligence, according to a meeting agenda.

One topic of discussion was Mamdani’s vow to end mayoral control of the city’s public schools, which allows the mayor to select a schools chancellor and appoint the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, a board that votes on major contracts and policy decisions. Mamdani has pledged to replace mayoral control with a “co-governance” model that includes more input from students, educators, and parents, though he has not said what that might look like.

Jonathan Greenberg, a Queens parent leader invited to give a short presentation on mayoral control at the meeting, laid out a plan backed by the Education Council Consortium, a coalition of parent leaders. The proposal would extend the mayoral control law in the short term while giving the mayor fewer votes on the PEP. (State law grants the authority of mayoral control, which is up for renewal in June 2026.)

“That would create a functional PEP that would have to be engaged and have meaningful discussion on the issues rather than simply taking what the mayor says and voting,” Greenberg said.

Meanwhile, a commission would come up with a more detailed vision for reforming the school governance system to be implemented later.

The Mamdani staffers who participated in the meeting did not weigh in on that proposal.

“I wish they had, but really they just listened,” Greenberg said.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, has said it would be a “terrible mistake” to roll back mayoral control and has criticized Mamdani for not having a clear education platform.

The education roundtable also included conversation about an advisory group report released in 2019 under Mayor Bill de Blasio that offered recommendations for improving school diversity, according to the agenda. Mamdani has referenced it several times on the campaign trail, including in a proposal to phase out gifted programs for kindergarten students.

Several major advocacy groups attended, including the Alliance for Quality Education. A staffer from Advocates for Children, which helps low-income families navigate the school system, delivered a presentation on the organization’s recommendations for whoever the next mayor is. Multiple attendees said City Council education chair Rita Joseph participated as did Jamaal Bowman, a former congressman and Bronx middle school principal. Both have been rumored as possible chancellor candidates.

Planting seeds for a Mamdani transition?

The meeting offers a window into a possible Mamdani K-12 policy agenda that may be taking shape as Election Day on Nov. 4 nears. The 34-year-old Democratic Socialist has offered few detailed plans for how he would lead the nation’s largest school district, serving over 900,000 students in roughly 1,600 schools.

He has emphasized that he would focus on the city’s most vulnerable children, including doubling a program that deploys school staff to check in with homeless students and their caregivers to serve about 7,000 children. In response to a questionnaire from Chalkbeat about new ideas for improving some of the city’s lowest performing schools, he expressed support of community schools, which offer a range of wraparound services like mental health support and food pantries.

Mamdani’s staffers told attendees they were interested in education policy ideas that connect to affordability, a major campaign theme that underpins his proposals to roll out universal child care and freeze rent for tenants in stabilized units. They also asked attendees to consider potential threats from the Trump administration or economic trends as well as practices in other cities that New York could adopt, according to multiple attendees.

Some attendees who have been pushing the campaign to engage more on education issues cheered the opportunity to weigh in.

“It’s great that they’re finally digging into this work,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a president of the local parent council in East Harlem. “Was it a little later than I hoped? Yeah, absolutely.”

In recent weeks the frontrunner has outlined some new policy ideas, including plans to recruit 1,000 additional teachers a year and reform the Education Department’s contracting process to stamp out redundant spending and waste.

Erika Kendall, president of the local parent council in Brooklyn’s District 17, covering Crown Heights, helped lead a conversation about charter schools during the roundtable. She emphasized some of the ways that charters can draw public resources that she believes could be used in traditional public schools, such as a requirement that city officials subsidize their rent if they don’t offer space in public buildings. (Mamdani has expressed reservations about the publicly funded yet privately managed schools, though he will have little formal power over them.)

“The goal was to hear from as many people as possible — to understand what people are seeing on the ground,” Kendall said, noting the conversation was productive. “I don’t think they were prepared for how comprehensive these conversations were going to be.”

Meanwhile, at least one parent group, Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, expressed frustration that they were not included. The organization favors expanding selective admissions and endorsed Cuomo.

“As a grassroots parent advocacy group that has advocated for high quality public education, which Mamdani said would be a priority, we are disappointed that we were not invited to the table,” Yiatin Chu, the group’s co-founder, wrote in an email. “Additionally, we extended an invitation to his campaign to discuss his education platform and got no answer.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Will Mamdani break tradition and keep Eric Adams’ schools chancellor? He’s open to it.

2025-10-17T21:26:20+00:00

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Ever since New York City’s mayor won control of the public school system more than two decades ago, the city’s chief executive has installed his own schools chancellor.

But frontrunner Zohran Mamdani said this week that he is open to ending that pattern by keeping Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams, at the helm of the nation’s largest school system.

The Education Department veteran was named chancellor one year ago after David Banks abruptly retired, and is widely respected by parents, school leaders, and the teachers union, which has publicly supported her.

“I think she has been doing a good job,” Mamdani told reporters Wednesday after he unveiled a proposal to recruit more teachers. “And I’ve said time and again that I will consider anyone on the basis of the work that they have done — not hold it against them as to who appointed them.”

During a mayoral debate Thursday evening, Mamdani again singled out Aviles-Ramos for praise. “Some of the initiatives that Mayor Adams has launched, especially with this chancellor, have been showing positive signs.”

Previous mayors have appointed new school chiefs after taking office to take the system in a different direction. Yet Mamdani has said little about his education vision and has praised Adams’ signature initiative to overhaul reading and math instruction. Keeping Aviles-Ramos could help those efforts stay on track, some education experts said, while avoiding a leadership transition in the middle of the school year. The next mayor will take office in January.

“Often, mayoral candidates are running against their predecessors,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “Mamdani hasn’t articulated a very specific package of education policy reforms that would diverge considerably from the current administration.”

Mamdani’s chancellor search could be complicated by his vow to end mayoral control, which gives the mayor authority to appoint a schools chief and set policy for more than 1,600 public schools. He has proposed replacing it with a “co-governance” system that includes more feedback from families and educators, though he has not outlined a plan.

That could curtail the power of whomever he chooses to lead the system. Some experts said weakening mayoral control could also make it harder to pull off his pledge to offer universal child care, because it would require coordination with the Education Department.

Pressed during the debate Thursday, Mamdani did not indicate what specific power over the school system he would be willing to relinquish and seemed to suggest the mayor would retain an important role.

“I think the mayor needs to retain the accountability so that New Yorkers know exactly who they can come to when they have critiques,” Mamdani said.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa both criticized Mamdani’s proposal and said they would seek to keep that power, which must be regularly renewed by the state legislature.

Aviles-Ramos has a powerful ally

New York City’s teachers union has publicly supported keeping Aviles-Ramos in the role, especially as she has been open to relaxing the city’s curriculum mandates to give teachers more flexibility.

“She absolutely should be up for consideration for the work she has done,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew previously said. The union endorsed Mamdani in the general election after sitting out the primary.

Some families hope Aviles-Ramos will stay, noting that the chancellor has been receptive to parent feedback and foregrounds her identity as a Latina, a group that includes 42% of public school students.

“She speaks so openly about having a daughter who is school aged, having to navigate the system — that connects with a lot of parent leaders,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, president of the District 4 parent council in East Harlem.

Salas-Ramirez added that “there is also some resistance with having a chancellor affiliated with Adams,” who has faced corruption charges and abandoned his bid for reelection as his polling remained in the single digits.

Mamdani has not offered many details about what he’s looking for in a schools chief if he is elected. Last month, he said he had not conducted any interviews.

Several other candidates have been floated, The New York Times reported, including Meisha Porter, who briefly served as chancellor under Mayor Bill de Blasio; Kamar Samuels, the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3; and Rita Joseph, who helms City Council’s Education Committee.

Aviles-Ramos appeared to make a case that she should stay in the role during her “State of Our Schools” speech last month, some observers told Gothamist. She vowed to expand a program that supports homeless students that Mamdani has also said he plans to grow. And she touted surveys that show 92% of school leaders trust her at her word.

A spokesperson for Aviles-Ramos declined to comment on whether she has spoken with Mamdani or would consider staying in the role.

But in the final line of her speech last month, Aviles-Ramos suggested she is looking to the future.

“We are just getting started,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

The back-to-school interview: NYC students talk with Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos

2025-08-25T20:30:02+00:00

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As roughly 900,000 New York City students prepare to return to school on Thursday, Sept. 4, three student journalists got a preview of the year ahead from the head of the nation’s largest school system.

In this special back-to-school episode of P.S. Weekly, schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos shared her thoughts on pressing education issues ranging from the cellphone ban to restorative justice and whether she’d encourage her middle school daughter to take the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT.

On the cellphone ban, the chancellor acknowledged there will be a “detox” period and promised the Education Department is working “behind the scenes” to develop a way for students and families to communicate issues with their schools’ rollout. For restorative justice — initiatives that focus on conflict mediation rather than punitive punishment — Aviles-Ramos said she “completely” supports the practice and expects to “amp up” the focus on it. And for the SHSAT, she said she’s not encouraging her daughter to take it, but will follow her daughter’s lead and support whatever decision her daughter chooses in terms of pursuing the test or not.

Student journalists Aponi Kafele of Essex Street Academy, Roberto Bailey of Hunter College High School, and Autumn Wynn of Park Slope Collegiate also pressed the chancellor on her commitment to the city’s Journalism for All initiative and asked what students can do if they don’t feel their schools are sufficiently academically rigorous.

Aviles-Ramos, a former student journalist herself, said the Education Department was looking for ways to successfully implement journalism programs across schools. And she encouraged students to think critically about whether they are being challenged in class, not in terms of the amount of homework they’re getting but rather whether they’re learning to think for themselves and build new skills.

“We’re outlining what a classroom should look like and what the teacher should be doing, what the students should be doing, and what the family should be doing and experiencing,” she said, previewing a push for the new school year to give students and families a new tool to understand whether they’re getting a quality education.

“This is how we build accountability,” Aviles-Ramos said.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC students post significant gains in reading and math, state test scores show

2025-08-11T20:21:12+00:00

A searchable list of school-level test results can be found at the bottom of this story.

Reading and math scores shot up across New York City’s public schools last school year, according to state test results released Monday.

Among students in grades 3-8, nearly 57% of students were considered proficient in math, an increase of 3.5 percentage points. The gains were even sharper in reading. About 56% of students were proficient in the subject, a 7 percentage point increase.

Those gains come after Mayor Eric Adams has made overhauling reading instruction his signature education priority, an effort that has won support from union leaders and even candidates vying to unseat Adams in this November’s election. Top city officials argued Monday that their efforts are bearing fruit, as all elementary schools were required to use city-approved reading curriculums last school year through an initiative known as NYC Reads.

“This is what happens when we stay focused on evidence-based instruction and never lose sight of what’s possible for our young people,” schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said in a statement.

Experts said the test score gains were encouraging, but cautioned that many factors can influence them and it’s impossible to isolate the effect of the curriculum overhauls.

“It’s at least suggestive that there’s real improvement,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied school performance and accountability systems. Results from a separate battery of assessments also hinted at some progress.

At the same time, Pallas noted test scores increased statewide by a similar magnitude as in New York City, which “does tamp down a little bit that it’s something special New York City is doing.” The city’s overall proficiency rates are slightly higher than those statewide, where 53% of students are proficient in reading and 55% are proficient in math.

City Education Department officials also mounted an aggressive test preparation effort last year targeting students who were at the cusp of passing the exams, which may have played a role in the test score increase. Some experts criticized that approach because it could create incentives for schools to focus on students close to proficiency rather than those furthest behind.

Officials noted that reading scores increased more sharply in earlier grades that were subject to the reading curriculum changes. There was an 11.6 percentage point jump in reading proficiency among students in grades 3-5 who were in the first phase of schools that started using the new curriculums two years ago. Among the second phase of schools, which implemented the curriculum changes last year, reading scores increased 10.4 percentage points.

Overall, Pallas said that more data is needed to draw firm conclusions about student proficiency over time. “If there’s real growth, it should be sustained. And that requires looking at scores over the next couple years,” he said.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said in a statement that the test score increases are “a testament to the hard work by New York City educators and our students. He singled out Aviles-Ramos, noting she “fought the Education Department] bureaucracy to make sure the needs of students and school communities came first.”

The state test results continued to reflect deep disparities between different student groups, though in some cases those gaps narrowed somewhat.

Black students, for instance, posted the largest test score increases in reading and math in the city’s public schools of any racial group. But they still lag their white and Asian American peers.

About 75% of Asian American students and 73% of white students were proficient in reading compared with 43.5% of Latino children and 47% of Black students. (Black students’ proficiency jumped about 8 percentage points.)

Meanwhile, nearly 81% of Asian American students and 75% of white students passed state math exams while only 43% of Black and Latino students were considered to be on grade level.

Only 29% of students with disabilities were proficient in math and nearly 27% were in reading. Even as students with disabilities made some gains in reading and math, the gap between those children and their nondisabled peers widened slightly.

Among students learning English as a new language, nearly 30% were proficient in math and 12.5% were proficient in reading — a gain of more than 4 percentage points in both categories.

The state exams have undergone a series of tweaks in recent years that have sometimes made it difficult to draw comparisons from the results year over year. For the last two years, the tests have remained stable, meaning the results should be comparable.

The state Education Department has expanded computer-based testing in lieu of paper exams and all students will take digital versions of the test next school year. Pallas said it is unlikely that will dramatically skew the results, though some schools have struggled with glitchy platforms.

Curious about school-level test results? Here is a searchable breakdown of math and English scores across all of the city’s public schools. (Charter schools are included in the table but not in the district’s overall numbers above.)

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s highly anticipated high school admissions data faces lengthy delay

2025-07-31T19:29:18+00:00

Shortly after this story was published, the Education Department released admissions data. Read our coverage here.

New York City’s Education Department has yet to release highly anticipated high school admissions statistics, marking the first time in more than a decade that officials have not disclosed the results by mid-June.

The figures include demographic breakdowns of offers to the city’s specialized schools — widely considered among the nation’s most prestigious public high schools — and often command national headlines because the campuses enroll tiny numbers of Black and Latino students.

School integration advocates, government accountability groups, and even former department officials have begun to question the delays.

“It’s a completely reasonable public expectation that this information is published as soon as it’s available,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany, a group that pushes for government transparency. “It’s right to ask the mayor, ‘Where the heck is this?’”

Under Mayor Eric Adams, the Education Department began releasing high school admissions figures in June, months later than his predecessor. In recent weeks, education officials repeatedly promised to disclose the data imminently, though they have yet to do so.

The figures often generate fresh debate about the status of the city’s schools as among the country’s most segregated. New York City is home to an unusually large share of public schools that enroll students based on academic performance, including eight specialized high schools that only consider a student’s performance on a single exam.

Although they only enroll about 5% of the city’s students, the specialized high schools command outsized attention because they are widely considered to be among the country’s most prestigious public schools. Still, the campuses’ demographics do not reflect the student body as a whole, prompting longstanding debate about whether the admissions process should change. Even as offers to Black and Latino students inched up last year, four of the eight specialized schools that rely on a single test offered admission to 10 or fewer Black students.

Some observers have wondered if the delay could reflect an effort by Adams, who is seeking reelection, to release the specialized high school figures over the summer when they might get less attention. In response to a social media post making that claim, former Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer wrote on July 3 that “they should’ve had this data out at least a month ago.”

Styer, who left the department in April, added that he encouraged the department to release the high school school admissions statistics in June instead of earlier in the spring to include them along with middle school, kindergarten, and prekindergarten figures all at once instead of in separate batches. (Those groups have slightly different admissions timelines.)

Typically, the statistics also include the share of students who got into programs they ranked at the top of their application and other basic information about the number of applicants for each grade level.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said the data has not been released because the department is planning to include a new set of statistics this year that need to be vetted for accuracy. She declined to elaborate.

“We are working on it — that’s all I can really say to you right now,” Brownstein said during a brief phone call. She later wrote in an email the results would be published on Thursday.

Matt Gonzales, a longtime integration advocate and the campaign director of New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, argued the delayed statistics are part of a pattern.

“When it comes to transparency around data, and when it comes to addressing issues around segregation, this administration has made it pretty clear that they don’t care,” he said.

A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Other advocates wondered if the department is simply overwhelmed, as the federal government freezes education funding and some families have been caught up in more aggressive immigration enforcement.

“2025 is like no other year prior in my lifetime in regards to everything that is happening,” said Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, co-executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group.

She noted that it is unlikely that the admissions figures will reveal significant demographic shifts at the specialized schools, but she was intrigued by the promise of new information about the admissions process.

“It would be interesting to see what new data they’re trying to parse out,” Shaakir-Ansari said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Dan Weisberg on literacy, migrants, and his decision to step down as NYC’s No. 2 school official

2025-07-24T22:20:25+00:00

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He shepherded the mayor’s curriculum overhauls, pushed to open 28 new schools, and even helped elevate Melissa Aviles-Ramos as chief of the nation’s largest school system.

Now, after three and a half years as the Education Department’s second-in-command, Dan Weisberg is stepping down.

Weisberg oversees a massive portfolio that includes Adams’ biggest education initiatives, including reading and math curriculum mandates known as NYC Reads and Solves, and a pathways program to connect more students to career options before graduation.

“Dan was at the center of all our critical work,” Aviles-Ramos said in a statement. “He has led with integrity, dedication, boldness, and care, pushing relentlessly for innovation and equity in our schools.”

Weisberg has also amassed his share of critics, including advocates who point out that the Education Department has not prioritized school integration — and it has advanced policies that they fear will worsen the problem. He got his start in the Education Department as a labor negotiator during the Bloomberg administration, often clashing with the teachers union, which initially raised alarms about his leadership but more recently has praised some of his work expanding teacher training.

As Weisberg prepares to leave the department next month, Chalkbeat caught up with him about his assessment of the school system’s health, mixed results of the city’s reading curriculum overhaul, how immigration crackdowns could affect enrollment, and what he makes of Zohran Mamdani’s education promises.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve been the second in command at the Education Department since Eric Adams took office and you previously mentioned that you’d stay in the position as long as the mayor and the chancellor wanted you in the role. I’m wondering what changed?

Nothing changed. It was a good time to transition — it being the summer, the school year has ended. Honestly, this is not a job you ever want to do if you’re not feeling like you have the energy to give it 100%. It does take a lot out of you, and it’s time for me to get a little bit of downtime. I feel very good about where we are with the work, and feel very good about the strength of the team, so that made it a good time to transition.

What is your zoomed out assessment of the school system compared with four years ago? When the mayor came into office, he spoke pretty passionately about how it was unacceptable that large majorities of Black and Latino children weren’t proficient in reading and math. There’s been some progress under your watch, but it’s still the case that more than 60% of those kids are not considered proficient on state tests.

I appreciate you raising the mayor’s words and former Chancellor Banks’ words which I think was really important. That needed to happen before we could make some pretty fundamental changes.

I may have more perspective after I’ve gotten a chance to take a breath. But what I would say is that kind of problem where we are not serving the large majority, frankly, of our students well academically is not going to be solved by tweaks. We really needed some fundamental changes in the way we approach teaching reading and math. Even though we haven’t really launched it yet, we have work to do when it comes to all of our core academic subjects.

As we said right from the start, this is not something that’s going to show immediate returns on test scores, but it will show returns. And so I would say, if we stay the course with this general approach to curriculum instruction, you know, eight years from now, we will see steady, significant gains. And a much higher percentage of our students, including our Black and Hispanic students, our students with disabilities, our multilingual learners, all doing much, much better than they’re doing now.

If you’re thinking on an eight-year time horizon, that could be multiple mayoral administrations from now. So far, it seems like the evidence is mixed: state test scores went down a little bit last year [in reading] — the screener data is maybe a little more encouraging, but not definitive. People are going to have to make decisions about this program before maybe you would like them to. Are you worried about that?

Political transitions are a fact of life. And this is not a surprise to us. The way you ensure sustainability across administrations is to do a really good job at implementation and a really good job at listening to people in the field and adjusting. And I think the chancellor deserves tremendous credit for doing that. She’s got her ear very close to the ground with teachers in the classroom, with principals, with superintendents, with our union partners. Ultimately, if the people in the field doing the hard work of educating our kids think this is the right approach — very, very unlikely that a new administration, whether it’s a second term, whether it’s a new administration, are going to alter that.

What are some of the biggest goals that you came in excited about that you didn’t make as much progress on as you hoped?

You’re always hoping for very rapid progress, but that doesn’t usually happen. When Chancellor Banks and I and the team were preparing during the transition to enter office, one of the things that I was pretty strenuous in advising is it’s very important, particularly in a big complex system like this one, to have a very short list of priorities. There’s limited capacity, there’s limited time in the day, there’s limited attention, there’s limited budget. If you have a list of 10 big priorities, in my view, you might as well have a list of a million or zero.

Our focus has been very clear: New York City Reads, New York City Solves, student pathways. Truly in all of those areas, I feel like we both did the foundational work, the building blocks are in place, and have made progress in implementation. [It would] be wonderful if we could say we already have 100,000 kids getting career-connected learning opportunities connected to specific pathways. We’re not there yet. We didn’t expect to be there yet. I’m not disappointed by that, but I’m certainly eager for us to continue to scale that work.

This is not just me saying, ‘Hey, everything’s wonderful.’ We very specifically, strategically kept a short list of priorities. And I think in part, as a result of that, we were able to see real, tangible progress in each of those areas.

If Zohran Mamdani becomes mayor, his top youth-focused agenda item is free child care. What do you make of that proposal? And as someone who has worked in a big, complicated system what would it actually take to stand that up?

I can’t imagine anybody who’s mayor or aspiring to be mayor of New York City, not seeing access to child care is a big issue. It’s a great ambition.

We have seen with providing 3-K and pre-K, it can be hugely positive. It is very difficult to implement. We depend on a pretty complicated system of providers. It’s not just, you know, our schools, which is complicated enough to manage, but it’s many of our [community based organizations], and they need to be at the heart of this system. And I think if the system gets extended to younger ages those CBOs are going to be a critical part of that as well. And that’s just a really complex system to try to manage well. We’ve seen this, particularly with 3-K, I think we made a lot of progress there, it is very difficult for any school system serving any age to respond quickly to changes in demand.

Mamdani has also proposed to end mayoral control in its current form. Do you think there’s an appetite in Albany to end the governance system that has existed since the Bloomberg administration?

Yeah, yes. It would be a massive mistake to end mayoral control. What’s the old quote? Democracy is the worst system except for all the others.

And I get it, people have a lot of frustration with our current governance system because anything that’s wrong with the system gets laid at the feet of this governance system. I came up through the public schools under a very different governance system, and it was far, far worse. The student outcomes were worse, the student experiences were worse, the family experiences were way worse, the Byzantine bureaucratic structure. I know we have our problems with bureaucracy, but it is nothing compared to what was when you had a fragmented system.

Former Chancellor Banks called the influx of migrant students a “godsend” for helping stabilize enrollment. I’m wondering if you’re seeing any evidence now of those students leaving and whether there’s a danger that federal immigration policy could drive down immigrant student enrollment?

I wouldn’t say we’re seeing evidence of that at a system level. We’re not seeing big swings — reductions in enrollment. Certainly anecdotally, that is happening in places. And it’s a huge worry.

Immigration is not just the lifeblood of our city and and always has been, but it’s the lifeblood of our school system. We had a significant influx of new New Yorkers over the last several years, but we have steady immigration and new families coming into our school system all the time. And so even without the influx, if we see major decreases in the number of new families coming to New York City [and] enrolling their kids, that’s going to have a very negative effect on our schools. So I absolutely worry about that. I’m talking about legal immigration, where it’s just families coming into the country. We’ve been blessed with wave after wave of immigration, even aside from, you know, the big influx that happened the last couple of years. And we need that to continue.

One of the biggest things the next mayor is going to have to manage is the class size mandate. Zohran Mandani said recently he thought that the Education Department hadn’t been taking the mandate seriously enough. There’s been some critique about whether the city has done enough to plan to get to 100% compliance and make it clear how that’s going to happen. I’m wondering what your response is to those critiques? A big component of the mandate is going to be to hire thousands of new teachers and also curious whether those teachers exist?

The critiques about us not taking it seriously are a head scratcher. We have complied. Some of these critics may not like the way the law is set up, but the law is very clear. We have to get the 20% [compliance] and then an incremental 20% every year. As you know, we have done that, and we’re going to do that for next year as well. We have done that in part through the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars. I don’t know what indicates more seriousness than allocating significant budget to an issue.

We have some mechanisms to increase our pipeline. We have done that primarily through our alternative certification programs, our teaching fellows programs, which have been at times in the past much bigger. We’ve done that this year, doubled the class. We can work with our higher ed partners to see if they can expand, but it is going to be a stress and a strain.

We need to expand the talent pipeline. And the best way to do that, in my view, is creating a really robust paraprofessional teacher career pathway. But suffice it to say, if we are in a situation where we’re going to need to hire, call it 7,000 teachers a year versus 4,000, then we’re going to have to do things differently. We’re going to have to innovate. The solutions to that right now are not in place.

Another huge priority has been opening new schools. Many of those have been screened programs and the administration has made the argument that’s to give families more high-quality options in high-need neighborhoods. At the same time, enrollment is declining over the last several years, so that could lead to a greater number of unsustainably small schools, and it could also lead to more academic segregation. How did you weigh those trade-offs?

The guiding light for us is around community demand. The fact that we opened [Bard High School Early College Bronx], and [Bard High School Early College Brooklyn] was not because the chancellors and I said, ‘Hey we think it’d be a cool idea to open an early college school in these areas.’ It’s because there was demand. We can be guided by our own opinions about what families should want. Some school system leaders have led that way, and if the people we serve don’t agree with you, you’re going to be speaking to an empty room.

Birth rates are dropping. As you say, there may be some variation in immigration patterns. There’s still lots and lots of New Yorkers who choose not to enroll their kids in New York City public schools. In some cases, they decide to leave because they’re not getting what they want from the school system.

This is a longer conversation maybe we’ll get to have at some point — the idea that, hey, we’re going to take the high performing kids and put them in certain schools, and that’s going to leave low performing kids in other schools. You remember that LeBron James commercial where he’s [talking about] kids from humble beginnings? My hope is that there’s no more humble beginnings if we get really good at catching kids up, which is, by the way, the next New York City Reads and Solves challenge that we are taking on in a big way.

We have to get away from the scarcity paradigm, which is there’s only a static number of high performing kids, there’s a huge number of low performing kids, there’s a static number of good schools and a static number of bad schools. If we get really good at catching kids up, then whether you’re in a screened school, whether you’re an arts oriented school, a science oriented school, whether you’re just into the comprehensive high school, you’re going to get a good, solid education.

I do have to ask what you’re planning to do next.

Well, that’s probably the easiest question you’ve asked, because right now, I’m going to take some downtime. I’m going to spend a little time with family and just taking a breath, and I will be back in the fight somewhere, but I don’t know where at this point.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

40 NYC schools will get 5,000 new after-school seats this fall. Here’s the list.

2025-07-22T20:12:22+00:00

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Forty schools across New York City will receive 5,000 new after-school seats this fall under a plan from Mayor Eric Adams to significantly expand such programs in the coming years.

The slots are expected to be available for students in grades K-5 across all five boroughs, free to families, and operate from the end of the school day to 6 p.m.

“This fall, those 5,000 children in neighborhoods in most need will have a safe place and nurturing place to go when the school day ends,” Adams said at a press conference at P.S. 152 in the Bronx, one of the campuses that will get new seats. “It’s critical, not only for the children, but also parents.”

By fall 2027, officials hope to add another 15,000 after-school seats, bringing the total number of elementary and middle public school students in city after-school programs to about 184,000. The city plans to assess how many more seats would then be needed to make the program universal. The expansion is projected to cost about $331 million a year by 2027.

Students in after-school programs should have access to a range of activities, including sports, art, and robotics, Adams said.

The after-school expansion, initially announced in April, comes after multiple candidates in the Democratic primary proposed efforts to dramatically grow the city’s after-school offerings. The eventual Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani, campaigned on a universal child care program. Given Adams’ unpopularity, it maybe up to his successor to implement the proposed after-school expansion.

The move also comes as the Trump administration froze billions in education funding earlier this month, including for after-school programs. The administration has since released some of that money, though the broader freeze is the subject of a lawsuit from two dozen states including New York. A slew of advocates and elected officials rallied in Manhattan Tuesday calling for the release of the money that had already been allocated by Congress.

Comptroller Brad Lander criticized a freeze of billions in federal education funding at a Tuesday rally outside the Education Department's Manhattan headquarters.

New York City Education Department officials said that up to $130 million is at risk if the funds remain frozen, though officials did not immediately say if that includes funds that have since been released. Teacher training, community schools, and class size reduction efforts could be affected, though a spokesperson emphasized that “we will always provide every school with the resources they need to give our students a world-class education.” (City Comptroller Brad Lander indicated the amount of frozen federal funding for the city’s schools could be closer to $170 million.)

For his part, Adams said the after-school expansion would be safe regardless of uncertainty at the federal level.

“Whatever plays out on the landscape of the federal government, we’re going to be fiscally smart and look at these important programs,” he said. “They will move forward.”

City officials considered a range of factors in determining which campuses received new seats, including poverty levels, crime rates, gaps in after-school support, and proportions of students with disabilities and those who are learning English.

A full list of the 40 campuses, including three charter schools, that will get new after-school programs this fall is here.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NY graduation overhaul: State approves ‘portrait of a graduate’ as Regents exams are on the way out

2025-07-14T22:16:34+00:00

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As New York officials move to overhaul the state’s graduation requirements, they’ve been grappling with a pressing question: What should it take to earn a diploma once the state’s exit exams are no longer required?

The Board of Regents on Monday took a step toward answering that question. They voted to approve a new framework, known as the “portrait of a graduate,” that helps define what it will take to earn a diploma after the Regents exams are phased out as a graduation requirement beginning in the 2027-28 school year.

“The New York State ‘portrait of a graduate’ will serve as the North Star of our state educational system,” said Angelique Johnson-Dingle, deputy commissioner of P-12 instructional support at the state’s Education Department.

Here’s what you should know about what comes next in the state’s overhaul of graduation requirements.

What is the portrait of a graduate exactly?

As part of a yearslong process of overhauling graduation standards, state education officials came up with six key qualities they believe students should master to earn a diploma.

Those qualities — which have been revised in recent months — form a ‘portrait’ of what a New York high school graduate should look like. Students will be required to show that they are academically prepared, creative innovators, critical thinkers, effective communicators, global citizens, and “reflective and future focused.” Officials said principles of culturally responsive education should permeate each of those categories.

Students will be able to meet those expectations in several ways. They might practice critical thinking skills by participating in debates or research projects; service learning projects could show commitment to global citizenship; and students may develop career or academic goals to demonstrate they are “future focused,” officials said.

But before state officials develop a more detailed plan that lays out specific criteria students must meet to graduate, they wanted to finalize the high-level priorities. And while many members of the state’s Board of Regents praised the portrait of a graduate framework, some also wanted more details about what it will look like in practice and how students will be assessed once the Regents exams are no longer required.

“It is really, really important from a public relations and publicity point of view, to get the ‘how’ as quickly as we can — even if it’s an overall and generic kind of picture,” said Regent Roger Tilles of Nassau County. “There are so many people out there, as we know, that crave the old Regents exam.”

When will the new graduation requirements start?

State officials are expected to unveil more specifics about the portrait of a graduate, including rubrics and more specific guidance, next school year.

Students who enter ninth grade in fall 2027 — the Class of 2031 — will be the first group that will fall under new credit requirements. But all of the new graduation measures, including the portrait of a graduate, won’t be fully phased in until the 2029-30 school year, state officials previously said.

The Board of Regents appeared anxious to keep the process moving. They were scheduled to vote on whether to approve the portrait of a graduate framework in November. But Regents Chancellor Lester Young voiced frustration with that timeline, and department officials scrambled to draft policy language that the board swiftly approved on Monday.

State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa said she supports the new framework but expressed concern about approving it in the middle of the summer, noting that “we want to be very thoughtful” about how and when school districts are confronted with changes.

A state education spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether Monday’s vote could alter the timeline for transitioning to new graduation requirements.

What about the Regents exams?

Students will no longer be required to pass the Regents exams — standardized tests in English, math, science, and social studies — to graduate beginning in the 2027-28 school year. That represents a big shift, as the exams have existed since the mid-1800s and many consider them synonymous with a New York diploma. (Under federal rules, students will still be required to take some exit exams but will not have to earn a passing score.)

New York is one of only a handful of states that still requires the exit exams to earn a diploma. Research suggests they do little to boost student learning or raise their earning potential and can lead to higher dropout rates.

In theory, students who entered ninth grade last school year will not be required to pass the exams to graduate, though some school leaders said they’re reluctant to advertise that.

One Brooklyn high school principal said the portrait of a graduate framework is a step in the right direction, but has been reluctant to communicate with students and parents about the upcoming changes.

“If you start telling students that the Regents is not required, then it’s going to impact performance negatively,” said the principal who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “Guidance hasn’t been shared about what should be communicated or when it should be communicated.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Zohran Mamdani wants to end mayoral control of NYC schools. Here’s what that could mean.

2025-07-01T20:14:52+00:00

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Zohran Mamdani has not sketched out a plan to manage the nation’s largest school system. But the Queens assemblyman, who won a decisive victory for the Democratic mayoral nomination on Tuesday, has one big idea: giving himself less power.

Since 2002, the state has granted the mayor of New York City almost complete authority over the public school system. The mayor unilaterally selects the schools chancellor and appoints the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, a board that votes on school closures, contracts, and other major changes to Education Department regulations.

Most mayoral candidates this year said they support mayoral control, though some suggested tweaks. Every mayor has lobbied state lawmakers in Albany for extensions to mayoral control since it was enacted more than two decades ago. Mamdani, a 33-year-old Democratic socialist, has vowed to be an exception to that rule.

“Zohran supports an end to mayoral control and envisions a system instead in which parents, students, educators and administrators work together,” his campaign website states. In its place, he calls for a “co-governance” model that empowers existing organizations, such as elected parent councils and local school teams that include administrators, teachers, and caregivers.

Mamdani’s plan would represent a fundamental shift in school governance at a time when the system faces many pressing issues, including elevated rates of chronic absenteeism, declining enrollment, and persistent gaps in student achievement.

“That’s a signal that he’s thinking about this in a very different way than the typical mayoral hopeful,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University Teachers College. “Not too many politicians have been in the business of giving power away.”

Mamdani secured 56% of the vote in the Democratic primary, according to unofficial ranked choice results released on Tuesday. That momentum could carry him through a general election dominated by Democratic voters. But he still faces a crowded field, with Mayor Eric Adams, Independent Jim Walden, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who received 44% of votes in the primary. (Though Cuomo will be on the ballot, he has not said whether he will mount a campaign.)

Debate over mayoral control to start again in 2026

Whoever enters City Hall in January will quickly be thrust into the perennial debate about mayoral control, as the state law granting that authority is up for renewal in the middle of 2026. State lawmakers have shown some willingness to tweak mayoral control in recent years, granting only short renewals and adding new members to the education panel (though the mayor retains the majority).

Supporters of the model contend that it allows for the mayor to execute a clear policy vision for the city’s schools and makes it obvious to the public who is responsible for the system’s performance. The prior system of decentralized school boards was rife with corruption and patronage, they argue.

Critics contend that mayoral control makes it too difficult for parents, students, and educators to have a say over how schools are run and that mayoral elections every four years are a blunt accountability tool, as other issues often squeeze out education. They also note that Adams’ hired or promoted some of his relatives into senior government jobs. His schools chancellor, David Banks, retired amid a federal corruption investigation, though he was not accused of wrongdoing.

Mamdani has not articulated a clear vision for the city’s schools and said little about what alternatives to mayoral control he favors. His campaign did not respond to a request for specifics. Brad Lander, a mayoral candidate who cross-endorsed with Mamdani, also proposed changes to mayoral control to give City Council the power to weigh in on the appointment of the schools chancellor.

John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the state Senate’s New York City education committee, said he could imagine a range of possibilities for Mamdani’s “co-governance” approach. He said it could involve transitioning to an elected school board similar to Chicago, or allowing other elected officials power to make additional appointments to the Panel for Educational Policy. That board has 24 members, a majority of whom are appointed by the mayor.

“It’s great to hear [Mamdani] discussing new ideas,” said Liu, who endorsed Mamdani and said more debate is needed about various approaches to running the system.

Still, Liu sounded a note of skepticism that the Democratic nominee would relinquish control of the school system. “What’s said on the campaign trail is not always what happens once you become mayor,” he said.

Mamdani’s ‘co-governance’ proposal draws enthusiasm and concern

Heather Lewis, a professor of art and design education at Pratt who has written extensively about the community control movement in New York, wondered whether Mamdani might give local community education councils more influence, a move she supports. Those bodies, which represent 32 local districts and four citywide councils, could have more authority to supervise the superintendents who oversee principals, she said, a power the local boards held before mayoral control.

Mamdani is “trying to figure out how to co-govern” — something no one has tried to do since Bloomberg implemented mayoral control, she said. “That’s exciting.”

Other observers were skeptical of deferring policy decisions to the local level. For one, turnout in local parent council elections has historically been dismal, with some council members winning with just a handful of votes, meaning those groups may not fully represent their communities.

Mamdani could also be forced to confront local decisions he may disagree with; Manhattan’s District 2, for instance, passed a controversial resolution in 2024 calling for a review of the city’s policy of allowing transgender girls to join girls’ sports teams.

“Is Mamdani really willing to go down roads like that?” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Bloomfield, who previously served as the general counsel for the city’s Board of Education before mayoral control, added that Mamdani’s pitch for “co-governance” may be a winning campaign message because it has a populist appeal to make the system more democratic.

“It is a signal of a mindset more than an operational plan,” he said.

Other observers said they are open to changes to mayoral control but wished Mamdani was clearer about how changing the governance structure could produce better results for students.

“Co-sharing power [is] a process, not an outcome,” said David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, an organization that supports a network of 22 public schools across the city. “It’s like okay, cool, but to what end?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Polarizing race: NYC teachers union declines to endorse in mayoral primary

2025-06-13T20:59:50+00:00

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In a striking reversal, the city’s teachers union has declined to endorse a candidate in the Democratic primary for mayor, officials announced Friday afternoon.

The United Federation of Teachers’ stamp of approval is widely coveted, as the union is the city’s second largest with nearly 200,000 members, including about 60,000 retirees.

But Michael Mulgrew, the union’s president, said there were deep divisions between union members about which candidate has the right experience to manage the city and their positions on issues other than education, including Israel and the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Debate became so tense that it was impossible to forge a consensus.

“People are just like, ‘We don’t care what other people are saying. We have dug in and we’re not moving,’” Mulgrew said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “When you get these greater societal issues, that’s when … it becomes a little dicey.”

He added: “There’s not even somewhat of a consensus on this race. It is split all over the place.”

In a union poll, three issues — proper city management, affordability, and responding to the Trump administration — placed ahead of public education, which Mulgrew said was unusual.

Members who prioritized stronger city leadership and responding to Trump tended to favor former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, according to the union chief, while those who worried about affordability supported Zohran Mamdani, a Queens state assemblymember. Those who prioritized public education leaned toward former Comptroller Scott Stringer, whom the union has previously endorsed, Mulgrew said.

The union has previously refrained from endorsing mayoral candidates, including during former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s reelection bids in 2005 and 2009 — and twice during the 1990s.

Amanda Vender, a Queens educator who teaches students who are learning English, said she was glad the union polled its members but wished they had weighed in on the race.

“I’m disappointed there’s no guidance to at the very least not rank Cuomo,” she said, citing his record on education funding and cuts to public employee pensions.

Mulgrew said the union will likely issue an endorsement in the general election this November, even as it is possible that Cuomo and Mamdani could once again face off in that race. He said an ultimate decision would rest with the union’s delegate assembly, which includes staff from every campus.

The UFT had initially called on candidates to compete for its endorsement by spending a day in a public school classroom. But under pressure from City Hall — and amid allegations that the visits violated rules against using public schools for personal political purposes — the union dropped the requirement.

Some candidates had already participated in the visits, complicating the union’s endorsement process. The union also held a candidate forum.

Even if the UFT had issued an endorsement, there would have been little time to mobilize its members, as early voting begins on Saturday. Many other major labor unions issued endorsements weeks ago. District Council 37, the largest municipal union, endorsed City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams nearly two months ago.

The teachers union does not have a strong track record of electoral success with its endorsements. Stringer won the UFT’s stamp of approval in 2021 more than two months before the primary, though he finished in fifth place after facing sexual misconduct allegations. (Stringer is running again but his campaign has struggled to gain traction.) In 2013, the union endorsed Bill Thompson over the eventual winner, Bill de Blasio.

In the run-up to the Democratic primary, Mulgrew had been tied up in a fierce reelection battle of his own, which he won late last month with his lowest margin of victory since earning his first full term in 2010.

The teachers union isn’t alone in sitting out the mayoral race. The union representing school principals and other administrators has also so far declined to weigh in. A spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether an endorsement is forthcoming.

The mayoral candidates have largely refrained from releasing detailed plans for improving the city’s public schools, and education has received little attention during the campaign.

But the mayor controls the nation’s largest school system, which is facing many pressing issues, including a union-backed state law that requires sharp class size reductions. (You can find the candidates’ positions on class size reduction as well as several other critical education issues in our election guide.)

Mulgrew was tight-lipped about which candidates he personally believes would be the best stewards of New York City schools, noting that he does not always agree with the union’s endorsements.

“I never tell anyone who I’m planning on voting for,” he said. “Even my wife doesn’t know.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC mayoral candidates on education: Your guide to their plans for nation’s largest school system

2025-06-13T18:04:29+00:00

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This is part of a series in which Chalkbeat asked the mayoral candidates questions about important education issues that will likely define the next four years. The primary is June 24, with early voting from June 14-22.

The candidates running for New York City mayor have not made education a central issue, yet operating the nation’s largest school system is one of the top responsibilities for the chief executive of the Big Apple — and it commands the most resources.

The mayor controls the Education Department, appointing a chancellor who oversees its $40 billion budget, roughly 150,000 employees, and 1,600 schools serving nearly 911,000 students.

The next mayor will face entrenched issues — from disparities in student performance to school segregation — that the candidates have largely sidestepped.

They also must address pressing questions about how to implement the state’s class size mandate — an expensive task that will require hiring thousands of new teachers. Meanwhile, they will confront a Trump administration that aims to slash federal funding and root out diversity and equity programs.

Chalkbeat asked the mayoral candidates seven questions about education issues that will likely define the next four years, including whether they would follow through on Mayor Eric Adams’ reading and math curriculum overhauls and whether they would move to close the growing number of tiny schools. (The mayor declined to participate because he is not running in the Democratic primary.)

Here are our main takeaways from their responses. You can read their full answers by clicking on each headline.

Would you continue the current administration’s curriculum mandates for literacy and math?

Eric Adams’ most prominent education initiative is a massive overhaul to reading instruction, requiring schools to use city-approved curriculums. The move is part of a national “science of reading” movement that has drawn attention to flawed approaches to reading instruction many schools have long embraced.

The mayoral candidates generally support the reading curriculum changes, though several said teachers need more support and training. Several also suggested the mandate should be less rigid.

Queens state Rep. Zohran Mamdani wants to “enable more teacher discretion” in how the curriculums are implemented. Echoing concerns from some parent leaders, city Comptroller Brad Lander and former U.S. assistant attorney Jim Walden both want schools with a track record of success to have more leeway to skirt the curriculum changes.

The candidates were much more skeptical of the city’s effort to standardize math curriculums, particularly high Algebra I courses, a change that has drawn pushback from some educators and the teachers union. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos each expressed misgivings about the math changes and Lander said he would “ask my Chancellor for a full review of the data” and consult with educators before making a decision about whether to scrap it.

How would you continue implementing the mandate to reduce class sizes?

Under a 2022 state law, New York City must sharply reduce class sizes. Meeting that mandate will require hiring thousands of additional teachers, creating more classroom space, and finding billions of dollars.

Reducing class sizes is a major priority of the city’s teachers union and nearly all of the candidates said they would comply with the law’s requirements, which mandate that classrooms shrink to 20-25 students depending on the grade level by September 2028.

The mayoral candidates generally agreed that funding is a major hurdle and vowed to press state officials to cough up more money to implement it. Former city Comptroller Scott Stringer and Mamdani said they would also cut waste and repurpose existing funding within the Education Department’s budget to help pay for it, though they did not offer specifics.

Former Bronx state Rep. Michael Blake plans to boost the teacher pipeline with apprenticeships and “grow your own” programs. Lander also indicated that he would prevent schools from shedding teachers if their enrollment declines, a common practice as funding is typically tied to student headcount. The candidates largely did not address a host of difficult tradeoffs, including whether to cap enrollment at popular campuses or which schools should receive exemptions.

Two candidates said the law should be overhauled or scrapped. Walden said it should be revised to focus on high-need schools. (Higher poverty schools already tend to have smaller class sizes, which means the law is likely to benefit more affluent campuses.)

Former hedge-fund executive Whitney Tilson said the law should be rescinded entirely. “The class-size mandate is a costly giveaway to the teachers unions that will do nothing to help kids,” he said.

What’s your take on the city’s selective school admissions as well as the Specialized High School Admissions Test?

New York City’s notoriously complicated high school application process has long created a tiered system with dozens of “selective” schools basing admissions on grades, and the eight specialized high schools using an exam for entry.

Nearly all of the candidates would keep the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, which is enshrined in state law. Several called for expanded test prep access. It’s a sea change from four years ago when several candidates (including Stringer) called for eliminating the exam, which is often blamed for the low numbers of Black and Latino students at these schools.

Several mayoral hopefuls are also calling to increase the number of screened schools.

Blake was the only candidate calling to replace the SHSAT with “multiple measures, such as academic records and lived experience.” Mamdani, a Bronx Science alum and former standardized test tutor, said he’d support an independent analysis of the SHSAT for gender and racial bias. Lander said he’d keep the SHSAT but double the number of specialized high schools, with the new ones accepting the highest performers from middle schools across the city, a move he hopes would “alleviate the pressure families face to invest heavily in test preparation.”

How would you approach school safety and security, as the city has seen the number of school safety agents dramatically drop?

During the last mayoral election, New York City schools were planning to shift the school safety division from NYPD supervision to the Education Department, and several candidates explicitly backed the idea of redirecting financial resources from the Police Department toward mental health and other student support.

The Adams administration reversed course on taking away NYPD’s authority of school safety agents, who are uniformed but unarmed police officers stationed at schools, and public conversation calling for systemic reform of school safety has receded. At the same time, however, the number of school safety agents has shrunk from 5,000 during the 2019-20 school year to 3,600 currently, a drop of roughly 28%. Many principals have concerns about the drop, but some critics of the current system see the declining headcount as an opportunity to rethink school safety.

Many candidates support staffing up the school safety agent force. Lander called for a pay increase for the job that has an annual starting salary of $36,000. He and others also called for expanding mental health support. Several called for bolstering restorative justice approaches to help address conflict resolution. City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams believes that schools should get to decide their own safety approach, providing support for school communities that want more safety agents.

With a growing number of small schools, would you consider ramping up closures or mergers?

Nearly 200 schools enrolled fewer than 200 students last school year, almost double the number from about a decade ago.

And enrollment drops are expected to continue in the coming years.

With funding tied to student headcount, the next mayor will likely have to grapple with the growing number of tiny schools.They’re often costly to run, yet unable to afford a full complement of programs. Several candidates said they would support mergers or closures, with some saying they’d like to ensure community engagement in the process.

Cuomo said it would be “irresponsible” to take mergers and consolidations off the table. Mamdani said he’d consider mergers as well as capping overenrolled schools. Lander, who had issued a report on this as comptroller, favors mergers that intentionally integrate under- and over-utilized schools, through a lengthy community-involved planning process.

Adrienne Adams, however, said school closures are “not an option of particular interest,” and she would create a working group with teachers, parents, students, and city and state education officials to tackle the small schools issue.

What’s your take on mayoral control?

Under mayoral control, which became state law in 2002, New York City’s chief executive has a tremendous amount of authority over the nation’s largest school system.

Supporters of this system say that making one person responsible for the system’s performance ensures a clear line of accountability. Opponents argue that the system is anti-democratic and makes the system vulnerable to political winds with each new administration.

The state legislature will once again consider the fate of mayoral control, when it’s up for renewal in 2026, putting the onus on the next mayor to make a case for what the city’s governance model should look like.

Most of the candidates support mayoral control, but several called for greater transparency and including more parent voice.

Lander called for “municipal control,” with centralized management reporting to the mayor, but also space for parents, students, and other local elected officials to weigh in. He would, for example, “seek advice and consent” from the City Council on appointing a chancellor.

Mamdani said he opposed mayoral control “in its current iteration” and would create a more “participatory educational system” with “co-governance” from the Panel for Educational Policy, school leadership teams, and Community Education Councils. Ramos said she would consider bringing together teachers, parents, students, and experts to develop an alternative to mayoral control.

How would you respond to the Trump administration’s threats to revoke federal funding from schools?

Pushing back on the Trump administration has been front and center for many mayoral candidates.

Donald Trump has taken a particular interest in decimating the federal Department of Education, and in his efforts to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion programs from schools, Trump has threatened to withhold federal education funds. (The city gets roughly $2 billion a year in federal funding.)

Several of the candidates vowed to continue challenging the legality of Trump’s moves to withhold congressionally authorized funding. Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, for example, said he’d consider using the city’s financial contributions to the federal government as leverage: “New York must explore a nuclear option of withholding any state or local remittances to the federal government if Trump ignores a court order to give our city its funds.”

Cuomo said he would fight on behalf of the school system and that he had the most experience in standing up to Trump, but he also took a more conciliatory tone, saying, “I will work with the Trump administration to get the best possible treatment for the New York City school system and its students.”

Mamdani, meanwhile, claimed that Trump would have leverage with Cuomo, who he says “is backed by Trump’s donors.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex atazimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

‘An absolute disgrace’: Bed-Stuy community protests sudden removal of superintendent

2025-04-15T22:10:39+00:00

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The abrupt dismissal of a Brooklyn superintendent is spurring fierce backlash in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where dozens of community members showed up to a town hall meeting Monday night to express their outrage.

Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos removed District 16 Superintendent Brendan Mims on Monday, according to state Assembly member Stefani Zinerman, who spoke with Aviles-Ramos and organized Monday’s town hall. The exact reasons for the removal are unclear. But in a Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos recapping their recent discussions about Mims, Zinerman attributed the problems to a “breakdown in the relationship” between Mims and the local Community Education Council, an elected parent advisory board, according to a copy of the letter shared with Chalkbeat.

Mims’ interim replacement, former Deputy Superintendent Fabayo McIntosh, took over Tuesday, according to an email to principals obtained by Chalkbeat.

The removal of Mims is one of the first major personnel moves for Aviles-Ramos, who assumed her role in October and has largely emphasized her desire to maintain the policies of her predecessor, David Banks. The move could now embroil Aviles-Ramos in a public battle at a delicate moment in her tenure, as she rolls out her own first policy efforts and as her future remains uncertain with Mayor Eric Adams facing a steep climb to win reelection in this year’s mayoral race.

The chancellor’s decision — and its timing over spring break — came as a shock to Zinerman and the dozens of educators, parents, and community leaders who showed up to the hastily arranged Monday meeting in the basement of the Restoration Plaza community center. Speakers heaped praise onto Mims, a 22-year veteran of the city Education Department, for his community engagement and strong academic track record.

“I’ve been a principal for over 26 years, long enough to see the changes that have happened in District 16,” said Lena Gates, the veteran leader of P.S. 5, an elementary school in the district, and one of several principals who showed up at the town hall to support Mims. “When Brendan Mims came to District 16, I said, ‘We finally got it right…’ I’m really so upset to hear what’s happening.”

Attendees said the timing of the move also seemed like an effort to sneak it through without notice.

“That is an absolute disgrace, and it’s disrespectful,” said Zinerman, whose assembly district largely overlaps with District 16. “I’ve been elected since 2010, and I have not had the opportunity to chain myself to a door yet. This is the door that I’m going to chain myself to.”

Zinerman added that making the decision toward the end of the school year as students prepare to take state exams and at a moment of profound uncertainty for city schools because of federal threats to education could destabilize the district.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said the “superintendency is an appointed position and an at-will hire” who serves at the pleasure of the chancellor. She said the agency will follow the chancellor’s regulations governing the appointment of a new permanent superintendent, which include consulting with the CEC and educators unions.

In the email to principals announcing the change, Deputy Chancellor of School Leadership Danika Rux praised McIntosh as a “seasoned educator” and “proud product of District 16.”

“We extend thanks to Brendan for his service to District 16,” Rux added.

Mims couldn’t be reached for comment. NeQuan McLean, the long-time president of CEC 16, who recently appeared on stage with Aviles-Ramos to announce a new program for parent volunteers, declined to comment, and other members of the CEC didn’t respond to emails.

Banks hired Mims in 2022 as part of a sweeping shakeup of the city’s 45 superintendent positions. The effort was intended to vest the role of superintendent with additional responsibility, especially in carrying out Banks’ literacy curriculum overhaul, and to give communities more input in the selection of their district leaders.

That community input is especially important in District 16 — the neighborhood that helped birth the community control movement in the 1960s where Black and Puerto Rican community members established the Ocean Hill-Brownsville district that eventually sparked the 1968 teacher strike.

That history echoed through Monday night’s meeting.

“This is our community, and we make the decisions with regards to who is leading, specifically with our children,” said Marlon Rice, the events director at Restoration Plaza.

Mims took over a district confronting challenges

Despite its storied history, District 16 has faced steep challenges in recent decades, including enrollment losses stemming from population declines, particularly among Black families, in central Brooklyn and the proliferation of charter schools.

Earlier this year, Mims, a Brooklyn native, successfully shepherded a plan to shutter P.S. 25, the city’s smallest elementary school with just 53 students — an idea district officials first tried seven years ago but did not get approved.

People who attended Monday’s meeting pointed to Mims’ leadership as a bright spot amid those challenges, pushing the district forward academically while bringing the community on board.

The district’s proficiency rates on state English exams for grades 3-8 rose from 37% in 2022 to 44% last year, and from 25% to 44% in math for the same grades — larger than the city’s overall growth in both cases.

Mims also played a big role in bringing a new Black Studies curriculum to the district, where roughly 64% of students are Black, educators said.

Leaders of nonprofits and local businesses said Mims was unusually active in getting them involved, and one district father spoke glowingly about an informal group of dads Mims led.

“I never met a superintendent before, never had no one come out and say let’s meet and greet, we’re doing something special for the dads,” said Jason Smith, a parent in the district. “He was always concerned with how can we improve… this is something that’s hitting hard.”

Tensions emerge with local parent council

Zinerman said she started getting wind last year of tension between Mims and the local CEC — and said there has been a pattern over more than a decade of superintendents only lasting a few years in the district because of “political or interpersonal conflict.”

“What began as enthusiastic support — heralding Mr. Mims as ‘exactly the man we need’ — has devolved into mistrust,” Zinerman wrote in her Monday letter to Aviles-Ramos.

Zinerman said she met with Aviles-Ramos and several of her top deputies last Wednesday to discuss the situation and urged the city to appoint an independent mediator to resolve the dispute between Mims and the CEC.

Zinerman said she thought department officials were on the same page and was shocked to get a call around noon on Monday from Aviles-Ramos telling her that Mims was out and his replacement would start the next day.

Zinerman told attendees at Monday’s meeting that Mims was reassigned to the Education Department’s suspension hearing office, drawing jeers from the crowd. (An Education Department spokesperson did not confirm Mims’ new assignment). Research has shown that Black male educators are more likely to be shunted into disciplinary roles, and Black students in the five boroughs are disproportionately suspended.

“What they want to do is send this Black man to the suspension center, where all the Black boys go,” said Barry Cooper, a community leader who runs a program supporting boys of color. “This is educational negligence.”

Cooper pledged to continue organizing protests throughout this week, with town hall attendees committing to calling Mayor Adams, showing up at the local district office, and rallying at the Education Department headquarters in Manhattan.

“This is a precipice for us to take control of our community and be a beacon like Bed-Stuy has always been,” Cooper said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.or

NYC schools ramp up test prep for students on cusp of passing state reading exams

2025-03-18T12:00:00+00:00

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New York City elementary schools have been ordered to step up preparation for next month’s state reading tests, a so-called “sprint” to boost scores that is raising eyebrows among educators and experts.

District officials have asked principals to focus extra test prep on students in grades 3-5 who are likely to score near the proficiency threshold on state reading tests. Those students should receive 30 to 50 minutes per week of additional practice, according to messages to some school leaders obtained by Chalkbeat. About 67,000 students were identified for the push based on mid-year assessments, officials said, roughly 38% of public school students in grades 3-5.

“With our collective focus and intentionality, we are poised to achieve up to a 5% increase in ELA proficiency this spring,” according to an email from a superintendent’s office to principals. “Let’s work together to make this Sprint a success and ensure that our students enter the ELA assessment period fully prepared and confident!”

Schools can make time for the extra preparation on Saturdays, before or after regular classes, during spring break, or throughout the regular school day, according to the message to principals. The extra test prep is supposed to run from March 10 until April 22, when state reading exams begin.

The effort is more sweeping than previous test preparation “sprints,” according to several principals who said they had not seen similar citywide directives in past years. And it comes as education officials are under pressure to show an aggressive literacy curriculum overhaul is making students better readers. Improving literacy rates is the top education initiative under Mayor Eric Adams, who is facing an uphill battle for re-election.

After the curriculum mandate rolled out to a chunk of campuses last school year, reading scores in grades 3-8 slipped 2.6 percentage points to 49.1%. The drops were slightly larger at schools that were using the new curriculums, though officials argued declines were expected because teachers were still adjusting to the new materials. But this school year, all elementary campuses were required to use one of the three city-approved reading curriculums.

“The DOE may be feeling a need to show that kids’ literacy instruction and curricula are doing better,” said Aaron Pallas, a Teachers College professor who has studied efforts to improve New York City schools.

But Pallas and other experts raised concerns with the city’s strategy, noting that it creates an incentive for schools to focus on students who are on the cusp of passing the state tests rather than those who are furthest behind. He also wondered why city officials weren’t more focused on improving literacy instruction throughout the year.

“It’s hard sometimes to distinguish test prep from genuine instruction, but this really looks a lot like test prep,” Pallas said. He added: “I just worry that focusing too narrowly on state assessments is potentially diverting attention away from underlying literacy acquisition.”

Principals take different approaches to test prep

On some campuses, the city’s directive closely mirrors what they already do to prepare students for the exams. Schools are expected to use one of two digital platforms — Amira or i-Ready — where students can take multiple choice tests that assess skills they’ll be expected to use on the state exams.

“I’m glad that my school is already doing it so it’s not shocking or anything different,” said Lorenzo Chambers, the principal of P.S. 279 in Brooklyn, who added that the program has felt flexible.

Students at his school who were identified for extra help will get individual support from teachers who are offering short mini-lessons on skills, such as drawing a conclusion from a text, followed by practicing on their own.

Chambers noted that his superintendent also encouraged principals to focus on math (not just reading) and in grades 3-8 (rather than only grades 3-5). An education department spokesperson did not respond to a question about how many of the city’s 32 local district superintendents have made similar requests to focus on a broader group of students.

Another principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the kids identified for extra help through the sprint are not ones who need the most support.

“I’m not focusing on those kids [identified for the sprint] for my last ditch effort before the end of the school year because I’m focusing on my kids who are really, really, really struggling,” the school leader said.

Principals were given little time to plan for the additional test prep, as they were notified earlier this month, just a few days before they were expected to begin rolling it out last week. Chambers suggested the short runway could limit its impact.

“The pessimist in me would probably say, ‘too little too late,’” he said. “The optimist in me would say, ‘better late than never.’”

Other school leaders said complying with the directive is a heavier lift.

One Brooklyn elementary school principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal, said his school has not previously used i-Ready and is rolling it out now. The additional test prep will be offered before and after the regular school day during time that had previously been set aside for independent reading.

Given the city’s focus on pushing schools to implement new reading curriculums, the principal said the test prep directive feels “disconnected from what was supposed to fix the reading achievement issue in New York City, which is the implementation of these programs.”

The order also comes late in the school year, when school budgets are already closed. Although one principal said they were granted access to i-Ready at no cost for students who were identified for the city’s new test prep program, another was told they would have to pay for it out of their school’s budget, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat.

“I was like ‘Are you kidding me?’ You’re asking me to purchase programs we don’t have money for? It kind of blew my mind,” said one principal who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

City officials indicated that they will monitor whether schools are complying with the directive, as the digital platforms will automatically generate biweekly reports, drawing groans about micromanagement from some school leaders.

At least one superintendent’s office has already sent principals an email ranking how much time students at their school are spending on the new test prep initiative compared with every other campus in the local district, according to an email viewed by Chalkbeat.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein emphasized that district and school leaders have flexibility to pick strategies other than the two recommended digital platforms if they prefer. And she noted that schools should continue to support students at all levels.

“Literacy is at the heart of our society,” she wrote. “This Sprint, launched in mid-March, aims to boost proficiency outcomes using evidence-based intervention programs that have proven success in accelerating student learning.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Linda McMahon’s first official K-12 visit: A Bronx charter school

2025-03-14T01:28:39+00:00

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U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon took an unpublicized tour of a New York City charter school last Friday, her first official visit to a K-12 school since taking office.

McMahon visited Vertex Partnership Academies in the Soundview section of the Bronx, according to a Thursday press release issued nearly a week after her visit.

Vertex was founded in 2022 by Ian Rowe, who is well known in New York City charter school circles, and is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Vertex touts itself as “virtues-based” high school that instills courage, justice, temperance and wisdom. Students recite the U.S. Constitution’s preamble each day, Rowe previously wrote.

McMahon said she used the visit to highlight her commitment to ensuring families have a wide array of education options, a key piece of the Trump education agenda.

“School choice is crucial for students and parents to access learning environments that best fit their needs,” McMahon said in a statement. “Touring Vertex Partnership Academies as my first K-12 visit was such a special experience – it is a perfect example of how a community can come together to build an education program that serves the unique needs of its students and families.”

The decision to visit a New York City school so early in her tenure is notable, as the city is a Democratic stronghold and the charter movement has fallen out of favor among many local elected officials.

Charter schools are publicly funded but independently run schools that once enjoyed broad bipartisan support as a middle ground between district-run schools and private school vouchers. In more recent years, support for charters has declined among some Democrats, though not among parents of color, while Republicans have focused more on expanding access to vouchers.

Even so, the Trump administration has pitched itself as a friend to the charter sector and rolled back some regulations imposed under former President Joe Biden.

“Out of 100,000 public schools across the country, we are honored Secretary McMahon chose Vertex Partnership Academies as her first school visit,” Rowe said in a statement.

Starlee Coleman, the President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, helped arrange McMahon’s visit. She said it lasted about 75 minutes and featured a tour, a meeting with the school’s leadership, and a Q&A session with seven students.

Coleman’s organization suggested McMahon visit Vertex because Rowe is well known in conservative circles, and because of the school’s strong offerings, including an International Baccalaureate program that has both college prep and career-related tracks.

Linda McMahon meets with students during a tour of Vertex Partnership Academies in the Bronx.

She said McMahon peppered students with questions about why they chose Vertex and their experience. Students also posed some “hard questions” for McMahon about the Trump administration’s policies. “The secretary was straightforward, and the kids were brave,” Coleman said. “It was really great.”

The visit, Coleman added, was “significant and symbolizes her continued commitment to the charter school community.”

A spokesperson for McMahon did not respond to questions about why she chose to visit Vertex or if she visited any other schools. She did not visit any of the city’s traditional public schools in the nation’s largest school system, according to a city Education Department spokesperson. Roughly 912,000 students enrolled in New York City’s traditional public schools last year, while about 146,000 attended charter schools.

Many local parents have pushed back against President Donald Trump’s education agenda, including efforts to dismantle the federal Education Department and target diversity initiatives along with protections for transgender people.

Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams has forged an alliance with the Trump administration and has urged city officials, including the schools chancellor, to refrain from criticizing its policies.

Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who served during Trump’s first term, also visited New York City, though she prioritized visits to religious private schools rather than public ones.

News of the visit stirred mixed reactions among members of the local charter school community.

Stacey Gauthier, who oversees two Queens charter schools, said she was glad to see the nation’s top education official visiting individual schools. “You can make better decisions if you can see what’s going on,” she said.

At the same time, Gauthier is wary of certain elements of the GOP’s school agenda, pointing to proposals to roll back universal school meals. She also worries that cuts to the Education Department could cause chaos as her students file federal financial aid applications for college.

She said there is a possibility for political “blowback if we’re seen as being friendly” with Trump and McMahon, but at the same time, “We have to work with every administration.”

Vertex has drawn ire from the city’s teachers union, which sued to block the school from opening. The union argued that the school had effectively violated a state cap on charter schools by opening as a partnership between two existing charter operators rather than as a separate entity. A judge ultimately ruled against the union, allowing the school to stay open.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

After vowing to recruit ‘assistant’ school safety agents, NYPD has yet to hire any

2025-03-11T19:17:42+00:00

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Grappling with a shortage of school safety agents, the New York Police Department unveiled a new strategy in 2023 for replenishing their ranks: hiring “assistant” agents as young as 18.

More than a year later, the NYPD has yet to hire a single assistant school safety agent, officials acknowledged during a Tuesday City Council hearing.

“We don’t yet have the use of that title,” said Kristine Ryan, the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Management and Budget.

Police Department officials previously indicated they planned to hire at least 650 assistant agents at an annual salary of about $33,000 — $4,000 less than the starting pay for full agents. The assistants would help greet visitors, monitor doorbells, and answer phones. The recent high school graduates would initially be placed in elementary schools and could represent a pipeline into the regular corps of safety agents after turning 21 and passing an exam, officials suggested.

But on Tuesday, the NYPD indicated it had not yet ironed out how many they plan to hire or even what they would be paid.

“Discussions are still ongoing,” Ryan said, “around the salary and other labor matters.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said the delay was caused in part by the need for state officials to approve the new title, adding that it has been cleared in January and hiring should begin soon. The union representing school safety agents declined to comment.

Just over 3,600 agents currently patrol the city’s public schools, down from 5,000 five years ago — a 28% decline. High attrition during the pandemic fueled by the COVID vaccine mandate, low pay, and moves by Adams not to restaff the force have all contributed.

On Monday, Chalkbeat reported that school leaders have grown increasingly alarmed by the shortage in recent months. More than 120 school staffers signed an open letter in November spotlighting operational and safety concerns.

At large high school campuses, there are often not enough agents to operate the metal detectors, which can force students to miss class as they wait in long lines to get into the building. School leaders also contend that there aren’t enough agents on hand at some schools to conduct perimeter patrols during arrival and dismissal when skirmishes may escalate into violence.

Last month, a 16-year-old student at the John F. Kennedy campus in the Bronx was stabbed just outside the school near an area that had been previously patrolled by safety agents.

A principal at the JFK campus, which enrolls about 2,400 students across seven schools, said there had often been fewer than 10 agents on hand, down from more than 20. The school leader told Chalkbeat the stabbing may have been prevented by the presence of an agent. Police officials sent about five additional agents to the campus after the incident.

The role of school safety agents, who are unarmed but wear police uniforms and are employed by the police department, has been hotly debated in recent years. Some critics argue stationing police staff in schools leads to the criminalization of low-level misbehavior, particularly among students of color. Yet large majorities of parents, students, and educators believe the agents help keep schools safe, according to survey data.

Still, even some safety staff were skeptical that hiring recent high school graduates as assistant agents would be useful.

One safety agent who patrols in the Bronx and spoke on condition of anonymity said the program was unlikely to address some of the biggest barriers in hiring. Many people don’t want to join the school safety division because of the pay, the agent said. A recent move by the NYPD commissioner to loosen the eligibility requirements for uniformed officers amid a shortage of cops might draw even more people away from the school safety division, the agent added.

In the meantime, some schools are deploying alternatives to school police to maintain safety, including partnering with community organizations to help supervise students during arrival or dismissal. Some critics of school policing think the city should rethink how to approach school safety, especially given the challenges of hiring new agents.

The assistant agent role “is an example of a really bad policy,” said Andrea Ortiz, of the Dignity in Schools coalition, which opposes NYPD and metal detectors in schools. While other Education Department programs aim to ease students into middle class careers, “we are funneling students into a poorly paid, bad job pipeline.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Déjà vu: Next year has another winter break with a short week. Will NYC cancel Friday, Jan. 2?

2025-01-03T20:24:35+00:00

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New York City students and educators celebrated Mayor Eric Adams’ last-minute decision to make Monday, Dec. 23, 2024, a day off, avoiding a one-day week before a holiday break that was guaranteed to see sparse attendance.

Now the question is: What’s going to happen for next year’s winter break?

The 2025-26 school calendar once again has a one-day week, this time on the back end of the holiday. Schools are off from Wednesday, Dec. 24, until Thursday, Jan. 1, meaning schools are expected to reopen on Friday, Jan. 2.

The last time Jan. 2 fell on a Friday was in 2015, and it was a day off, according to a calendar from the 2014-15 school year.

The school calendar has been tweaked after publication the last two years. In addition to this year’s winter break change, the Education Department added four days off the year before in response to complaints about several religious holidays that had been left out.

Under state law, New York City schools must have at least 180 instructional days or risk losing state funding, but as more holidays have been added to the calendar — for Eid, Lunar New Year, and Diwali — schools have had less wiggle room in the calendar. (Lunar New Year will fall during February’s mid-winter recess in 2026.) Even snow days are now a thing of the past, with the city turning to remote learning during inclement weather instead of cancelling school. Pre-pandemic, the school calendar built in a buffer to account for possible snow days.

Having a break that lasts nearly two weeks can be hard on working parents, and in a city where nearly a quarter of children are living in poverty, schools are often the only place where they can get hot meals, making that Friday important for a lot of kids, even if many students and teachers don’t show up.

Still, odds are high that families and educators will complain about next year’s one-day post-winter break week. But who will lead the charge remains to be seen.

Brooklyn eighth grader Isaac Regnier was the public face behind the campaign to nix Dec. 23 from this year’s break. He petitioned the city to strike the day from the calendar, garnering nearly 23,000 signatures. When the city scheduled school for Monday, Dec. 23, 2019, a group of teachers petitioned to get it canceled and were successful.

The Education Department and teachers union collaborated on creating the school calendar. The 2025-26 calendar was released several years early after a groundswell of grumblings over school calendars that had been released late. It was also agreed upon before the city finalized the most recent teachers contract, union officials noted.

Education Department officials said they had no plans to change the calendar “at this point,” but would continue to “engage with stakeholders” on the issue.

“Discussions about the calendar are a year-round reality, with the union always working to find the best balance for educators, students and school communities,” Alison Gendar, a spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers, wrote in an email.

Isaac was still busy unpacking this week from his vacation, but may tackle the issue once again.

“Isaac hasn’t taken this on yet,” his mom Amanda Regnier wrote in an email, “but he is thinking of emailing the mayor this weekend.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.September 29th, 2022

NYC withdraws $1.9 million proposal for AI reading tutor after criticism from finance watchdog

2024-12-18T18:30:48+00:00

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New York City education officials pulled a $1.9 million proposal to deploy an artificial intelligence-powered reading tutor a day after the city’s financial watchdog raised objections.

The move to withdraw the contract came just hours before the city’s Panel for Educational Policy was set to vote on it Wednesday evening.

City Comptroller Brad Lander had criticized the plan to tap Maryland-based EPS Learning to provide automated one-on-one tutoring for students struggling to read, screening for risk of dyslexia, and other assessments of students’ reading abilities.

Lander, who is running for mayor, argued that the Education Department needed clearer policies and student privacy safeguards before deploying AI tools in classrooms. According to the city’s proposal, the AI tool listens to students as they read aloud and “provides real-time, personalized feedback and micro-interventions in an interactive learning environment.”

On Wednesday morning, the day after Lander criticized the contract, Education Department officials defended the proposal, suggesting they planned to press ahead despite the comptroller’s objections. “We are disappointed at the Comptroller’s knee-jerk statement issued without doing even basic research on these programs,” Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle wrote in an email.

But two hours later, the agency announced it would withdraw the proposal and changed its tune. “We always welcome all feedback and will be delaying the vote in order to conduct additional public engagement,” Lyle wrote. “Importantly, this tool, which is used only by select students struggling with reading, has been used in schools for years.”

No schools would have been required to use the AI tool, and it would not have interfered with the city’s literacy curriculum overhaul or existing efforts to screen students for risk of dyslexia, Lyle noted. “We welcome the opportunity to discuss these nuances with the Comptroller,” she wrote.

The company previously indicated that 46,000 students across 162 New York City schools already use the tool.

Lander cheered the decision to withdraw the proposal.

“Because of the concerns from parents and advocates, DOE heeded our call to pull this item from today’s PEP meeting agenda,” Lander wrote in a statement. “Going forward, DOE should first evaluate the effectiveness of AI classroom aids, the data privacy protections of these tools, and develop a citywide policy for the appropriate use of AI in classrooms before inking a multi-million dollar contract.”

Lander’s office did not respond to a question about whether they believe schools that already use the AI tool should be allowed to continue using it.

Greg Faulkner, who chairs the Panel for Educational Policy, said he was glad the city is delaying the vote, as some panel members raised concerns about student privacy. The city had not clearly demonstrated that the program was effective in schools that already use it, he added.

“We should have as much confidence that this program is going to be safe and not pose any risk for kids,” Faulkner said.

EPS Learning declined to comment on the city’s decision to withdraw the proposal. Juanita Scarlett, a consultant with the company, previously told Chalkbeat that the AI tool “is a proven product that will empower teachers and improve literacy across the City. This AI is a closed, self-contained network.”

Top New York City education officials have said artificial intelligence is likely to reshape the nation’s largest school system and have signaled plans to embrace the technology. But they have yet to reveal many details — or policy guidance for educators about how to use it in their classrooms. In the meantime, some schools are experimenting on their own.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Embattled interim principal at NYC’s Beacon High School won’t seek permanent role

2024-11-19T02:16:18+00:00

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The embattled interim principal of Manhattan’s Beacon High School is withdrawing his name from contention to become the school’s permanent principal, he told the school community in a Monday email obtained by Chalkbeat.

Interim Principal Johnny Ventura’s decision to step aside comes after months of escalating tension with parents and administrators over his handling of special education and communication. The strife spilled into public view after parents called for Ventura’s removal in a public meeting last month and a Chalkbeat story detailed the struggles of special education students at the coveted Manhattan high school.

It’s unclear when Ventura will step down and who will replace him, but he will remain in place until his successor takes over, according to his email. Ventura didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In a letter to Beacon families and staff Monday afternoon, Ventura said he decided to take his name out of the running “after thoughtful reflection on my personal and professional journey.”

He touted “incredible milestones” during his tenure of just over a year and a commitment to putting students first.

“As I prepare to embark on a new chapter, I am confident that the strong foundation we’ve built together will propel Beacon to even greater heights,” he added.

Ventura, a former assistant principal at Brooklyn Technical High School, took the helm at Beacon at a delicate moment for the school.

Beacon was in the midst of a significant change in its student population, accelerated by pandemic admissions reforms that brought in growing numbers of students with disabilities and from low-income families. Ventura, who identifies as a Black Latino, was the first principal of color at a school that has faced student protests over admissions policy and racial strife in recent years.

Ventura’s handling of the school’s efforts to support its growing number of students with disabilities was at the heart of his conflict with parents and teachers. Students with disabilities often went without routine accommodations and failed courses at higher rates than their peers in general education, according to multiple parents and school data.

Many families and educators placed the blame for the special education failures with Ventura and Assistant Principal Naisha Baidy, and criticized Ventura’s communication about racist, antisemitic and threatening graffiti.

Ventura said in his letter he was proud of his work “enhancing systems for our students with special needs.”

Teachers said some of Ventura’s efforts to improve the situation – including implementing a new school-wide grading policy – only made things worse. Some educators said Ventura didn’t embrace the school’s approach to pedagogy, which prizes student inquiry and projects over tests, and had driven staff morale to an all-time low.

But others said Ventura was unfairly blamed for problems that predated him and suspect his race played a role in the criticism he received.

Ventura’s successor will be just the fifth principal in the school’s 30-year history, but the third in a five-year span. Founding principal Ruth Lacey oversaw the school with just a brief interruption for over 25 years.

The school’s educational model, which allows students to forgo Regents exams and submit performance based assessments like projects and portfolios, has gotten increasing attention in recent years as the state begins the multiyear process of removing Regents as graduation requirements across the state.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

A crisis over special education at NYC’s Beacon High School erupts in calls for new leadership

2024-11-13T23:46:21+00:00

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Four days after this story published, Beacon’s interim principal announced he would not seek a permanent role at the school.

Parent after parent took the mic at a public meeting in Manhattan last month, painting a dire picture of the state of special education at Beacon High School.

One parent said teachers at the Hell’s Kitchen school are “sentencing my child to fail, and no one is able to fix the problem.” Another said, “We are watching Beacon’s demise, and we feel trapped.”

Dan Bright, the father of a ninth grader with a disability, said Beacon was so ill-equipped to support students with disabilities that he transferred his son to a new school within two months.

How the school fell so short in accommodating students in special education — and who is to blame — is at the heart of a crisis that has been roiling the Manhattan high school for months. The turmoil threatens to upend the school’s leadership and is forcing Beacon to confront longstanding questions about its mission and identity.

Long considered one of New York City’s most coveted public high schools, Beacon had some 4,400 applicants last year for 360 spots, according to city data. It’s nationally recognized for its progressive approach to education, which emphasizes student inquiry and projects over tests.

In recent years, Beacon’s student population shifted, accelerated by pandemic-era admissions reforms that increased numbers of students with disabilities, from low-income families, and testing below grade level in math and English. The changes brought new challenges, according to families and educators.

The school has struggled to provide students with disabilities with routine accommodations, such as extra time on exams, and many such students have received failing grades at a higher rate than their peers in general education, according to interviews with more than a dozen parents, educators, and students, and a review of academic records.

Some parents and educators blame the crisis on a variety of missteps made by interim Principal Johnny Ventura, who took the helm in 2023, and Assistant Principal Naisha Baidy, who started in 2021 and oversees special education. Nineteen parents and teachers submitted testimony, much of it anonymous, to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy last month criticizing the leadership of Ventura and Baidy and calling for their removal, according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

The conflict between faculty — some of whom have been at the school for decades — and the administration has many teachers eyeing the exit, several staffers said.

“I’ve never seen more people dissatisfied and looking for the door,” said one veteran teacher, who, like other current Beacon educators, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

But others say Ventura came in facing significant headwinds and is being blamed for problems that predate him.

The student population changed “at a pace that the school wasn’t ready for, the teachers weren’t ready for,” said Alberta Conteh, the parent of a Beacon senior and president of the Parent Teacher Association. Ventura is “inheriting a lot of things that are not innately his fault, and then obviously he gets the blame,” she added.

The conflict at Beacon, and how the school accommodates its changing population, could have implications for other selective schools. Of the city’s 27 most sought-after screened schools, 22 saw an increase in their percentage of students with disabilities between 2019 and last school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of city data.

Ventura, reached by phone Wednesday, said a number of the criticisms from parents and staff were “not true” but declined to elaborate, referring a request for comment to the Education Department’s press office. Baidy couldn’t be reached by email or phone.

Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said Beacon has “a long history of serving students with disabilities,” including a partnership with a District 75 school, which serves students with significant disabilities, located in the same building. The Education Department has provided coaching and training on best practices in special education, and Superintendent Alan Cheng is actively working with the school to decide on next steps “that best serve all” students, Tull added.

Debates over Beacon’s mission stretch back decades

Launched in 1993, Beacon began as a small school with a diverse student body and educational philosophy opposed to standardized tests. Beacon is also an original member of the city’s consortium network of schools, where students complete “performance-based assessments,” like projects and portfolios to graduate, rather than the Regents exams used in the rest of the state.

But as the school grew in size and prestige, some faculty members say it drifted from its original ethos.

Beacon began screening applicants based on academic outcomes in the mid-2000s, leading to dwindling numbers of Black, Latino, and low-income students. And many of the new teachers and students were less committed to the consortium approach, some educators said.

“Beacon is the rare example of a pretty big school where they’ve managed to make this kind of assessment system work at a very high level,” said Harry Feder, a former history teacher and parent at Beacon who now serves as executive director at FairTest, a New York-based organization that advocates against using standardized testing in college admissions. “But over the years … there’s cracks in the facade.”

The debates over admissions resurfaced during the pandemic — amid a citywide reckoning over the effect of school admissions policies on diversity at selective high schools — and as Beacon’s founding principal, Ruth Lacey, retired. The school continued to screen students, but it adopted admissions reforms that decreased emphasis on grades and set aside two-thirds of seats for students from low-income families.

Beacon High School students protest former President Donald Trump's immigration policies in 2016.

The shift was significant.

The school’s proportion of students with disabilities, which had been steadily rising even before the pandemic, jumped from 13% in 2019 to 20% last year. The share of economically disadvantaged kids rose from 33% to 50%, according to city data. In 2019, just 17% of Beacon freshmen who took state math exams in eighth grade entered the school having scored below “proficient.” By 2022, the last year for which data was available, that number was 37%.

A new principal takes the helm

Many in Beacon’s community greeted Ventura’s appointment in the summer of 2023 with excitement. The school’s first principal of color, Ventura, who identifies as a Black Latino, openly shared his story of dropping out of high school and earning a GED diploma.

Ventura, a former school counselor, came to Beacon from Brooklyn Technical High School, the city’s largest and one of its most selective high schools, where he served as an assistant principal overseeing special education. Some families and educators thought that would be a boon at a time when Beacon was seeing enormous growth in its special education population.

“I was optimistic that he, as an Afro-Latino, as someone with a background in social work and special education, could really find ways to bring the community together,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a parent leader and former member of the Panel for Educational Policy who advised Ventura early in his tenure at the school.

But staffers and parents soon grew concerned over missteps. When the school discovered racist and antisemitic graffiti in March, which included a school shooting threat, Ventura initially left out the racist remarks and threat in a communication to parents. The oversight spurred one student to create an online petition calling for Ventura’s removal. Ventura later apologized for the omission.

Teachers bristled at Ventura’s attempts to direct classroom instruction, given his lack of experience as a classroom teacher and in consortium schools. Some said he showed little interest in, or understanding of, the school’s consortium approach.

According to an internal union survey of more than 60 teachers in October, only about 20% said the principal valued their instructional expertise and looked out for their welfare, according to results shared with Chalkbeat.

A contentious meeting of the teachers union chapter earlier this year also revealed divisions along racial lines. Several Black staff members spoke up in support of Ventura and said they’ve personally felt marginalized at the school, according to multiple staff members present.

Conteh, the PTA president, said she suspects Ventura’s race has played a role in the criticism he’s received.

“Are there things that he’s being held to because of his color?” said Conteh, who identifies as a woman of color. “It’s just a fact. … People have a lower threshold for failure if you’re a person of color.”

Special education complaints boil over

As the internal fighting among faculty continued, families felt increased urgency to address the situation of students in special education.

Roughly 54% of students in special education received failing grades in 10th-grade Geometry during the third marking period last year, compared to 18% of students in general education, according to data obtained by Chalkbeat. More than 40% of students with disabilities in Algebra 1 and ninth-grade biology got failing marks in the same quarter, compared with 16% and 14%, respectively, for general education students, the data showed. (Final course grades were not included in the data.)

In last year’s school survey, just 48% of Beacon parents of students with disabilities said they were satisfied with how the school was meeting their student’s individualized education program, or IEP — the lowest percentage of any high school in the city where more than six parents responded.

Multiple parents told Chalkbeat that the school failed to place students in classes with dedicated special education teachers, a violation of their IEPs. Parents also said that teachers routinely denied relatively common accommodations, such as extra time on tests and homework, the option to retake exams, and graphic organizers and study aids — even when they’re outlined on students’ IEPs.

There have been improvements: This fall, 95% of students entitled to a dedicated special education teacher were placed in a class with one, up from 84% last fall, according to special education reports reviewed by Chalkbeat.

But there’s still some disagreement over where to point the finger for the school’s problems in special education.

Some parents said some teachers’ attitudes are a big part of the problem.

“A lot of teachers have never taught to any kids with learning differences, and they’re totally out of their depth,” said one parent of a student in special education, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear their child could face reprisal. “There’s tremendous resistance among some staff.”

During one meeting of the School Leadership Team last year, a math teacher said students with disabilities couldn’t be expected to keep up in higher-level math courses, according to a parent present.

Several veteran teachers countered that, with some exceptions, teachers want to learn to better support students with disabilities but haven’t gotten the necessary help from the school’s leadership. Some educators blame Ventura and Baidy for mismanaging staffing assignments and ignoring teachers’ and parents’ requests for help.

“We are working every which way possible to fight against the same system that [parents] are fighting against,” said one teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We’re just hitting the same brick wall.”

Ventura has made efforts to improve the situation, but parents and educators say some have backfired.

This fall, he unveiled a new grading policy meant to address concerns from parents that rules varied widely between classes, and some courses relied too heavily on tests. The policy, a copy of which was reviewed by Chalkbeat, mandated that tests count for no more than 70% of a course grade and required teachers to offer two assessments a quarter.

Several educators said they supported the idea of bringing more coherence to a school where teachers have long had wide latitude to set classroom policies, but they objected to the fact that it was done with little consultation of teachers.

“All of a sudden, we have these, hammer, top-down policies without any meaningful discussion,” said a veteran teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Some parents said they ultimately blame Ventura, as the school’s leader.

“A school like that needs a really strong principal who can make the case to educators” to change their practices, said one parent, but Ventura is “basically alienating all the teachers.”

Beacon’s crisis could have ripple effects

How Beacon weathers its current challenges may well reverberate beyond the school.

The consortium model has attracted increasing attention as the state embarks on a multiyear effort to remove the Regents graduation requirements — and Beacon is its crown jewel.

The school has also been at the center of some of the city’s most fiery debates over school admissions and equity. How it adjusts to its changing student population could have an impact on future efforts to diversify the city’s screened schools. Some teachers who have pushed for the school to open its admissions worry that its current struggles could undermine those efforts.

“We’ve created this change … and haven’t created structures to support those kids,” said a veteran teacher who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “That leaves a space open for people to say, ‘See, these kids can’t make it here.’”

At stake in all the debates over the school’s leadership and direction is whether Beacon can live up to its founding ideal of providing a top-notch progressive education to a wide swath of city kids, educators said — something at which the school once excelled.

This story was updated to clarify that many Beacon ninth-graders don’t take the state math exam in eighth grade.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC plans to close Brooklyn school, open new ‘literacy academy’ for struggling readers

2024-11-12T22:08:38+00:00

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City officials want to close a shrinking Brooklyn school, replacing it with a new one designed to help struggling readers, modeled on an innovative program that launched last year in the Bronx.

The Education Department plans to shutter M.S. 394 in Crown Heights at the end of this school year, citing dwindling enrollment for the pre-K-8 school and low academic performance. City officials hope the building will become the home of the Central Brooklyn Literacy Academy, which would be the second city-operated public school exclusively devoted to students with dyslexia and other reading challenges.

M.S. 394 has shrunk by 36% over the last five years and now serves about 200 children, according to the closure proposal. Despite efforts to improve instruction and school culture, just 21% of students were considered proficient in reading last year and 25% in math. Citywide, about 53% of students were proficient in math and 49% were in reading.

Declining enrollment has “impacted the school’s ability to provide a robust learning environment for students,” education officials wrote, as funding is tied directly to student headcount.

The plan represents the Education Department’s latest effort to address two pressing problems: A growing number of unsustainably small schools and longstanding gaps in support for struggling readers. As enrollment declines have accelerated in the wake of the pandemic, the number of tiny schools has ballooned. There were about 190 schools with fewer than 200 students last year, more than double the number in 2016, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

The Education department has quietly ramped up school mergers, noting they are often less disruptive than shutting schools, however closures are beginning to pop up as well. If the plan for M.S.394 is approved on Dec. 18 by the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, it would be the second school closure in the past six years. Officials have also floated plans to close a separate tiny Brooklyn elementary school, though the department has not formally proposed it to the panel.

Despite the growing number of tiny schools, officials have continued opening new campuses with distinctive academic models, part of an effort to keep families in the system even as the additional programs may deepen enrollment challenges on other campuses. City officials previously said they planned to offer specialized reading instruction in at least one school in every borough, though a spokesperson did not say if that was still a goal.

Erika Kendall, president of the District 17 Community Education Council which includes M.S. 394, called the city’s proposal “bittersweet.”

“It’s always unfortunate when a school has to close,” she said.

But Kendall added stronger literacy programs are sorely needed in the district, and she is also excited about a new adult education program the city plans to open in the building. “My goal is to make sure there’s no vacuum of resources, options, and programs in that space.”

Addressing literacy challenges has been the most significant education priority under Mayor Eric Adams, and city officials have begun overhauling reading instruction across the city. Families have pushed for years to open public schools geared toward students with dyslexia to avoid the complex legal process of forcing the city to pay for more specialized private school instruction — a ballooning cost in the city’s budget.

The Central Brooklyn Literacy Academy would target struggling readers

A group of parent advocates collaborated with the Education Department to open the South Bronx Literacy Academy in September 2023, the first city-run public school devoted to struggling readers. The Brooklyn outpost would be in a similar mold, offering small-group instruction and classes co-taught by educators who receive rigorous training in reading instruction and reaching students who have language-based learning disabilities, officials said.

The Central Brooklyn Literacy Academy would focus on “using a variety of media including read-aloud, discussion, film, audiobooks, and adaptive technology to present culturally relevant, grade level, and highly engaging content in a hands-on, accessible way,” according to the city’s proposal. The school would have a dedicated school psychologist, in addition to speech and occupational therapists.

If approved, the school will begin serving students in the second and third grades next year, eventually growing to serve grades 2-8 and reaching up to 380 students, according to the city’s proposal.

Students must “either present formal documentation of dyslexia or demonstrate a pattern of reading challenges through an assessment process” conducted by the city to be eligible for admission. The school would not be zoned and would first prioritize students in District 17 followed by students in Districts 13, 16, 23, and 32.

Though the new Brooklyn school and its Bronx counterpart can only serve a tiny fraction of the city’s struggling readers even once they’ve fully expanded, supporters hope that these programs serve as a laboratory for teaching struggling readers that other schools draw on for best practices.

“We’ve had tremendous success at South Bronx Literacy Academy, and we know that it’s one school,” said Emily Hellstrom, the parent of a child with dyslexia who helped launch the Literacy Academy Collective, a nonprofit that has partnered with the Education Department to open schools for children with reading challenges.

Hellstrom is hopeful that the literacy academies can make an outsized impact and potentially grow into a network of four to six campuses.

“These schools can serve as sort of beacons and lighthouses radiating out into districts and boroughs,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Tracey Collins, Eric Adams’ partner, retires from NYC schools amid ‘no-show’ job investigation

2024-11-08T20:28:01+00:00

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Tracey Collins, Mayor Eric Adams’ romantic partner, has quietly retired from a senior position at the Education Department amid allegations that she didn’t show up to work and failed to disclose luxury travel benefits.

Collins — who received a significant promotion and a roughly $50,000 raise after Adams took office in 2022 — wrapped up her last day of work on Nov. 1, a department spokesperson confirmed.

Her retirement comes after a former department employee tipped off city investigators that Collins “has had a no show job,” according to a complaint obtained by Chalkbeat and first reported by the New York Post. The former employee, who requested anonymity, said Collins had not appeared at work since last Thanksgiving.

A spokesperson for the Special Commissioner of Investigation confirmed they received the complaint and are “looking into the matter.” The city’s Department of Investigation is also reviewing the allegations, according to the Daily News, which first reported Collins’ retirement. A DOI spokesperson declined to comment.

Some evidence seems to back concerns about Collins’ absence. In the eight months after being promoted as a senior advisor in the Division of School Leadership, about three-quarters of the days on her work calendar were empty, according to records first revealed by Chalkbeat.

Her calendar showed about 40 scheduled meetings and events, including “hot heat” sessions to review superintendent performance, a one-on-one sitdown with a school food leader, and meetings with officials managing the influx of migrant students.

Officials at the Education Department’s public records office said this week they could not provide more recent versions of Collins’ daily schedule until February, despite initially indicating the records would be provided Nov. 5. (The department regularly ignores its own deadlines for responding to public records requests.)

Collins could not be reached for comment. Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer did not say why she retired.

“Ms. Collins served public school students for over 30 years as a teacher, principal, and administrator, and we wish her the best in her retirement,” Styer wrote in an email. He noted that her responsibilities included “strategic planning, making recommendations on agency priorities, and providing advice and support to senior leadership.”

Collins was thrust into the spotlight through the mayor’s federal indictment in September. She allegedly benefitted from tens of thousands of dollars in travel perks from Turkish officials who sought to influence Adams, according to the indictment. Those benefits were not listed on Collins’ financial disclosure forms as required, Politico first reported. Adams also omitted them.

Collins has not been charged with any crimes connected to that investigation. A spokesperson for the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board said they could not confirm whether the agency is looking into the matter.

Questions about Collins’ role at the Education Department began swirling soon after she landed a promotion in 2022, where she earned about $221,000 as a senior advisor.

Along with other non-union Education Department officials, Collins recently got a pay bump, bringing her salary to nearly $253,000, records show.

Collins moved this summer from the Division of School Leadership to be a senior advisor for the deputy chancellor of family and community engagement — a role occupied at the time by Melissa Aviles-Ramos. Aviles-Ramos was appointed schools chancellor last month after David Banks abruptly stepped down under pressure from the mayor. (Banks’ electronic devices were seized in September by federal investigators, though he has not been accused of wrongdoing.)

Collins isn’t the only Education Department official related to Adams. The mayor’s sister-in-law also got a job in the school system, earning a significant pay bump. Still, Adams has rejected any suggestion that his relationship with Collins helped her win a promotion and has defended her work ethic.

“There was a job vacancy. She filed for it. Being the significant other of the mayor should not stop your track,” he previously told reporters. “Tracey does her job and she does it well.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school calendar update: Monday, Dec. 23 will now be a day off

2024-10-30T17:20:53+00:00

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New York City’s holiday gift to public school families and educators: Monday, Dec. 23 will now be a day off.

The shift comes after mounting pressure from school communities warning that a one-day week before winter break would be sparsely attended. Brooklyn eighth grader Isaac Regnier last year petitioned the city to strike the day from the calendar, garnering nearly 23,000 signatures.

At a celebratory announcement at the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers, Mayor Eric Adams, pointed to the 13-year-old as a catalyst for the change.

“He was able to get this victory,” Adams said. “Young people are going to know that their voices matter.” The mayor also showed a video of a call he placed to Isaac during the school day at I.S. 96 in Bensonhurst. The mayor said he was following through on the student’s request to cancel class on Dec. 23.

Isaac Regnier (center) lobbied the city to cancel class on Dec. 23. At a press conference on Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams and United of Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew pointed to Isaac as a catalyst for the extra day off.

“I feel so proud of myself for all that hard work I did,” said Isaac, whose effort was first reported by Chalkbeat.

Although an initial letter he sent to former schools Chancellor David Banks didn’t yield a response, “I still made it successful,” he said.

The claim that Isaac prompted the change generated some raised eyebrows, as pushback over a one-day school week before winter break drew similar backlash five years ago. A group of teachers in 2019 petitioned to get it canceled and ultimately were successful. The teachers behind that effort found old school calendars showing that schools were closed on at least four other occasions when Dec. 23 fell on a Monday.

Leonie Haimson, a longtime education advocate, wrote on X that it was “amazing” that the mayor held a high-profile press conference announcing the change, “drawing attention to a mistake that should never have happened in the first place.”

Under state law, New York City schools must be in session for at least 180 days or risk losing state funding — and there is now considerably less wiggle room in the calendar. Last school year, the Education Department added four days after the calendar had been published in response to complaints about missing certain religious holidays. The city has added days off for Eid, Lunar New Year, and Diwali, which is Friday.

One result of the extra days off is that the city now turns to remote learning during inclement weather instead of canceling school.

The city is not planning to add an additional school day to make up for canceling class on Dec. 23, though Education Department officials insisted that they will still meet the 180-day rule, noting that they are allowed to use some teacher training days to count toward it.

Michael Mulgrew, the teachers union president, pointed to recent changes in the calendar in explaining why the decision to cancel class on Dec. 23 was announced in the middle of the year.

“We’re in New York City. We have the greatest diversity in the world, and we recognize all sorts of cultures’ holidays,” he said. “It’s a 12-month-a year process, to say the least, on the calendar right now.”

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Mergers ahead: NYC is combining more tiny schools to combat enrollment drops

With 52 students, P.S. 25 is the smallest school in NYC. Officials are trying to close it. Again.

NYC schools chancellor: My mom pulled me out of the school system I now lead

2024-10-29T19:13:28+00:00

Long before I was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams to be chancellor of New York City Public Schools, I was the third child of a single mother from Puerto Rico. Growing up in the Bronx in the 1980s, my family experienced what so many families in our city have gone through: unstable housing, lack of opportunity in our borough, and most distressingly for my mother, schools that were chronically failing their students.

At the time, my mother watched as her first two children attended public schools that seemed more like places to babysit young people than places that develop future leaders. So she worked tirelessly, taking on extra jobs and sacrificing in ways large and small, to be able to send me to a private Catholic school. She fought tenaciously for my future, and thanks to her love and support, I became the first in my family to graduate from both high school and college.

Leer en español (via Vamos Forward)

Not long after, as a new alumna of Fordham University, I was riding the subway one day when I saw an ad for the New York City Teaching Fellows program. At that moment, it all clicked. That subway ride marked the start of my teaching career and my life’s work – to ensure no parent has to make the impossible choices my mom did, to ensure that any mother can confidently enroll her daughter in the local public school, knowing she will be safe, she will receive an excellent education, and she will be prepared to take on the world.

Today, I am that mother; I’m the proud parent of a New York City public school student.

Over the last few decades, a lot has changed in our public schools, and I’ve witnessed and helped drive these changes firsthand — as a teacher, principal, deputy superintendent, and most recently, as a deputy chancellor.

Earlier this month, I became chancellor, and my work is focused on making sure every New York City parent’s first choice is a public school.

To do that, I will double down on the initiatives started under Mayor Adams and Chancellor David Banks. I believe deeply in the work we’ve begun — from NYC Reads and NYC Solves to our reimagined Student Pathways — and I plan to see these priorities through. Our schools must provide every student with a solid foundation in reading and math and prepare them for well-paying jobs.

The values my mother instilled in me — and her support and persistence — got me where I am today.

And while our schools’ focus will not change, I also want to uplift three more priority areas based on my lived experiences, as someone whose entire life and career has been shaped by this school system.

First, I plan to focus on physical safety and emotional wellness. This is a precursor for learning and non-negotiable for me as a mom. When I drop off my child at school each day, I need to know she is safe and cared for. Through community-based safety support through Project Pivot, our Safer Access Initiative to lock the front doors of schools, and our extensive mental health supports, we are off to the right start. I plan to extend and expand our work in this area so that every school is the safe and nurturing environment it must be for every child.

Second, I will strengthen our support for teachers. I’m a longtime educator, and I know that our teachers can only do their best work if they receive the resources and training they deserve. Already, under the Adams administration, we have cemented new labor contracts for teachers, principals, and administrators, and our literacy and math initiatives NYC Reads and NYC Solves are providing unprecedented levels of on-the-job coaching. But I think there is even more we can do to solicit teacher feedback and continuously push professional development providers to meet the unique needs of our schools. The training we provide today will benefit students for decades, as our educators embrace proven approaches to reading and math and grow in their skills.

Finally, I will prioritize genuine and impactful family and community partnerships. This is near and dear to my heart as the former deputy chancellor of our family and community engagement division. I was proud to oversee the launch of our NYC Reads Literacy Hubs and Family Literacy Ambassadors, and I am eager to continue connecting with our families and centering their voices in meaningful and innovative ways.

Sitting on that subway all those years ago, staring up at the ad for New York City Teaching Fellows, I could never have imagined that I’d one day be chancellor of the largest school district in the nation. But the values my mother instilled in me — and her support and persistence — got me where I am today.

As chancellor, I pledge to channel that same persistence to advocate not just for my own daughter, but for all New York City students. Our public schools are and must be places where every one of our children can reach their full potential.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos is chancellor of New York City Public Schools.

David Banks has been the public face of NYC schools. Some call Dan Weisberg the ‘shadow chancellor.’

2024-10-09T21:55:02+00:00

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Within 24 hours of announcing his plans to step down as New York City’s schools chancellor, David Banks flanked Mayor Eric Adams at a jubilant press conference naming a successor to run the nation’s largest school system.

Neither Banks nor Adams took credit for selecting Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a deputy chancellor, as the next schools chief. Instead, they pointed to a top aide seated in the front row who had worked behind the scenes to elevate her: First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg.

The moment revealed a dynamic inside the Education Department that could prove critical to how well it withstands the crisis enveloping the Adams administration. While Banks has served as the public face of the department, Weisberg has taken the lead backstage shaping and implementing policy as his second in command.

Weisberg, 61, first joined the department as a labor negotiator during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, which favored charter school expansion and clashed with the teachers union. After leaving the department, he spent a dozen years at a national nonprofit focused on teacher quality that advanced contentious policy ideas.

He now oversees a sprawling portfolio that includes an overhaul of reading and math instruction, opening new schools, and supervising the department’s senior leadership. He also led policy discussions on hot-button issues, from reintroducing selective admissions in the wake of the pandemic to navigating complex tradeoffs stemming from a state mandate to slash class sizes.

“A lot of advocates kind of describe him as the shadow chancellor,” said Matt Gonzales, director of the Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative at the NYU Metro Center. “Everywhere we turn, Dan Weisberg is showing up.”

A graduate of the city’s school system, Weisberg has won admirers. Some parents and education leaders described Weisberg as thoughtful and unusually responsive for a senior official. Others bristled that he is a lawyer by training with no teaching experience who nonetheless shapes policies directly affecting classrooms. And integration advocates have been frustrated by his support for selective admissions and gifted programs, which they blame for exacerbating school segregation.

But as a raft of top officials resign from the Adams administration in the wake of an unprecedented federal indictment of the mayor, Weisberg is now responsible for maintaining stability at the Education Department — an urgent task in the weeks ahead.

Banks’ sudden departure comes just over a month after his phones were seized by federal agents as part of a sprawling probe into Adams’ inner circle. Banks, who contends the mayor pushed him out of office ahead of schedule, has not been accused of wrongdoing.

In the meantime, Weisberg must help quickly smooth the transition for Aviles-Ramos, who is taking over as chancellor months earlier than planned. And he must also help cement the administration’s signature policy initiatives so they outlast Adams, who has pledged to run for re-election but faces corruption charges, multiple federal investigations, and an uncertain future as mayor.

Even before the recent upheaval, Weisberg said the department focused on building political support for their top initiatives among parents, educators, and union officials to ensure they outlive the Adams administration.

“Sustainability is something you should always have in mind,” he told Chalkbeat. “That was true under Mayor Bloomberg. It’s true under Mayor Adams. You never know exactly how much time you have.”

A one-time union foe, Weisberg charts a new path

Three years ago, as Banks prepared to take the reins of the Education Department, he called Weisberg for advice. The pair didn’t have a close relationship, though Weisberg had long admired the Eagle Academy network of public schools that Banks helped launch to serve boys of color.

Weisberg, then CEO of TNTP, an organization focused on teacher quality, said he and Banks shared a similar sense of humor and “clicked.”

But Banks’ decision to tap Weisberg immediately raised alarms from a powerful constituency.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, expressed “severe doubts” about Weisberg, he said in a recent interview. One educator wrote at the time that Weisberg is “one of the most dangerous people in the country who could rise to be the second highest ranking administrator” of the city’s public schools.

Weisberg helped lead labor negotiations under Bloomberg, who saw the teachers union as a powerful roadblock to overhauling the public school system. The administration pursued ideas that often drew fierce resistance: embracing charter schools, pushing for merit pay, vowing to overhaul teacher tenure protections, and closing a raft of schools, replacing them with new smaller ones.

Chancellor David Banks looks on as Dan Weisberg, first deputy chancellor, speaks during a press conference.

His role at TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project, also drew scrutiny, as the organization often recommended policies that earned pushback from some educators. Shortly after joining TNTP, Weisberg co-authored a report that argued school districts were failing to distinguish between excellent and weak educators, effectively treating them as identical “widgets.” The influential paper helped spark a controversial push in many states to overhaul teacher evaluation systems, including tying them to standardized test scores.

When Weisberg was tapped to be Banks’ top deputy, taking a roughly $90,000 pay cut from his $354,000 TNTP salary, some of his critics feared the administration would follow through on the policy ideas Weisberg had been sharpening for years.

But Banks has focused on a narrower set of policies that have won broad support, including reading and math curriculum overhauls and a push to expose high school students to career options. Instead of trying to transform the way teachers are assessed and ferreting out weaker ones — proposals that have fallen out of favor politically — Weisberg has helped create more consistency over the materials teachers use.

The teachers union is a key backer of those efforts, even as some educators and parents raise concerns about the quality of the curriculum choices and complain that the mandate is too rigid.

Weisberg still believes the school system is falling short for too many children and that policymakers should take bigger risks. But he also thinks the curriculum overhauls are potentially transformative and dovetail with his prior focus on teacher quality.

“What I’m confident in is that the quality and the effectiveness of teachers as a whole is going to increase as a result of all this work,” he said.

He’s even won some grudging support from Mulgrew, who pointed to Weisberg’s role spinning up training to help teachers acclimate to the new curriculums.

“Weisberg has been very good with working with us on those things,” Mulgrew said. But the union chief stopped short of a full endorsement of his leadership. “I think he follows the lead of the people he works for.”

The clock may be running out on the Adams administration

With a little over a year left in his first term, Adams has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges and vowed to stay in office despite calls for him to step down. But uncertainty over how long he might remain in control looms over the school system.

Under a distracted City Hall with little political capital to spend on new initiatives, Weisberg and other top education officials must either focus on keeping the lights on and ensuring Adams’ existing education priorities take root or head for the exit themselves.

Aaron Pallas, an education policy expert at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s public schools, said Weisberg may play a valuable role amid the uncertainty and transition to a new chancellor. Weisberg has a tight relationship with Aviles-Ramos, elevating her as a top aide in his office before recommending her to replace Banks. And he has deep knowledge of the literacy overhaul and career education expansion, the department’s signature priorities.

“He can probably troubleshoot and speed those along better than someone coming into his role anew,” Pallas said. “At the same time, there is so much built in regularity in a large bureaucracy that particular people may not matter quite as much as you think.”

Not everyone is rooting for stability. Some critics of Adams’ education agenda hope the political crisis at City Hall leads to new leadership at the Education Department sooner rather than later, pointing to heated fights over the department’s budget and prekindergarten program cuts.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos (center) has vowed to carry the torch on Banks' and Adams' education priorities.

School integration advocates also have been frustrated that the administration has resisted calls to address the system’s status as among the most segregated in the country.

Instead, the department has expanded academic screening in the wake of the pandemic, and more recently reinstated special access for Manhattan students at a handful of coveted high schools, decisions Weisberg helped facilitate. Banks and other top officials argue accelerated learning opportunities are crucial to keeping families in the system, though advocates contend those policies will exacerbate segregation.

“I ultimately want to see change — this administration has felt chaotic and stressful for the last few years,” said Gonzales, of the NYU Metro Center, a critic of Adams’ education policies and an integration advocate. “Dan Weisberg is part of that.”

East Harlem parent leader Kaliris Salas-Ramirez agreed. She said the administration has not moved swiftly enough to plan for a state law that mandates smaller class sizes, an issue Weisberg has helped oversee.

And she is skeptical of the department’s curriculum mandates and Weisberg’s supervision of them given his lack of teaching experience. She pointed to the decision to dissolve the department’s division of teaching and learning, a move Weisberg supported, which led to the resignation of Carolyne Quintana, a well-liked deputy chancellor. (Weisberg declined to comment on the specifics of her exit, and Quintana could not be reached for comment.)

“This man has no background on how children learn,” said Salas-Ramirez, who worked with Weisberg as a former member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy. “For me, that’s been the difficult part of engaging with him.”

Weisberg has also faced some scrutiny over management of his staff, including raises and promotions to an enrollment official in the wake of an investigation that found she sold clothing online during the work day, the New York Post reported. The employee has since been fired and the Education Department’s enrollment chief, the staffer’s supervisor, was reassigned. (Weisberg declined to comment on the incident through a spokesperson, citing pending litigation.)

Yet other parent leaders are rooting for Weisberg to stay. “I’ve had a lot of feelings about the DOE over the years, and Dan was one of the first people who made me feel I could trust him – that he wasn’t treating parents like mosquitoes,” said Deborah Alexander, vice president of the Citywide Council on High Schools who generally supports efforts to expand selective admissions. “He always, always would respond to emails.”

For his part, Weisberg is adamant that he’s not eyeing the exit.

“I intend to stay on as long as the mayor and Melissa want me to serve in that role,” he said. He left the door only slightly ajar.

“You can never be sure what’s coming down the pike that might change things,” he said. “But I’m very committed to the work we’ve undertaken.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Next NYC schools chancellor: Melissa Aviles-Ramos says it’s business as usual despite Adams’ charges

2024-09-27T00:22:53+00:00

Mayor Eric Adams faces bribery and fraud charges and a growing number of calls for his resignation, but he has not lost the support of his incoming schools chancellor.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos was announced Wednesday as David Banks’ successor and is expected to officially assume the role after he retires on Dec. 31.

She reiterated her support for Adams during a Thursday interview with Chalkbeat, and she emphasized her commitment to continuing his education agenda, including an overhaul of literacy teaching in elementary schools.

“I share their vision … That’s why I agreed to be chancellor,” she said of Adams and Banks. “My North Star is their North Star, but I have to make sure that I keep the train moving.”

The past few days have been a whirlwind for the nation’s largest school system. Banks, whose phones were seized by federal agents nearly three weeks ago along with those of other top officials, abruptly announced his retirement Tuesday. The next day, at a celebratory press conference, Adams and Banks announced that Aviles-Ramos would become the city’s next schools chancellor.

Hours later, news broke of Adams’ indictment. Adams strenuously denied the charges Thursday at a press conference in front of Gracie Mansion where he was flanked by supporters and heckled by protesters chanting, “resign.”

In a letter to city employees on Thursday, Adams wrote, “Let me be very clear, I know I’ve done nothing wrong. … Our focus must remain the same: continuing to deliver for our fellow New Yorkers.”

It’s unclear how long Aviles-Ramos could stay in her role, especially if Adams is forced to step down and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams takes over. But Aviles-Ramos said the uncertainty isn’t changing her approach.

Beyond reiterating her support for Adams on Thursday, Aviles-Ramos – who has worked as a principal, superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff, and led the city’s efforts to incorporate migrant students – laid out her alignment with Banks on a number of policy issues ranging from lowering class sizes to a citywide policy to integrate schools.

She also clarified that during the next three months, she and Banks will jointly make policy decisions.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

I wanted to start with something that came up at the press conference. When you got to the school that you were the principal of, the graduation rate was 23% and it went up to 68% the first year, which is pretty staggering. Can you talk about how you accomplished that, and if there are any lessons you would draw as chancellor in terms of helping low-performing schools?

The projected graduation rate was only 23% and a lot of that was due to poor programming. So we had to sprint and figure out how to get those students those classes [they needed]. And so we got it up to 68%.

What I learned from that is no one person has all the answers. In a small school, when you are the principal, you are part programmer and school aide, and you do all the things. And so I spent a lot of time with my programmer. I spent a lot of time with my families, I spent a lot of time with my students and with my teachers, and together, we had to really think about how do we design a program that doesn’t punish kids who thought that they were on track, and also embraces the things that they like to do. So it was a real lesson in leadership and how you have to listen to your community.

You left the DOE in February after a long time for an administrative role at Monroe College. Why was that?

I actually was supposed to work with Monroe College back in 2022. I wanted to try something new.

And then [First Deputy Chancellor] Dan Weisberg said, “I’d just like to have a talk with you, because I hear that you’d be really good to have on my team.” Dan and I just hit it off. And he offered me the job [as senior executive director of his office] … which was how I inherited Project Open Arms [the city Education Department’s effort to incorporate migrant students].

When you came back to the DOE in July after Monroe, was that already with the explicit understanding that you were going to be named chancellor?

There was definitely a transparent conversation about a succession plan that occurred amongst the chancellor and the mayor and myself.

We heard a lot from advocates and families about how disruptive the 60-day shelter limit for many migrant families was. I’m curious what you saw? And is that type of policy something you would feel comfortable potentially pushing back on the mayor on?

We definitely saw challenges. But students in temporary housing, unfortunately, is not new to New York City. We have a lot of experience with this, though definitely not the way that we do now. Working closely with enrollment was how we were able to accommodate a lot of the families, and with busing. Was it perfect? No, nothing is.

In terms of pushing back on City Hall, what I will say is that this was the last resort. This is not something that anyone wants to do. The numbers are huge. We had 45,000 students … My job is to operationalize it in a way that is going to make sense for families as best as possible, and to make sure that there’s as little disruption to learning.

There’s a lot of factors driving declining enrollment: lower birth rates, the affordability crisis. To what extent do you think the Education Department can have an impact on enrollment? And what can you actually do?

I think there’s a lot that can be done. I think we’ve started that work. First of all, schools are very important to communities, and what we have been working on is really empowering our superintendents and principals to build that ecosystem within their community. Making sure that you’re not just a principal who is in your building and taking care of the programming and the curriculum, but how are you interacting with the community? Do you know the business owners? Do you know the churches? And when you get to know your community, people start entrusting you with their kids.

People move to neighborhoods because they want really good schools. But in order for them to know what a school is like, especially if there are four or five of them in one neighborhood, they need to know the principal, and they need to know the school community.

As you look ahead, is there a top priority for you? What’s your North Star, your one thing you hope to accomplish as chancellor?

The priorities that we have already set forth in this administration. Who doesn’t want to teach kids to read, do math, and have access to amazing careers after they graduate?

I see my role as making sure we get all of those things over the finish line.

So specifically, would that be continuing literacy work and some of the Future Ready work?

New York City Reads, our Pathways work, Future Ready. My background is in high school education, so it’s incredibly important to me the work that’s happening in Future Ready. But I also have a background in adolescent literacy. I also know what it feels like when a 14-year-old young person doesn’t want to engage with their peers because they don’t want people to know that they are reading on a first- or second-grade reading level.

So again, I don’t have to worry about competing priorities, because I share the same ones with them.

You were pretty clear yesterday in your praise for the mayor. Given the news [of Adams’ federal indictment], do you continue to feel that way? Do you continue to feel he can be an effective mayor?

I’m committed to New York City. I’m a career educator. I believe in the role that I have currently, and the one that I’m about to step into. I’m an English teacher, not an attorney, and I’m going to stick to the task in front of me, which is making sure that our kids and our families have everything they need.

Given that you need sign-off from City Hall to advance significant policy initiatives, do you feel confident that that’s going to continue to happen?

I do feel confident.

This year is the first real big test for class size reduction. You have to hit 60% of classes underneath the designated caps by next fall or risk hundreds of millions of dollars potentially in state aid. The city even went backwards by a percentage point or two last year. What’s your plan to get there?

Our plan is to continue working with the unions and with our internal folks to look at this on a case by case basis. It’s a complex situation, as you well know, so I can’t sit here and say anything other than we have an amazing group of people and a strong partnership with the union. We can look at things as they come up, and see where there are issues and how we can solve for them.

Do you anticipate a big teacher hiring increase this year?

Well, we would need to, that’s part of class size. We are going to need a lot more teachers.

Banks was clear about not wanting to kind of impose a citywide policy in terms of integrating schools, or changing the entrance requirements to the specialized high schools. Do you agree with that?

I think that entering into this seat, and also the current seat that I have, which is family and community engagement, I do what is needed in communities and what the families are asking for.

Are there any changes that you anticipate, anything you want to bring to this that would be new?

Something that I want to drive is bilingual education. I want to make sure that we prioritize support for those young people, and that we do provide the support for the teachers. We know that New York City Reads has been successful in bilingual classes. I’ve spoken to a couple of teachers in schools who have said that this has been very helpful.

In terms of New York City Reads, you’re still at the beginning of this, and as the chancellor has said many times, it’s a long horizon to see impact. How do you think about the long term fate of that initiative if it’s unclear whether this administration is going to stay?

I am confident that any person who is involved in education would want to see children learning to read. We’ve also been very transparent that this is a long road. But we have done so much important foundational work with professional development. This wasn’t just unboxing a curriculum and giving it to teachers. There was a very strategic partnership with the [United Federation of Teachers] and with other organizations to provide that shoulder to shoulder, job-embedded support for the teachers. So I think because of that, it’s going to continue.

Who is the final decision maker in the DOE for the next three months?

That will be [Banks] and me together. We’ve worked really closely together in the last couple of years. And one thing about the chancellor is that he makes decisions with his cabinet. So this isn’t new to them. It’s certainly not new to me, and I’m actually looking forward to the next three months.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Eric Adams faces federal indictment hours after naming new schools chancellor

2024-09-26T02:50:36+00:00

A federal grand jury has indicted Mayor Eric Adams, according to the New York Times, a destabilizing blow to the city just hours after he named its next schools chief.

The charges against Adams were unclear since the indictment was sealed, the Times reported. He is expected to surrender to authorities early next week, sources told the New York Post.

Adams’ indictment is both symbolically and practically significant for the nation’s largest school system. Under mayoral control — a governance model that Albany lawmakers extended twice under Adams’ watch — the city’s chief executive is responsible for overseeing its 1,600 schools, along with picking the schools chancellor.

Adams, the first New York City mayor to be charged while in office, can continue to serve as mayor even while facing charges. But he’s faced mounting pressure from local and state officials to step down, and news of the indictment was likely to fuel further critics.

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said in a statement Wednesday night to multiple news outlets. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”

Wednesday night’s news raises questions about the leadership of the city as well as its schools. Schools Chancellor David Banks – whose phones were seized three weeks ago along with those of other top officials – announced Tuesday he plans to retire at the end of the calendar year.

It’s also unclear if the fallout from an indictment could impact Adams’ plan to have Melissa Aviles-Ramos replace Banks after his Dec. 31 retirement.

“It has the potential to really paralyze the DOE and really prevent it from doing anything novel and anything other than limping along,” Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s school system, said of the indictment. “Many people feel like limping along is certainly not good enough.”

Even before news of the indictment began to spread on Wednesday evening, a growing chorus of elected officials had begun calling for the mayor’s resignation — most notably Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

If Adams were to resign or be forced out of office, decisions about the school system — including whether to move forward with Aviles-Ramos’ appointment — would fall to Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate. Williams’ office did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about how he would approach managing the Education Department.

Just hours before word of the indictment broke, Adams joined Banks for a celebratory press conference where they formally announced Aviles-Ramos’ new role. She voiced her full-throated support for the mayor. “I want you to see me as a symbol of stability,” she said.

Multiple federal investigations have touched Adams’ inner circle, and several top officials have stepped down or announced plans to leave in recent weeks, including the city’s police commissioner and health commissioner. The Times reported that the investigation leading to the indictment probed whether the mayor, who received foreign donations to his campaign, expedited approval of a new high-rise Turkey consulate, despite safety concerns.

As news of the indictment spread Wednesday night, new calls emerged for Adams to resign — including from City Comptroller Brad Lander, state Senator Zellnor Myrie, and former Comptroller Scott Stringer, all of whom are running against Adams.

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s New York City education committee, acknowledged Adams was “entitled to his due process” but also called for his exit.

“The people of New York City, however, need a mayor who is able to devote full time and full energy to putting the city on the right track, including recruitment and retention of top leadership for the City,” Liu said in a statement. “Mayor Adams is simply unable to do that for the foreseeable future and therefore, for the good of all New Yorkers, must resign immediately.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, NYC’s next schools chancellor, says she’ll have Mayor Adams’ back

2024-09-25T21:31:48+00:00

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One day after schools Chancellor David Banks abruptly announced that he will retire at the end of the year, he and Mayor Eric Adams tried to project an air of calm as they formally introduced the woman who will lead the Education Department.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, the highest-ranking Latina in the public school system, has been instrumental in her work with migrant students, Adams said, even as he celebrated Banks’ nearly 40-year career in the city’s schools. Both men emphasized that Banks’ impending departure — the latest in a series of high-profile resignations at City Hall — had nothing to do with multiple federal investigations into Adams’ inner circle.

“I want you to see me as a symbol of stability,” said Aviles-Ramos, who was quick to cement herself as an ally to Adams as he faces growing pressure from some local and state officials to step down.

“Mayor Adams is New York City,” she said at a press conference. “Before, you would look at mayors and you would see someone cold and inaccessible and on the news. You see Mayor Adams everywhere.”

Adams and Banks publicly announced the succession plan at the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, where Banks was founding principal in 1997. They emphasized that the chancellor’s Dec. 31 retirement plans — and their choice to tap Aviles-Ramos — predated the current swirl of federal investigations.

Aviles-Ramos, who was born and raised in the Bronx, started in the system as a high school English teacher in 2007 and then rose to being a principal, acting superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff. She was responsible for overseeing the Education Department’s effort two years ago to help the thousands of migrant students coming into the school system.

She left the department in February to work at a college only to return this summer to assume a role as deputy chancellor for family and community engagement and external affairs.

Aviles-Ramos’ return was part of a handoff plan that had long been in the works, Banks and Adams said. The mayor tied conversations about Banks’ retirement to January, while Banks said those conversations “intensified” in the early months of the summer.

Though running the nation’s largest school system is considered one of the most prestigious — and difficult — education jobs in the country, multiple observers said it would be next to impossible to attract a talented leader outside the city. The next schools chief may only be in the role for a year if Adams does not win re-election — or less if he is forced to resign.

“It’s hard to imagine who would want to work under Eric Adams right now given the cloud and chaos surrounding his mayoral administration,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s school system.

Asked about his decision to step down in the middle of the school year, Banks said remaining in his role until June was “a romantic notion.”

“But the reality is that, after 40 years, when you recognize that it’s time, you feel that,” he said.

Banks departs at a pivotal time for some of his key initiatives — including a literacy curriculum overhaul — but he said Wednesday that he will leave in December with “no regrets.”

“I gave it everything that I had,” he said. “I poured it all out.”

Deputy Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos and Chancellor David Banks at Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice on Wednesday, September 25, 2024.

Aviles-Ramos has fans among Bronx educators

During the press conference, city officials portrayed Aviles-Ramos as a talented manager who impressed City Hall by coordinating across multiple agencies to support migrant students as part of Project Open Arms. Banks described her as hard-working and single-minded but also called her “side-cracking funny.”

Aviles-Ramos has also won fierce loyalty from some principals she worked with, both as a colleague and a superintendent overseeing Bronx high schools.

“She’s the kind of person you would follow into the gates of hell and back,” said Ron Link, principal of the Theatre Arts Production Company School in the Bronx, who got to know Aviles-Ramos when she oversaw his school as a deputy and acting superintendent.

Other education leaders who have worked with Aviles-Ramos pointed to her experience up and down the Education Department’s organizational chart.

“She is one of these people that is able to take the experiences she’s had as a teacher, as a principal, as a superintendent, and speak with authority on what those roles entail and the challenges that folks in those roles face — but can think at a big systems level,” said Mark Dunetz, president of New Visions for Public Schools, an organization that supports a network of city schools.

As she addressed the crowd on Wednesday, Aviles-Ramos leaned heavily on her Bronx roots. She noted her family had struggled with the city’s schools in the 1980′s.

“The Bronx was a forgotten place,” she said. “Public schools did not work out so well for my two siblings. … They had to fend for themselves and find their way after school.”

As a result of that experience, Aviles-Ramos said her mom, a single parent, worked hard cooking and cleaning in order to pay tuition at a Catholic school. But Aviles-Ramos said that if families leave the system, it shouldn’t be because they don’t have good public options.

“We shouldn’t have to move to different districts,” she said.

John Powers, who retired as principal of Herbert Lehman High School in 2023, got to know Aviles-Ramos well when she took over in 2016 as principal of Schuylerville Preparatory High School, a small school in the same building.

The school was in rough shape when she came in, and just 26% of students graduated within four years the year she started, city officials said Wednesday. Aviles-Ramos helped push that number to 67% the next year, according to city data.

“She’s the real deal,” Powers said. “She actually knows instruction.”

Hard road ahead for transition to chancellor job

Powers said he expects Aviles-Ramos, whom he described as a “very thoughtful planner,” to make good use of the coming months to map out a smoother transition.

He said he thinks she will focus on supporting teachers, a key task as educators adapt to sweeping curriculum mandates.

Some caregivers said they were glad the next chancellor already has relationships with parent leaders, as Aviles-Ramos served for the past three months as the deputy chancellor overseeing family and community engagement.

Though some education leaders treat soliciting input from parents as a box-checking exercise, “it’s definitely going to go beyond [that] with her,” said Shirley Aubin, the co-chair of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council. “She respects and appreciates the parents and families and community voice.”

Still, steering the city’s school system, a vast bureaucracy with roughly 130,000 staffers and 900,000 students, is a tall order under normal circumstances. The situation Aviles-Ramos is stepping into is hardly normal. Her predecessor is leaving amid several federal investigations of the mayor’s administration, which could cut short the mayoralty of Adams, leaving the length of Aviles-Ramos’ tenure uncertain.

Aviles-Ramos will face a range of thorny policy questions on class sizes, cell phone bans, and other issues that will likely require buy-in from the Adams administration, which will be harder if officials are preoccupied with the investigations, said one Education Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“I think the bigger question is … how do you make sure the distractions don’t stop work from happening,” the official said.

Other leaders had more experience than Aviles-Ramos at the highest levels of the Education Department, the official said. That includes Deputy Chancellor Danika Rux, who oversees the city’s 45 district superintendents and recently took responsibility for Banks’ key literacy and math initiatives.

Aviles-Ramos is also in the unusual position of having been named chancellor months before she is expected to assume the role.

“This is the most responsible way that you can do this,” Banks said. “It doesn’t usually happen this way.”

Banks said Aviles-Ramos would be joining him at “all of the chancellor’s meetings” over the remainder of his tenure.

And Aviles-Ramos told Adams she was committed to continuing the mayor’s education initiatives.

“I have your back,” she told the audience. “We are going to get stuff done.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos expected to take over as NYC schools chancellor, sources say

2024-09-25T03:00:51+00:00

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Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who helmed New York City’s efforts to incorporate thousands of migrant students into city schools, will take over as schools chancellor following the departure of David Banks, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Mayor Eric Adams was expected to announce Aviles-Ramos’ appointment Wednesday afternoon in the Bronx.

The succession plan follows Tuesday’s stunning news that Banks – a longtime friend of Adams who has served as schools chief since Adams took office in 2022 – was stepping down amid widening federal investigations into the Adams administration.

Banks will leave his post on Dec. 31, he said in a letter Tuesday. The announcement came three weeks after federal agents seized Banks’ phones, along with those of his partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, and his brothers, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks, and Terence Banks, a consultant and former MTA staffer.

Banks was the latest in a string of high-ranking city officials to announce their resignations in recent weeks, throwing the Adams administration into chaos. The quick naming of a successor to lead the Education Department is likely an effort to inject some stability into the operations of the largest city agency, which oversees 1,600 schools and more than 900,000 students.

Aviles-Ramos, who currently serves as a deputy chancellor overseeing family engagement, took on the high-profile task of steering the Education Department’s efforts to incorporate the wave of migrant students who began arriving in Summer 2022 – an initiative the city dubbed Project Open Arms.

Adams has cited that effort as a major success of his administration.

“When you do an analysis of the last two years, we incorporated over 40,000 students,” Adams said at a recent press conference. “It’s clear the Project Open Arms … has really met the mark.”

Aviles-Ramos began working in the city Education Department in 2007 as a teacher, according to her LinkedIn profile, later serving as a principal, acting superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff.

She left the city Education Department in February to take a job as a college administrator, only to come back several months later in the new role as deputy chancellor for family and community engagement and external affairs. She replaced longtime Banks ally Kenita Lloyd, who took Aviles-Ramos’ old job as chief of staff.

Adams is expected to announce Aviles-Ramos’ appointment on Wednesday at the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice — a school Banks helped launch as its founding principal in 1997.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Data privacy advocates raise alarm over NYC’s free teen teletherapy program

2024-09-10T22:22:28+00:00

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New York City’s free online therapy platform for teens may violate state and federal laws protecting student data privacy, lawyers from the New York Civil Liberties Union and advocates charged in a letter Tuesday to the city’s Education and Health Departments.

Teenspace, a $26 million partnership between the city Health Department and teletherapy giant Talkspace launched in late 2023, connects city residents between ages 13 and 17 with free therapists by text, phone, or video chat.

In less than a year, roughly 16,000 students have signed up, Health Department officials said. Sign-ups disproportionately came from youth who identified as Black, Latino, Asian American and female and live in some of the city’s lowest-income neighborhoods, officials said in May.

Information shared with a therapist is subject to stringent protections under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. But before connecting with a therapist through Teenspace, teens go through a registration process that asks for personal information like their name, school, mental health history, and gender identity. Advocates are concerned such information is being improperly collected and could be misused.

For one, teens enter the registration information before securing parental consent – a possible violation of federal student privacy laws, the letter contends.

And families don’t get a chance to review the privacy policy – which discloses that registration information can be used to “tailor advertising” and for marketing purposes – before entering the registration information, advocates allege. There’s an option for teens to request that their data be deleted from the company’s platform, but it’s hard to find, according to advocates.

“It’s all very invasive,” said Shannon Edwards, a parent and founder of AI For Families, an organization that seeks to help families navigate artificial intelligence, who co-authored the letter along with NYCLU and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. “It’s also very unclear that parents understand what they’re getting themselves into.”

Advocates also pointed to the risk of a potential data breach – something the city has experienced with multiple outside vendors in recent years.

Advocates say similar privacy questions about Talkspace have been circulating for years and questioned whether city officials did sufficient due diligence or built in enough additional privacy safeguards before inking the contract.

“It’s the opacity of the relationship here, and the failure to make manifest what the city is doing to ensure there isn’t this data accumulation and sharing for inappropriate purposes,” said Beth Haroules, a senior attorney at the NYCLU who co-authored the letter.

Health Department spokesperson Rachel Vick said the agency has “taken additional steps to protect the data of Teenspace users and ensure information is not collected for personal gain, including stipulations that require all client data to remain confidential during and after the completion of the city’s contract and barring use of data for any purpose other than providing the services included in the contract.”

Client data is destroyed after 30 days if a teen doesn’t connect with a therapist, officials said.

A spokesperson for Talkspace referred questions to the Health Department.

The extent to which Teenspace is subject to state and federal laws governing student privacy in educational settings is somewhat murky, given that the contract is with the city’s Health Department, not its Education Department.

But NYCLU attorneys contend “the City cannot absolve itself of its responsibility to provide the protections inherent in federal and state laws…simply because the contract sits with DOHMH instead of DOE. The service is promoted on public school websites, and it is DOE’s responsibility to ensure that student data is protected, regardless of which City agency signs the contract.”

Parents may be more inclined to trust the platform because it has a “stamp of approval” from the school system, Edwards added.

A Health Department spokesperson didn’t specify whether the program is subject to education privacy laws, but said it’s “not a school based service.”

Teenspace has been the city’s highest-profile effort to address the ongoing youth mental health crisis.

“We are meeting people where they are with a front door to the mental health system that for too long has been too hard to find,” said Ashwin Vasan, the city’s health commissioner, in May.

Some teens have praised the program, noting it’s a way to bring mental health care to young people who may not otherwise have access.

But some mental health providers have argued it can’t replace the kind of intensive care a clinician provides, especially for kids with severe mental health challenges.

Company officials shared in May that they had helped 36 teens navigate serious incidents including reports of suicide attempts and abuse – cases they referred to child protective services, in-person therapists, or hospitals.

Talkspace CEO Jon Cohen previously told Chalkbeat the company uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to scan transcripts of therapy sessions to help identify teens at risk of suicide.

Even advocates critical of Teenspace’s privacy protections acknowledge the severe shortage of mental health providers and say teletherapy can play a role in filling the gap.

“We know you cannot find providers … there is such a need,” said Haroules. But advocates said the city can do more to ensure its vendors are meeting strict standards for data privacy, especially with such sensitive information.

“Everyone thinks, well, mental health is important for kids, these kids of services are required … when on the other side is: ‘How are they getting to it?’” said Edwards. “It doesn’t matter what the app is, there has to be a standard.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Federal agents seize phones of NYC schools Chancellor David Banks and his brothers, reports say

2024-09-06T13:13:04+00:00

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Federal agents seized phones from New York City schools Chancellor David Banks and his partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, early Wednesday at their Harlem home, the New York Times reported.

Federal agents also seized devices at the Queens home of Banks’ brother, Phil Banks, also a top aide to Mayor Eric Adams. Agents searched the home of a third Banks brother, Terence Banks, who retired from the MTA and now works as a consultant, according to the New York Times. THE CITY first reported some of the moves made by federal agents.

In a statement on Friday, Chancellor Banks confirmed he was cooperating with “a federal inquiry.”

“Yesterday was the first day of school for the 1.1 million students and staff of New York City Public Schools, and I remain focused on ensuring they have safe, academically rigorous, and joyful school year,” he said. “I am confirming that I am cooperating with a federal inquiry. At this time, I cannot comment any further on that matter.”

None of the officials have been accused of a crime, according to the New York Times.

The news of federal agents’ arrival at the doorstep of the schools chancellor came Thursday, on the first day of classes, casting a cloud over the typically ebullient first-day-of-school mood.

As he left a visit from a Queens high school Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Banks told a reporter from Fox 5, “Today is the first day of school, it is all about the kids. If there’s any other comments that are made, it will be happening tomorrow.”

Several Education Department staffers said news of the federal agents’ moves spread quickly in education circles Thursday. Multiple sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Education Department employees were shocked by both the news and timing, as the nation’s largest school system reopened its doors to nearly 900,000 students on Thursday.

Aaron Pallas, a Teachers College professor and longtime observer of the city’s Education Department, said the incident could impact Banks’ work leading the nation’s largest school system.

“Anything that can distract them from staying focused on the task at hand could impede their effectiveness,” he said.

Wednesday’s activity was the latest move in a swirl of law enforcement inquiries surrounding Adams, his administration, and his campaign. Federal officials are also looking into possible illegal campaign activity involving the Turkish government. The New York Times reported that the federal campaign inquiry was separate from the matter that federal agents were looking into Wednesday.

Meanwhile, search warrants were also executed on NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and Tim Pearson, a top mayoral aide embroiled in multiple scandals, New York 1 reported.

“Investigators have not indicated to us [that] the mayor or his staff are targets of any investigation,” Adams’ chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, told THE CITY in a statement. “As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law.”

As he left City Hall on Thursday, Adams also told reporters that he had “confidence in the team,” according to THE CITY. “The goal is to follow the law and that is what this administration always stood for and what we’re going to continue to stand for,” he said.

Chancellor Banks is a core member of the unusually tight-knit inner circle of the Adams administration. Banks and Adams have known each other for years, and their family and professional lives are intertwined. Adams’ girlfriend, Tracey Collins, and his sister-in-law, Sharon Adams, both work in the city Education Department.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Can NYC’s first public Montessori school help keep families in the system? Officials hope so.

2024-09-05T19:41:12+00:00

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Principal Carol Mongiello greeted her students on Thursday morning, crouching under a rainbow balloon archway to dispense plastic sunglasses. The moment carried more weight than a typical first day.

Mongiello is spinning up the city’s first Montessori-inspired public school, one of nine new schools across the city opening this fall. Officials hope these programs will help attract families to a public school system that has seen enrollment plunge by 9% over the past five years. Several families said they leapt at the chance to send their kids to an alternative model and were less likely to consider private school, though the program has yet to fill all its kindergarten seats.

The Downtown Brooklyn school, known as P.S. 482 Albee Square Montessori Public School, embraces tenets of the Montessori philosophy in which students across grade levels attend class together. The day is structured around uninterrupted two to three hour work blocks where children can choose what to work on, from practical life skills to math and geography. (The school is launching with prekindergarten and kindergarten and will eventually expand to the fifth grade.)

Teachers and staff say hello to their students for the first time at P.S. 482.

With the guidance of a teacher, students self-select activities and materials that appeal to them and are at their developmental level, Mongiello explained. “Children really excel in this way.”

Multiple parents said they found the school during a search for private Montessori programs and were intrigued to learn of a public option.

“Montessori schools are extremely expensive — or a little bit too expensive for me,” said East Flatbush mom Andrea Phillips, who “literally just happened upon” the new school during an online search.

Phillips was thrilled that her 4-year-old son, Ian, won a spot for pre-K. Ian is a self-starter and largely taught himself shapes, colors, and numbers, and he has a lot of energy. Phillips figured a school where he would “be freer to maybe explore what was going on in his mind would be a better situation for him.”

Though he hadn’t previously attended preschool or day care, Ian didn’t seem too anxious about the first day.

“I want to go to school!” he declared shortly before parading into the building with his classmates, some of whom were clutching stuffed animals.

East Flatbush mom Andrea Phillips with her 4-year-old son, Ian.

P.S. 482 isn’t the only new school in the neighborhood promising a different approach. A few blocks away, students filtered into P.S. 456, modeled on the Brooklyn New School, which promises lots of project-based learning.

Zacmari Zamostina, who lives on the border of Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay, said she is willing to brave a long commute to send her daughter to a school with a bilingual Spanish program that aims to serve students from a range of backgrounds.

“We want her to get taste of what the world is like,” Zamostina said. “We didn’t want to stay within the neighborhood.” She was also impressed with the school’s commitment to involving parents and is excited to meet other caregivers, as the family’s social circle shrank during the pandemic.

Parents at both P.S. 456 and P.S. 482, the Montessori program, said the new schools appealed to them partly because they seem like they may have more autonomy to chart their own path.

“Having something that defies the massive industry of education and is focused more on kids and less on the system is ideal for me,” said Clinton Hill dad Nick Vranizan, whose son Nico is starting prekindergarten at P.S. 482. “Something like this would certainly keep us from shopping around” for private schools, he added.

Vranizan, who carted his son to school in a wagon, said he was happy to find a school within walking distance of their home. Last year, Nico had to travel about 40 minutes to Williamsburg for 3-K, as the family wasn’t offered a nearby spot.

Still, the new Montessori is a bit of an experiment with no track record or reputation to draw on.

“It’s exciting that it’s a new school but it’s also a little concerning,” said Bedford-Stuyesant dad Raymond Antonio. “It’s gonna be a lot of trial-and-error.”

Yinette Tejada and Raymond Antonio with their son, Jacob, who is starting pre-K at P.S. 482.

And the school won’t be entirely free of Education Department edicts, as teachers will use parts of the city’s newly mandated reading program. “We’re incorporating elements of it into our curriculum to make sure that it’s aligned to the Montessori method,” Mongiello said.

Some parents said they were already impressed with Mongiello, who has experience building a school culture from the ground up and navigating the challenges that come with starting a school from scratch. She launched an elementary school on Staten Island more than a decade ago before taking a role in the Education Department’s central offices.

Though part of the program’s mission is to attract more families to the system, Mongiello noted there are still openings in kindergarten — the school has roughly 70 students but room for 86.

Asked how she felt shortly after arrival, the school leader said she was still processing the moment but a sense of anxiety was far from her mind.

“I always will build up myself to high expectations,” Mongiello said. “I haven’t had time to even stop to think about how I feel, because I am really working around the clock to get this up and running.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

A civics roadmap for teens: New online clearinghouse created ‘by youth, for youth’ aims to help

2024-04-12T22:17:31+00:00

Looking to run a voter registration drive at your school? Want to learn how to earn a high school diploma with a “seal of civic readiness,” demonstrating civic skills and knowledge? Trying to find out more about the NYC Mayor’s Office internship program?

Or maybe you want to get a head start on registering for the upcoming election, whether you’re 18 or not. (Those who are 16-17 can now pre-register so they are automatically registered when they turn 18.)

This information and more can be found on the “Youth Civic Hub,” an online portal launched on Friday, designed “by youth, for youth,” to increase youth civic engagement and electoral participation.

Led by the NYC Youth Agenda and Civic Coalition, this one-stop clearinghouse includes a wealth of information, ranging from internships and volunteer opportunities to voter registration tools and an elections portal with scorecards rating candidates on young people’s issues. It will soon have a “power map” explaining the different roles of elected officials, a glossary outlining the language commonly used in civic spaces, and a directory of various local organizations for young people to connect with.

The young people behind the portal are hoping to get it in the hands of New York City teachers, so they can share it with their students and expose them to “high-quality” civic opportunities across the five boroughs.

Creating the hub has been a yearslong project spearheaded by YVote, a teen-focused civic engagement nonprofit that is helping lead the larger NYC Civic Coalition.

“We’re not just helping voters, we’re trying to make the connections — who oversees what,” said Mia Payne, a 2022 graduate of Manhattan’s Talent Unlimited High School, alumnus of YVote, and a youth co-chair on the education transition team for Mayor Eric Adams.

“We just want to connect the dots of the roles and responsibilities [of government officials],” she said. Though young people often “just see whoever’s on the TV,” which is often the mayor or governor, it might make more sense to reach out to their city council member for school community issues, she said.

When Payne joined YVote in her sophomore year of high school, she asked why it was so hard to find out who represents you and what they do and believe. It turned out the organization was already working on solving this problem by building the hub. She believes the work they’re doing can serve as a blueprint for other states.

The portal comes at a pivotal moment, just months before November’s presidential election. In the 2022 midterm elections, just 7.6% of eligible Bronx voters ages 18-29 cast ballots and 15.3% of Queens young people voted, according to CIRCLE, an independent youth civic engagement research organization based at Tufts University. About 18% of Brooklyn voters in this age group cast ballots along with 18.8% in Manhattan and 23.4% in Staten Island. The statewide average, 19.8%, was lower than the national average of 23%.

The nation’s political polarization can turn young people off from wanting to be civically involved, Payne said, but she also believes that the hub can help provide different points of access for young people to feel more empowered.

“There’s a lot of mistrust and misinformation. We want to make this as cross-partisan as possible and straight facts,” Payne said. “The goal of the hub: You may not agree or be proud of your elected officials, but at the end of the day, the power is in the people’s hand. You have the ability to hold them accountable and elect someone else.”

Written in “teen-friendly” language the hub aims to reach young people, especially those in “civic deserts,” where there’s less broadband access and less exposure to election-related news and information.

Through the portal, young people can learn about various opportunities to get involved with communities: You can find out how to volunteer at a farm in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, apply for an internship at a design museum in Manhattan, or try and land a civics-focused fellowship centered on such issues as criminal justice, voting rights, and media literacy.

“Many youth don’t know of any opportunities besides the ones in their schools, and the hub aims to change that,” said Afsana Rahman, a member of the hub youth working group and senior at the Queens High School for the Sciences at York College. (She became involved in the hub through her work in CUNY’s Intergenerational Change Initiative.)

The hub will be officially unveiled on Monday at the NYC Youth Agenda Policy Party, where young people will also share their policy recommendations for how to make the city more equitable for youth, based on thousands of surveys of teens across the city.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Students are supposed to serve on NYC’s Community Education Councils. Few are.

2024-02-07T19:30:36+00:00

Nearly all of the Community Education Councils across the five boroughs are out of compliance with a state law requiring non-voting high school seniors on their boards, New York City Education Department officials confirmed.

Each of the city’s 32 local school districts has a Community Education Council, or CEC, with 10 elected voting members and two appointed by the local borough president. Since 2022, state law has required CECs to also have two non-voting high school seniors, up from 2003′s one-student requirement. There are also four citywide councils that must have one non-voting high school senior.

CECs are advisory bodies that evaluate educational materials and policies and hold public meetings alongside the district’s superintendent. Adult members also have voting power on one issue: district zoning changes. Student members have all the advisory powers of their adult counterparts, though they cannot vote on zoning changes.

Some students and youth advocates say students should have a greater role in education policy decisions, and serving on education councils is a way to do that. Yet few students even know about the CEC positions.

“A lot of the times youth are looked down upon, like we’re not capable enough to make our own decisions on what we get to learn,” said Nazrin Nahar, spokesperson for the youth-led advocacy organization Integrate NYC and a 20-year old student at Baruch College. “We want representation.”

When she went to Forest Hills High School in Queens, Nahar never heard about opportunities to serve on education councils.

“I never knew about this opportunity until now,” Nahar said. “So there definitely needs to be more transparency, and students need to be told about this possibility.”

The Education Department’s bookkeeping on the student CEC members seems to be incomplete and outdated — raising questions about how much attention city officials are paying to the matter. The department’s website states that all CECs and citywide councils have student vacancies. But in response to an inquiry about it, officials said that two CECs, District 9′s in the South Bronx and District 25′s in Flushing, Queens, have an appointed student representative.

Meanwhile, members of the CEC in District 14, representing Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as well as the Citywide Council on Special Education told Chalkbeat they also have student representatives. Education Department officials, however, said those councils do not have officially appointed student representatives, and declined to comment on the discrepancy.

After publication of this story, a student representative on Staten Island’s CEC let Chalkbeat know about her role.

The state does not collect or request information regarding vacancies on the city’s education councils, according to New York State Education Department officials.

Some councils reported vacancies dating back to July, when the new term began. Others said that their vacancies have been chronic.

“I’ve been on the council for three years, and I can say we haven’t had a student representative in my tenure,” said Anderson David, the recording secretary for the council in Brooklyn’s District 18.

Deborah Kross, the president of the citywide council on high schools, said that there has never been a student member since she joined the council in 2021.

“This is really unfortunate,” Kross said.”I hope we can fill that seat as we would welcome the opportunity to have a student on the council.”

Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull said they encourage the councils to have student representatives. “We spread awareness of these opportunities through superintendents, central staff and council leaders.”

Eligibility barriers might shut students out

Superintendents are involved with the student selection process, Education Department officials told Chalkbeat, but information posted online states that the Division of Family and Community Empowerment, or FACE, is charged with collecting all student applications and appointing representatives.

State law sets additional requirements for students: Only high school seniors who are already part of “elected leadership” are eligible to apply.

Students must also reside in that CEC’s geographic area, which can be challenging since many high school students attend schools outside of the geographic district in which they reside, according to Education Department officials. (The CECs oversee K-8 schools, not high schools.)

Veronica Morris, a 17-year-old junior at New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math in Manhattan and a member of Integrate NYC, took issue with the eligibility requirements to be seniors and to have prior experience in student government. Also, since life outside of school is busy and complicated for many students, Morris said, many potential student leaders wouldn’t be considered.

“If you have to take care of siblings or work to raise money for your family or whatever, that’s going to stop you from joining student government in the first place or if you’re in student government, [it will stop you from being] on one of these boards,” Morris said.

Nahar said that she thinks younger students may tend to be more interested in being involved anyway, since seniors are often focused on their futures outside of school.

“A lot of seniors are already busy with their college apps, this is not their priority right now,” Nahar said.

John Liu, a state senator from Queens and the chair of the senate’s New York City Education Committee, said that the cause of the student vacancies must be “either insufficient outreach or insufficient interest,” but that he tends to believe there is plenty of student interest.

“Wherever I go it seems like students want to have more of a voice and many parents are supportive of them having a voice,” Liu said. “However, I’ve also heard some feedback from CECs as well as the DOE that they don’t have enough interest.”

Some students don’t feel welcome on parent-led boards

The city’s Panel for Educational Policy, which is the board that votes on major Education Department decisions, including contracts and school closures, has one student representative, and that seat is filled by Aissata Diallo, a 17-year-old senior at James Madison High School.

Being on the panel has been one of the “biggest highlights” of her high school career, she said. “Being able to sit in on these notoriously adult spaces and have a voice,” she said, is what makes it such a good experience.

But being the only student on a board full of adults can be challenging, and she wishes there were more student representatives on the panel so young people who do participate feel supported by peers.

“It gets a little lonely sometimes, being the only one there,” Diallo said.

Maggie Handelman, a 16-year-old junior at LaGuardia High School and a member of Integrate NYC, said the lack of other students on education councils makes such spaces feel inaccessible.

“Walking into an all-adult space that is not made for you and you are one of like two youth feels very intimidating and not welcoming,” Handelman said.

Additionally, Handelman said that from experience advocating in adult-dominant spaces, she thinks that young perspectives are often “tokenized.”

“They’re like, ‘We love to hear from students’ but then they don’t take you seriously,” Handelman said.”

Handleman said that student representatives on education councils should have voting power.

Tajh Sutton, the president of District 14′s council, agreed. Sutton said CEC 14 amended their bylaws to include a student advisory council, giving opportunities for representatives from middle and elementary school.

“In order to make the student seats on CECs and citywide councils worth being on, we’d first have to create the spaces within the CECs and citywide councils where children are welcome and celebrated and actually listened to and given a voice and a vote,” Sutton said.

Anyone with information that a council is not fulfilling its legal responsibilities may contact the Department’s Office of Education Management Services via email to emscmgts@nysed.gov or by phone at 518-474-6541, state officials said.

Julian Roberts-Grmela is a journalist based in New York City.

When schools assign substitutes the wrong status, the error suppresses their pay

2024-01-31T10:00:00+00:00

This story was published in partnership with New York Focus, a non-profit news site investigating how power works in New York state. Sign up for their newsletter here.

This is the second installment in a two-part series reported with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. You can read the first part here.

When the Queens public school where she was working assigned Antonietta Auriemma to seven classroom sections, she realized something was wrong.

Between January and June 2023, Auriemma, a substitute teacher, filled in for two different teachers on long-term leaves of absence, on top of extra classroom periods as needed.

According to her handbook, she should have been classified as a “long-term sub” — and qualified for the requisite pay and benefits.

In the nation’s largest public school system, most substitute teachers work day-to-day, filling in for short-term absences at a fixed daily rate of roughly $200. But amid a teacher shortage made worse since the pandemic spurred educators to flee in droves, more and more New York City schools have come to rely on substitutes on longer-term assignments. Because they are more like regular teachers, these long-term subs are supposed to earn around $100 extra per day, which can add up to roughly $25,000 more per year, according to the teachers union. Some accrue sick time, vacation time, and even get health insurance.

Auriemma wasn’t receiving any of that.

“I was basically a full-time teacher,” Auriemma told New York Focus. “I was lesson planning for these classes, entering grades for these students, speaking to parents for parent engagement, all while making the [lower] sub pay of $200 a day.”

For years, subs like Auriemma have been underpaid for their long-term services — a violation of the New York City Department of Education’s teacher contract with the United Federation of Teachers, or UFT.

Interviews with 10 former and current substitute teachers or substitute paraprofessionals suggest that the practice is systematic and widespread across the city, and that since the pandemic began, violations may have increased. In a Sept. 11, 2023, UFT executive board meeting, Mark Collins, the union’s grievance director, stated that schools paying substitutes at an incorrect rate is “probably the most common grievance we have in the city.” A UFT spokesperson confirmed that it is one of the top grievances in the union.

Nearly all the interviewed substitutes, whose labor spans multiple city boroughs, said they knew of schools that underpaid subs because of misclassification. Five of them said they had filed grievances related to these issues; three have won back pay as a result, while the others’ grievances are still pending resolution.

Those who don’t grieve their wage shortages may choose not to because they’re unaware of the contract provisions. Others, because of their relative precarity: Many subs depend on the work as their primary income and cannot miss days for fear of falling behind on bills. Six subs described a culture of retaliation that might get them fired or suddenly removed from the classroom if they complain.

“Once you file, you’re essentially blacklisted at a school.”
JOE DIODATO, SUB WHO FILED A LABOR GRIEVANCE

Even if subs get to stay in the same school, they might get moved from classroom to classroom to preserve their place in the arcane classification system that keeps pay down. And when teachers get shuffled, students suffer.

Beth Ellor, who retired from full-time teaching in 2009, has subbed regularly since. She said she covered a class whose students blamed themselves for their lack of a regular teacher.

“They said, ‘Everybody hates us. Nobody wants to stay with us. We are a terrible class,’” Ellor recounted. Later, she found out that another substitute teacher had previously worked 27 days with that class before being moved to another assignment.

Ellor believes it was done to prevent that substitute from achieving the higher-paying status.

Asked about the problem, Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle acknowledged the “critical support” that subs provided during the pandemic.

“Thanks to temporary stimulus funding, we were able to provide additional financial support to schools to take on the additional costs of hiring more substitutes and have worked with the UFT and individual employees to address any outstanding pay issues from this period,” Lyle wrote in an email.

She declined to comment on the widespread, sometimes intentional practice of misclassifying subs, which existed before the outbreak of COVID.

In the education system, it’s not uncommon for subs to fall through the cracks, said David Bloomfield, an education law professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. “Those cracks widened during the pandemic,” he said. “This seems like a situation that hasn’t been given adequate attention by either the union or the central administration.”

Pay scale for subs varies by assignment length

The teachers union contract establishes various letter-coded “statuses” of service to which a substitute teacher can be assigned.

The most common sub classification, “O-status,” is for day-to-day subs who cover short-term absences. Subs are assigned “Z-status” or “Q-status” when working full-time for schools, filling in for longer-term teacher absences or vacancies. Those subs receive higher pay and limited benefits that are unavailable to O-status subs. The Education Department’s payroll system automatically grants the higher-paying Z-status to substitutes so long as they teach a class without an absence for 30 days.

When subs are told to miss a day, it resets the clock.

“What happens is a lot of principals know that [subs] get paid more money” under higher tiers of sub service, said a former school payroll secretary, who asked to remain anonymous because she still works in the school system and fears retaliation. “They don’t want to pay them the higher status, so they’ll tell a sub, don’t come in on this day, for whatever reason, and that defers them back to the old status so they can’t get paid more money.”

“You want to use money to hire more teachers, more supplies, or to get air conditioners. Nobody even thinks of subs.”
JOHN WENK, FORMER PRINCIPAL IN MANHATTAN

The substitutes who spoke to New York Focus described a widespread practice of either denying qualified substitutes Q- or Z-status, actively preventing subs from qualifying, or displaying incompetence in staffing subs under the appropriate status.

“It’s a known thing that principals have tight budgets … and [forcing a missed day] is one way they cut corners in saving money,” said the former payroll secretary. “It doesn’t even get discussed.”

When Joe Diodato subbed for a semester at an elementary school in the Bronx, it found a way to underpay him — without forcing a missed day.

Instead, according to documents Diodato shared with New York Focus, the school periodically changed the code in the payroll system associated with his work assignment. The action incorrectly made it seem like he wasn’t teaching the same class over the course of his employment, a condition required to earn Z-status.

Diodato didn’t learn about the higher-paying sub statuses until a couple months into the job. When he asked his payroll secretary about them, they said he didn’t qualify.

“Every day I came in I documented what I did,” Diodato explained. “I saved my classroom Zoom meetings, I saved my Google Classroom posts, my parent engagement. Everything that showed I did the job of a classroom teacher, I saved.”

At the end of the year, he used his records to file a 187-page grievance. He eventually won nearly $6,000 in a settlement with the Education Department.

Joe Diodato won nearly $6,000 in a settlement with the DOE. He’s now a full-time teacher.

Diodato intentionally waited for the school year to run out before filing his grievance. “Once you file,” he said, “you’re essentially blacklisted at a school.”

Now a full-time teacher, Diodato runs a private Facebook group for substitutes and a blog about the city Department of Education. He believes that more substitutes have likely been filing grievances on long-term status issues since the pandemic began, when the DOE increased its reliance on subs. But most violations, several subs explained, likely go unchallenged.

Without the higher pay and benefits, subs often quit mid-assignment, Diodato said.

Several subs who spoke to New York Focus requested anonymity because they were pursuing full-time teaching positions at their schools. They described a common belief that contesting their status would endanger their chances of full-time employment — or get them fired from their temporary positions.

One substitute, who requested anonymity, subbed regularly at a high school for seven years until she tried to claim increased benefits and wages.

When the sub challenged a principal’s reasoning as to why she could not earn Z-status, “she fired me on the spot,” the sub said. “She said, ‘You are on my last nerve … Yeah, I lied to you. I know what the rules are … but I’m the principal and I make the decisions, and you’re just a sub.’”

John Wenk, a former principal of a Manhattan high school, said that retaliation against subs is unsurprising behavior for some principals and can be done with impunity.

A principal, he explained, is free “to get rid of the sub for any reason whatsoever.”

“I’ve seen that happen,” said the former payroll secretary. But in most cases, she said, subs don’t bring the issues up in the first place. “They need a job. They need money,” she said, “so they’re not going to rock the boat.”

A UFT spokesperson acknowledged that most subs grieve pay violations after their assignment has finished, presumably out of fear of retaliation. They emphasized, however, that subs are already covered by contractual and legal anti-retaliation rules, and that the union is trying to add further protections so they are comfortable filing grievances as soon as the violation occurs.

Pointing fingers at Education Department red tape

Although it falls on individual school payroll secretaries, principals, and administrators to carry out pay violations, some argue that the DOE’s bureaucracy is to blame.

The money to pay substitutes comes from the DOE central administration, but once schools receive it, principals can use the money however they please. Operating under strained resources, with dozens of budgetary items to attend to, a principal may be incentivized to use the money intended for subs on resources deemed more necessary.

“You want to use that money to hire more teachers, or for more extracurricular activities, more supplies, or to get air conditioners,” Wenk said. “Nobody is thinking about this problem. Nobody even thinks of subs.”

Joe Diodato in the South Bronx. Though he's now a full-time teacher, he still runs a Facebook group for subs.

Bloomfield believes principals and individual schools are not equipped to deal with the problem in the first place.

“Principals have neither the expertise nor the budgetary acumen to make the substitute puzzle pieces fit together with all the other pressures they’re under,” he said. “It’s therefore incumbent on the central administration, both the DOE and the city, to offer clear guidance consistent with union contracts and other legal provisions to assist in filling these positions.”

A UFT spokesperson said the union has been working to shift the burden of ensuring correct pay from the subs to the Education Department. The spokesperson referenced an agreement the union won in recent contract negotiations to establish guidance to re-train and educate administrative staff on substitute hiring — to ensure correct classification, pay, and health coverage.

But some subs told New York Focus that they attribute the ubiquity of pay violations in part to the UFT’s inadequate representation of substitutes.

“While [UFT reps] seem to be helpful and they want to be that point of contact for when situations need to be escalated, a lot of them are just at a loss,” said a former substitute teacher in Bushwick, Brooklyn, who requested anonymity.

“We disagree that UFT reps are ‘at a loss,’” a teachers union spokesperson wrote in a statement. They noted that any substitute can receive immediate representation for a grievance.

Bloomfield sees the problem as baked into the DOE’s treatment of its workforce.

“Just that very term ‘substitute’ reeks of second-class citizenship in the personnel constellation,” he said. “They’re an afterthought.”

Teddy Ostrow is a journalist from Brooklyn. He was the host of The Upsurge podcast and his work has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, In These Times, and elsewhere.

As tensions flare over Israel-Hamas war, NYC to train educators on having ‘difficult conversations’

2024-01-23T00:02:15+00:00

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To help address tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, the city is rolling out new training for educators, expanding curriculum resources, and signaling to principals that they will have more leeway to crack down on bullying and other bigoted behavior.

Beginning this spring, all middle and high school principals will receive training “focused on navigating difficult conversations,” schools Chancellor David Banks said, and those leaders will be responsible for sharing what they learn with their staff. The city is also updating its diversity training to delve more deeply into antisemitism and Islamophobia.

“The way through this moment is not to malign our students or impose our own ideologies on them, or to bury our heads in the sand,” Banks said during an address to school staff, parents, and faith leaders at the department’s Lower Manhattan headquarters. “We must educate our students, and sometimes our staff, to raise their consciousness and to overcome bias.”

The announcement comes after some communities across the city, including university campuses, have fractured over the devastating violence thousands of miles away. In October, Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took over 240 hostages, with about 130 remaining captive, according to reports. Israel, in response, has bombarded Gaza, fueling a humanitarian crisis and killing over 25,000 Palestininans, including many children, according to health authorities there.

Since the start of the war, city officials have provided guidance to schools about how to have productive discussions about the conflict. Some educators have made efforts to facilitate discussions, including how to identify misinformation on social media. Others have largely steered clear of the issue. In advance of pro-Palestinian protests in November, Banks issued a warning that educators should keep their personal views to themselves, a directive that made some wary of broaching the topic.

On Monday, Banks reiterated that educators should play a role in helping students make sense of what’s happening, while taking care to not express their own opinions.

“We need to point students to reliable and objective sources about the current crisis,” he said. “We cannot leave it to social media to educate our children.”

Some schools have taken matters into own hands

Some students have created their own spaces in the absence of explicit efforts by their schools to address the topic. One campus brought Muslim and Jewish campus groups together to have educator-supervised discussions.

On other campuses, the war has been impossible to avoid. In late November, hundreds of students at Hillcrest High School in Queens flooded the hallways in protest of a photo of a teacher holding an “I stand with Israel” sign from a rally just after the Oct. 7 attacks, which had circulated on social media. Videos of the incident show students dancing in the hallways past a water fountain that had been pulled from a wall. The health teacher in the photo, who is Jewish, took cover in a room on a different floor.

The situation drew significant media attention and condemnation from Mayor Eric Adams and Banks, though the chancellor emphasized that the incident was a “teachable moment.” The Education Department removed the school’s principal. Officials said an assistant principal had been appointed principal and was recommended by current and former educators at the school, including the teacher who was the subject of the protests.

On Monday, Banks promised updated training on school safety for principals in the coming weeks, noting that some have felt “disempowered” from taking disciplinary action even for “egregious” misbehavior — a position echoed by the principal’s union. Although officials indicated the city did not intend to revise the city’s discipline code, which spells out the conduct for which students can be suspended, Banks wants principals to be empowered to enforce it.

“We can not and we will not have schools where students feel like they can do whatever they want without accountability for their actions,” he said.

That move raises questions about whether the new directive could lead to a surge in suspensions, which returned to pre-pandemic levels last school year, and which are disproportionately issued to Black students and those with disabilities.

Nelson Mar, a senior staff attorney at Bronx Legal Services, said he hopes the city takes reports of bullying more seriously, as he said schools often ignore student reports of it. But he worries schools will resort to removing students from classrooms instead of trying to address the “root cause.”

“When staff look to the discipline code they often see suspension and removal as the ONLY response to these behaviors,” Mar wrote in an email.

Educators feel divided over new directive

School leaders offered mixed reactions to Banks’ plan. City officials have not yet named which outside organizations will help lead that training or its cost.

“I am happy to hear about the efforts to step up and do something … but I am hesitant to expect too much,” said one Brooklyn principal who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive topic.

“It’s so hard for the [Education Department] to do anything at its scale,” the leader added. “We’re talking about issues that can really be best solved at the people level.”

One Bronx assistant principal said her school has struggled with tensions around the Israel-Hamas war, including “free Palestine” posters students painted and put up in the hallways that made some Jewish teachers feel uncomfortable.

“There are so many intense feelings around people’s religion and identity — I’d be curious what those kinds of conversations are going to look like,” the assistant principal said. “There was definitely a lack of guidance from the [Education Department], so I guess I’m glad they’re trying.”

Though few incidents have been as explosive as the situation at Hillcrest, a steady stream of controversies have burst into public view, some fueled by conservative media outlets. In one recent example, an art class at a Brooklyn elementary school focused on Arab culture made headlines for its map of North Africa and the Middle East that did not label Israel. The 12-year-old poster at P.S. 261 was removed after the stir, a move lamented by many parents from the school, which serves a diverse population including Muslims and Jews.

And some parent councils have waded into the issue, inviting another set of heated disagreements. Some of the rhetoric in parent council meetings has devolved into personal attacks that have made it challenging for these volunteers to work together. The Education Department said it plans to launch a series of anti-discrimination workshops for parent leaders beginning in February.

Banks also announced an interfaith advisory council to help guide the city’s response.

“This faith advisory council is not a grievance committee,” said Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff, chair of the council. “If you’ve got a gripe or a beef, go up the street to the United Nations. Here, we are lighting the candle in darkness.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed to this story.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Brooklyn high school baffled by media frenzy over migrant families’ one-night stay

2024-01-12T02:59:30+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Students at James Madison High School Madison returned to classes Thursday without fanfare, after the school received hate calls and even a bomb threat for serving as an emergency shelter Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning for migrants with children.

The families living in tents in an airfield arrived at the school after 5 p.m. on Tuesday to wait out a heavy rain and wind storm, and left the school before 5 a.m. Wednesday morning. Even before their departure, the migrants’ presence and the principal’s decision to shift to remote classes on Wednesday immediately became a talking point for right-wing pundits nationwide.

But parents, staffers and students who spoke with THE CITY expressed shock that the school had made it into the national spotlight, for what they saw, in the scheme of things, as a relatively minor disruption.

“I understand the frustration. No one wants their kids to be displaced out of their school, but it was just one day,” said Marsha Thompson-Miles, a mother of an 11th grader at the school and the head of its Parent-Teacher Association.

“In America we have so much and we have to deal with so little. Wars are raging around the world and we don’t really feel the effects of it,” she said, adding she felt pride that the school had provided a space for families in need.

“For one night people didn’t have to deal with rain and wind and the elements. They felt safe and warm,” she added.

While pundits raged about a supposed “takeover,” students had one day of remote lessons on Wednesday, with after-school activities canceled and a dance scheduled for that evening postponed.

School officials said the NYPD had thoroughly inspected the building and custodians gave it a deep clean before students and staff returned on Thursday.

A staffer who asked not to be named said Wednesdays tend to be a shorter day for students, and that the lingering impact of the storm would have made it difficult for some students to get to school in any event.

“It has been pretty quiet here,” the staffer said. “We went remote for one day, that’s it.”

Hate calls and a bomb threat

As 70-mile-an-hour gusts of wind bore down on New York City Tuesday, officials hastily evacuated 1,900 parents and children from a tent shelter located at the remote Floyd Bennett Field, busing them to the high school to shelter in the school gym, auditorium and cafeteria in chairs and on the ground for the night.

While their stay lasted for less than 12 hours, prominent conservatives treated the migrants’ presence at the school as nothing less than an invasion, with talk radio dedicating hours to the topic while Elon Musk tweeted that migrants “will come for your homes” next. Angry commenters followed suit, flooding the school’s Facebook page after officials announced the day of remote learning.

“They are putting these people over our students,” one commenter said. Another added: “That school needs to be disinfected.”

The vitriol wasn’t just online. A woman identifying herself as an “agitated mother” heckled the migrants as they entered the school in the rain Tuesday evening. And during a Zoom call hosted by Principal Jodie Cohen and Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol, the two were shouted down by several outraged parents, several attendees said.

By Wednesday, city officials said the school had received “a torrent of hate calls and even a bomb threat,” Iscol said at a press briefing that morning. He added, “we don’t foresee us using James Madison High School again.”

Later on Wednesday, Assemblymember Michael Novakhov (R-Brooklyn) held a rally outside the school where he invoked the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, saying that “they wanna bring more and more people who rely on the government and vote for them.”

Republican Councilmember Inna Vernikov, who represents parts of southern Brooklyn, made the rounds on national television to complain that “our kids are really being punished.”

On Thursday, Curtis Sliwa, who ran against Mayor Eric Adams in the 2021 mayoral election and has been rallying against migrant shelters over the last year, blocked traffic outside of the Kings Plaza Shopping Center while calling for the Floyd Bennett shelter to close.

“Now the parents and the children who go to Madison High School have to be penalized,” he said. “Nobody’s happy about the situation.”

James Madison High School junior Akib Chowdhury said he wasn’t disrupted by migrants staying in the school’s gym during a storm, Jan. 11, 2024.

“It was kind of sad to see,” he said, when the migrants “just want a better place, a better place to live.”

‘Kind of crazy’

The neighborhoods of Marine Park, Madison, and Midwood surrounding the high school have trended Republican, voting heavily for Trump in 2016.

But members of the school community pointed out James Madison’s diverse student body; out of 3,700 students, 500 are English language learners; 19% are Asian, 16% are Latino and 10% are Black, according to Department of Education statistics.

Others pointed out the school’s history as the alma mater of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders and a place that’s long been a haven for immigrants of all kinds, from Holocaust survivors to Russians fleeing communism.

“Madison High School has always been a melting pot,” said Steve Kastenbaum, a veteran radio reporter and alumni of the school.

“People within the alumni community were quite frankly appalled that some people in Brooklyn exhibited the vitriolic rhetoric that was aimed at these people who were seeking shelter in a storm.”

A few students leaving the high school Thursday afternoon expressed their own trepidation about what had happened there.

“They put them over us students which is kind of crazy,” said a 15-year-old.

Another student lamented the school no longer felt safe for her. “It doesn’t feel like my safe space. It usually feels like my safe space.”

But many others took the remote day in stride, and said they felt their voices had been missing from the national news about their school. Zola Zephirin, a senior, said many students were upset by how things appeared on television and online.

“The hostility towards the migrants was definitely uncalled for,” she said. “These are people, they have families, they come here and attempt to make a better life, just like many of the students at Madison.”

Gwynne Hogan covers Brooklyn for THE CITY.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC sends families from tent shelter to sleep on school floor during storm

2024-01-09T22:38:29+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Officials hastily moved hundreds of families living at the Floyd Bennett Field migrant shelter in Brooklyn early Tuesday evening as a powerful storm with wind gusts exceeding 60 miles per hour hit the city.

The families were bused to relatively nearby James Madison High School, in Marine Park, to rest as best they could in chairs or on floors. By 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning the winds had died down and families were bused back to Floyd Bennett, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management.

Despite that scheduled departure time, an alert sent by the school late Tuesday afternoon advised students and their parents that classes would “pivot to remote” on Wednesday.

The sudden move by the Adams administration drew ire from all sides, with homeless rights advocates and the migrants themselves decrying the disruption for families, and local parents slamming the city’s use of the public school.

People living at the field shelter made of tents described a chaotic and stressful day that included: learning of the impromptu evacuation just hours before it was slated to occur before 4 p.m. racing back to the Floyd Bennett after picking up their children from schools to try to catch the buses to Madison; and crowding in the school’s auditorium and cafeteria with hundreds of others spending the night in chairs or on the ground.

“They want us like animals sending us from here to there,” a 31-year-old mother of three from Venezuela told THE CITY in Spanish, asking that her name be withheld out of fear of retribution for speaking out. ‘’This is craziness.”

She noted that she was thankful for the help of the city for a place to stay — “but this isn’t how children and families should be treated.”

A group of migrants race into James Madison High School in Brooklyn after city officials evacuated Floyd Bennett Field during a rainstorm, Jan. 9, 2023.

In an impromptu press conference early Tuesday afternoon to announce and explain the evacuation, city Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zachary Iscol, said the agency started notifying families at the shelter at 11 a.m that buses would take them to Madison High School that evening.

By that time many families had already left the shelter for the day for jobs and school, though word spread of the planned evacuation on WhatsApp groups.

“We are doing this out of an abundance of caution because of the high winds,” Iscol said.

Iscol said that tents shelters for migrant adults on Randall’s Island and Creedmoor Psychiatric Facility were not slated for evacuation because both had more protection from the wind and pilings dug into the ground that made them more sturdy than the Floyd Bennett location.

“It’s a really complex operation,” he added.

Spokespeople for OEM, the mayor’s office, and the city’s hospitals system, which runs many migrant shelters, didn’t respond to requests for comment immediately about the lack of cots for the migrants staying at the high school.

Critics of Mayor Eric Adams’ handling of the arrival of migrants denounced the rapid move out of hundreds of children and families.

“The need for the city to find temporary shelter for the people already in temporary shelter demonstrates that the site was not adequately set up for extreme weather on top of the hardship this isolated and inadequately serviced location, miles from the nearest neighborhood school, already imposes on its residents,” said city Comptroller Brad Lander, a regular critic of the mayor.

‘It’s overwhelming’

The evacuation Tuesday came the same day evictions began for migrant families staying in the Row Hotel in Manhattan, as part of the city’s new policy limiting shelter stays for some migrant families to just 60 days.

Around 40 families were forced to leave Tuesday, officials from the city’s Health and Hospital corporation said, with the number expected to quickly ramp up to around 100 families per day. About 4,800 families have received 60-day notices that will force them out of hotel rooms in the coming weeks, city officials said.

Maria Quero, 26, who is eight-and-a-half months pregnant with her first child, said she’d begged her social workers at the Row to let her stay until after she gave birth. She’d presented a doctor’s note to staff, she said, but was denied an extension.

Pregnant migrant, Maria, leaves the Row Hotel shelter after receiving an eviction notice, Jan. 9, 2024.

Instead she trudged across Midtown with her husband from the Row to the Roosevelt Hotel Tuesday morning to ask for another 60-day placement while hoping to still make her prenatal doctor’s appointment later that day.

“I can’t be sitting down a lot, my hips are hurting,” she said in Spanish. “It’s overwhelming, it’s really stressful.”

By that evening Quero said she’d be reassigned to a shelter in Brooklyn.

Asked about Quero’s situation at the Tuesday press briefing, Dr. Ted Long, who oversees migrant shelters run by NYC Health and Hospitals, said: “We look forward to helping Maria.

“They deserve that stability — that stability can never be in the hotel room,” Long added, speaking generally about why the city has set 60-day shelter stay limits for families. “It can only be with our help, how we get them to complete their journey.”

‘Everyone is feeling sad’

Staff at James Madison — the alma matter of both U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer — said they first learned of the plan around noon Tuesday. They were told that the migrant families would arrive after students left Tuesday afternoon and would be gone by the time school starts Wednesday morning.

“It’s an enormous logistical challenge, but if you throw enough bodies at it you can do it,” said a staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Sixteen-year-old junior Spencer Katz said students learned about the evacuation Tuesday afternoon, and most of the discussion focused on whether or not school would be canceled Wednesday.

“I was expecting some people to be racist,” Katz said, but “I was pretty pleasantly surprised by how cool everyone was about it … Every single person I know has an immigrant as a parent or grandparent, so everyone was pretty understanding.”

As supportive as some students were, local Republican Councilmember Inna Vernikov denounced the use of the school in a video on X directed at Adams. “This is unacceptable!” she posted. “Stop this now and take the migrants into Gracie Mansion!”

The shelter has already proven a lightning rod in the GOP-leaning district and word of migrants moving into the school drew ire of right wing commentators and some residents. Video posted to X by a reporter for The New York Post showed a woman who identified herself as “an agitated mother,” heckling the migrants, yelling they were “taking over” her kids’ school.

“How does it feel that you kicked all the kids out of school tomorrow?” she yelled. “I hope you sleep really well tonight.”

The Adams administration also faced pushback from homeless rights advocates at the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, who issued a joint statement slamming the city’s hasty evacuation as “traumatic and disruptive.”

“This last-minute evacuation further proves that Floyd Bennett Field — a facility mired in a flood zone, miles from schools and other services — has never and will never serve as an appropriate and safe place to shelter families with children,” the group said.

An earlier wind storm in mid-December also caused chaos for migrant families, many of whom described a sleepless night with crying children, or were terrified the tents would collapse.

A 38-year-old mother of three, who asked that her name not be published to avoid repercussions from staff at the shelter said the latest commotion at the tents were stressful and exhausting for families.

“It’s not a life, it’s not good for the kids,” she said. “Everyone is feeling sad.”

Gwynne Hogan covers Brooklyn for THE CITY.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Migrant families and schools brace for wave of shelter evictions

2024-01-08T10:00:00+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Thousands of migrant families with school-aged children will begin having their time in city shelters run out starting Tuesday as the first 60-day eviction notices, which the city began passing out in October, start to expire.

Among those whose time runs out Tuesday is Joana, 38, a Venezuelan mother who asked that her last name not be used. She said in recent days she’s been having hard conversations with her 8-year-old daughter about what’s in store.

“I try to explain to her as gently as I can the reality,” Joana said in Spanish. “So she can understand why we’re leaving this place, where her school bus comes to get her, where she’s lived for a year, and where she feels like it’s part of her home.”

The shelter evictions for families with children mark the beginning of yet another city policy shift on homelessness, as Mayor Eric Adams struggles to contend with a ballooning shelter population driven largely by the arrival of more than 160,000 migrants, which cost the city $1.4 billion last fiscal year.

Through the end of December, 122,700 people were living in shelters, including over 68,300 migrants, the vast majority of whom are families with children.

Thus far only adults without children have been subject to the Adams administration’s attempts to eject migrants from city shelters. The city has limited their stays to 30 days. In order to reapply for another stint afterwards, adults must now brave long lines in the cold for hours and sleep on the floor of various waiting rooms for more than a week, with limited access to food and showers, before they can secure another cot.

To date, most families with children have been spared this kind of disruption. Adams has repeatedly said his administration’s goal is for no families with children to sleep on the streets — but exactly how family evictions will be carried out is still unclear.

Since the city unveiled its family eviction policy in October, about a third of migrant families in the city’s care have been hit with 60-day eviction notices, or around 4,800 families, a city spokesperson said.

Kayla Mamelak, a spokesperson for the Adams administration, said families who have nowhere else to go when their time in shelters ends will be directed to return to the Roosevelt Hotel, the city’s main intake center, to request another 60-day placement. The city will try to place families in or near the school district where kids are currently enrolled in schools, she added. No child would be forced to change schools, as is required by federal law.

But up through last week, those instructions still hadn’t been communicated to families directly in writing. Several 60-day notices distributed to families reviewed by THE CITY only said that the city would help send you to another location, and if you had any further questions you could talk to staff at the hotel. Parents who spoke with THE CITY said social workers had told them about the option to go to the Roosevelt Hotel.

Joana said that’s where she planned to do Tuesday: pull her daughter out of school for at least for the day and head to the Roosevelt Hotel to try to get another shelter placement.

“I’m trusting in God that we’ll have another place to stay,” she said in Spanish.

Mamelak reiterated Mayor Adams’ frequent plea that with 33,000 migrant children enrolled in schools since June of 2022, the city still needs more help from the state and federal governments.

“While we are grateful for the assistance from our state and federal partners, for months, we have warned that, without more, this crisis could play out on city streets,” Mamelak said. “It is crucial — now, more than ever — that the federal government finish the job they started by allowing migrants to immediately work, and to come up with a strategy that ensures migrants are not convening on one, or even just a handful of cities across the country.”

‘I have no idea what to do’

The evictions are slated to begin at the Row Hotel in Midtown on Tuesday, which has rooms for 1,000 families. Forty families will run out of time on the first day, and another 250 families will see their shelter stays expire during the first week, according to Josh Goldfein, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, who is in direct communication with city agencies on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless.

After the Row, other families at other Midtown hotels like The Stewart, The Watson, and the Wolcott will see their time run out, expanding to around 100 families ejected per day in the coming weeks, Goldfein said.

Ahead of the evictions, residents of The Row who spoke with THE CITY described a mix of anxiety, dread, and resolve.

“The kids have already missed so much school,” said Yeisi Zerpa, a 26-year-old Venezuelan mother of four, who said she’d had to pull the kids out of school to apartment hunt ahead of her eviction date Tuesday.

“If every 60 days I’m going to leave the shelter and get back in line, that’s going to be stress all the time, the kids won’t be able to go to school,” she said in Spanish.

With the help of a kind woman she’d met while begging for change and subsequently become friends with, she’d managed to find a room her family of six would share in a Bronx apartment.

Zerpa is still waiting for her work permit to come through, and was looking for work cleaning houses, but wasn’t sure how she’d pay the rent going forward.

“I have no idea what to do,” she said, adding she was still trying to figure out if she should keep her daughters at the same school or transfer them to somewhere closer. In the weeks ahead of her eviction, she said social workers at the Row offered little guidance.

“No one has helped us to find a rental,” she added. “You ask the social worker a question and they don’t know anything. You don’t have the help of anyone there.”

City officials didn’t return a request for comment about how many people had moved out ahead of their evictions this week. But several other families who spoke with THE CITY said they had managed to secure alternative living arrangements ahead of their final days at the hotel.

Lorena Espinosa Castro, a 36-year-old mother of two from Peru, was moving out trash bags of her belongings on a recent afternoon, headed to a studio apartment in Corona that she’d rented for $800 a month through a friend. In nearly a year in New York City, Castro had managed to find work as a server in a Mexican restaurant not so far from her new apartment.

“The truth is I always wanted to get out of there,” Castro said in Spanish. “I couldn’t cook. My girls, we didn’t eat well. It’s our moment to be more independent. I fought for it.”

“The help of the government is over,” she said.

At some Manhattan elementary schools with large populations of migrant students, families have already started disappearing as the deadlines for the 60-day notices approach.

“Since about two weeks prior to the vacation, we’ve lost a lot of students,” including around 10 this week alone, said a teacher at a Manhattan elementary school that’s enrolled a large number of migrant families, including many living at The Row. The teacher spoke on the condition of anonymity and asked that the school not be named for fear of retaliation.

Watching students who have been at the school for months and built connections abruptly drop off of the school roster is wrenching, the teacher said.

“There’s something really special about watching students grow in a space and become acclimated and familiar. So it’s hard when they’re moved,” the teacher said.

Many other migrants who spoke with THE CITY ahead of their eviction dates said they hadn’t been able to find anywhere else to go and planned to return to the Roosevelt Hotel hoping for another place to stay.

Piedad, a 49-year-old mother who asked that her last name be withheld, expressed a fear that they’d be sent to the far off tents at Floyd Bennett field, where families live in a quasi-congregate setting miles from the nearest neighborhood — a concern shared by many families in recent days.

“We’re hoping, with God’s will, we’ll get another shelter, and not the tents,” she said in Spanish.

‘We’re adding to these kids’ trauma’

Since October, the city has been issuing 60-day notices to families that have been staying in shelters run by the city Health and Hospitals system for more than a year, as well as many more recently arrived families, including all those at Floyd Bennett Field.

So far, the approximately 8,800 migrant families living in shelters overseen by the city’s Department of Homeless Services, which is subject to more strict state oversight, have been spared the shelter evictions. In November, however, city officials requested permission from the state to expand the policy to those families as well, according to Anthony Farmer, a spokesperson for the state’s office of Temporary Disability Administration. As of last week, the state had still not granted that request.

Goldfein and other advocates have looked at the daily chaos unfurling outside the city’s reticketing site in the East Village and fear a similarly dire situation could await families with young kids later this week.

“We’re certainly very concerned,” Goldfein said. “We asked about that and they believe they have it under control. But we’ll see.”

Schools are also preparing for another destabilizing shuffle, the Manhattan teacher told THE CITY, as some students leave and new ones come in.

“All year is just constantly readjusting to try to catch students up, readjust the dynamics of the classroom, rebuild community,” the teacher said. “It’s a heavy load for teachers.”

One Education Department source familiar with planning for the 60-day notices called the educational impact on children would be immense. “We’re adding to these kids’ trauma,” the source said.

Unlike the Department of Homeless Services, which has a data sharing agreement with the Education Department so schools can directly look up where homeless students have been transferred too, Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs large-scale family migrant shelters, has no similar arrangement. Schools will thus be flying blind come Tuesday.

“The only thing these children have consistently in their lives is school,” the source said. “So now you’re taking them out of shelter, you’re putting them someplace else. They’re not gonna be in school for a few days easily. They have to adjust to a new environment and if they’re lucky, they figure out how to get back to that school.”

The Education Department has been recommending families bring information about their schools with them to the Roosevelt Hotel, so that they might be placed in the same borough as their child’s school.

Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the Education Department, said schools had been working directly with emergency shelters, “to support all students and their families and ensure there is no gap in services, whether they transition to a new school community or choose to stay in their current school.”

The city has touted their 30-day policy for adults for reducing the number of people who return to seek another 30-day placement to just 20% of those who had their time run out.

But Goldfein with the Legal Aid Society said if the city really needed to move people around, it could reassign them directly from their current hotels, instead of sending them into a lurch of uncertainty at the Roosevelt Hotel, where it’s not clear where they’ll end up or how long it will take. He described the situation as a “logistical nightmare merry-go-round.”

“There’s a bigger question of why do you need to do this,” he said. “Do you need people to move just to harass them? To push them to move out?”

Gwynne Hogan covers Brooklyn for THE CITY.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

School funding, mayoral control, class sizes: Education issues to watch in Albany’s new session

2023-12-22T18:52:09+00:00

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With New York state’s legislative session set to begin in January, lawmakers are preparing to tackle a slate of contentious issues that could hold serious ramifications for New York City students.

The fate of the city’s school governance structure will once again be up for renewal, pushing Mayor Eric Adams to make his case in Albany for continuing mayoral control.

School funding may also play a major role in lawmakers’ discussions, as some education officials have called to overhaul the state’s school funding formula — and as New York City and other districts grapple with a looming fiscal cliff, with federal COVID relief funds expiring in the fall.

School safety initiatives, updates to the state’s learning standards, and other legislation likely appearing during the next session may also impact New York City students.

Here’s a look at some of the biggest education issues lawmakers could tackle:

Mayoral control in the hot seat again

After a two-year extension, mayoral control is set to expire on June 30, and legislators will need to decide whether and how New York City’s school governance structure should change.

Mayoral control — which consolidates power over the city’s school system in the hands of its mayor — has been regularly extended over the past two decades, but has faced some tweaks along the way. Under it, the mayor has the power to choose the schools chancellor and appoint a majority of people to the city’s Panel on Educational Policy, or PEP, a city board that votes on major policy proposals and contracts.

A forthcoming state Education Department analysis of mayoral control, which solicited public comments as part of its review process, will be key to discussions of how the city should move forward, said state Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the senate’s New York City education committee.

Whether lawmakers seek to continue mayoral control or adopt a new school governance structure, Liu said the city needs a more permanent system, noting that reevaluating it at two- or four-year intervals is “destabilizing for the school system.”

“There needs to be more certainty in the eyes of educators as well as families,” he said. Another critical consideration, he added: “Mayoral control should transcend whoever the mayor happens to be.”

Though public hearings have featured fierce criticism of the current system, some observers aren’t expecting sweeping changes.

David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, expects mayoral control to largely continue, with possible changes to lessen the mayor’s degree of control, like potentially granting additional oversight or power to City Council members or the city’s elected parent councils.

“It’s hard to imagine at this point what a radical change would look like,” Bloomfield said.

Other large cities have also grappled with their school governance structures in recent years. In Chicago, where mayoral control of schools was established in 1995, the city will transition to a fully elected school board by 2027.

Debate continues over school funding formula

Several years ago, in a major victory for state education officials and advocates, lawmakers committed to fully funding Foundation Aid, the formula that sends extra money to high-needs districts such as New York City. Since then, the conversation has shifted toward how to update the formula itself.

While the state already sends more money for schools with high-need students, the Board of Regents recently called for more than $250 million to revise the formula, proposing to update how students in poverty are counted, among other changes. The Regents have also called for $1 million to conduct a longer term study on how the formula can be improved.

State Sen. Shelley Mayer, a Democrat who chairs the senate’s general education committee, said she supports a cautious approach. She is in favor of funding further study, but hopes to better understand what potential changes would mean for school districts across the state before taking more definitive action.

“We have to know both how much it would cost the state, and also who would get less money than they currently get,” she said.

Expiring federal relief funds will dominate discussions

Both Liu and Mayer expect the looming fiscal cliff to play a major role in budget discussions during the next legislative session.

In recent years, about $7.7 billion in one-time federal pandemic aid has padded the city Education Department’s budget, helping to maintain critical initiatives like expanded preschool and summer enrichment programs. The funds have also helped schools hire social workers, psychologists, bilingual educators, and shelter coordinators, who have helped newly arrived migrants navigate the city’s school system.

But that money will expire in September, leaving many of those initiatives in jeopardy.

(Separately, Adams has directed the city’s Education Department to cut nearly $550 million from its budget, with further budget cuts still expected.).

Advocating for additional education funding as the state develops its budget will be her organization’s top priority, said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, a group that supports the city’s most vulnerable students.

“We need the state to step up and help to save some of these important programs,” she said. “All options need to be on the table.”

Liu said, “It may not be possible for the state alone to make up the entire altitude of that cliff. But maybe we can make it a more gradual downhill, instead of a sudden drop.”

Class size law remains a sticking point

The state law to reduce class sizes at schools across the five boroughs, which will phase in smaller class sizes each year up to 2027, garnered praise from teachers and education advocates. But Adams and other local officials have expressed concern over the city’s ability to meet the requirements.

At a recent town hall in Brooklyn, First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg said the city would comply with the law, but warned that it would “require very painful tradeoffs.”

When asked whether lawmakers will consider amendments to the law if petitioned by city officials during the next legislative session, Liu said, “We will continue to watch this closely.

“It’s lamentable that they continue to hem and haw about this,” he said, adding it was “absolutely essential” for the city to meet the class size mandate.

Other legislative priorities:

An effort by some lawmakers last spring to reduce the number of school lockdown drills mandated under state law is expected to resurface. Parents have argued the drills harm student mental health without clearly proven safety benefits.
As the state’s Education Department seeks to further update learning standards, Mayer hopes to tackle how to educate students about the history behind modern-day conflicts. She’s alarmed that many students have learned about the Israel-Hamas war largely through social media and is deeply troubled by reports of rising antisemitism and Islamophobia. She believes schools need more support to robustly address these and other instances of discriminatory behavior. “We cannot have students afraid to go to school because they wear a yarmulke or they wear a headscarf,” she said. “I don’t have the answers, but we’re going to have to have answers.”
Other efforts — like a universal free after-school pilot program, potential shifts to literacy instruction, the state’s ongoing transition to zero-emission buses, and more — are also expected to arise in the next session.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC teachers union sues Eric Adams to halt school budget cuts

2023-12-21T19:07:46+00:00

New York City’s teachers union is suing Mayor Eric Adams in an attempt to halt nearly $550 million in school budget cuts, according to legal documents filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Adams is violating a state law barring the city from decreasing its contribution to schools when the city’s overall revenue doesn’t go down, the United Federation of Teachers’ lawsuit argues. Revenues went up by $5 billion last year, the union claims.

The “draconian” cuts, the suit further claims, will infringe on students’ constitutional rights to a “sound basic education.” Three teachers and a speech therapist joined the suit as plaintiffs, outlining how they lack resources and supplies for their students, especially those with high needs.

The suit asks a judge to order the city to restore its funding of schools to last year’s levels.

It is the second legal challenge from a municipal union in the last two weeks seeking to stop the cuts. DC 37, the city’s largest public union, sued over the cuts last week.

“The administration can’t go around touting the tourism recovery and the return of the city’s pre-pandemic jobs, and then create a fiscal crisis and cut education because of its own mismanagement of the asylum seeker problem,” said union president Michael Mulgrew. “Our schools and our families deserve better.”

The city’s law department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Adams sought to downplay the conflict when asked about the lawsuit during an unrelated press conference Thursday morning.

“The UFT, they have to represent their members,” Adams said. “From time to time, friends disagree. Sometimes … it ends up in a courtroom.”

Lawsuit ramps up pressure on Adams

Adams has argued for months that the city is facing a fiscal crisis due to unanticipated spending on the influx of more than 150,000 migrants and asylum-seekers since last summer.

But critics of the cuts, including Mulgrew, have countered that the city is overstating how much the city will spend on the new arrivals. The administration’s claim that the city’s response to the increase in migrants will cost about $11 billion over the next two years is an “unverified estimate,” the lawsuit claims. The Independent Budget Office and the city’s comptroller’s office have projected lower costs.

The city routinely projects budget deficits that are ultimately erased plugged by higher-than-anticipated revenue, Mulgrew argued in a recent op-ed. That’s what happened last fiscal year when the city collected $8.3 billion more than projected in tax revenue, he said.

The move to file a legal challenge represents a significant escalation in the union’s efforts to reverse the cuts, which were originally announced in September and formally rolled out late last month.

Adams ordered all city agencies to find savings of 5% in the November cuts. Additional rounds of 5% cuts are expected in January and next spring, bringing the potential total losses to the Education Department north of $2 billion.

The November cuts, which totaled $547 million, slashed the city’s universal pre-K and 3-K programs, its free summer school program, and its community schools initiative.

Chalkbeat recently learned that the city was quietly targeting cuts in District 75 programs for students with complex disabilities. Staffers said they are facing budget cuts far greater than the $3 million reduction outlined in the November plan. People familiar with the discussions said the planned cuts in District 75 total about $97 million and could jeopardize extracurricular programs, supplies budgets, and the jobs of paraprofessionals.

Those cuts “threaten these schools and the 26,000 students, many of whom have complex disabilities” and “will exacerbate significant staffing and resource shortages,” the suit alleges.

An Education Department spokesperson previously said the agency was doing everything possible to shield schools from the impact of the cuts, and that District 75 schools were undergoing a normal process of reconciling actual enrollment with projections.

Suit hinges on claims of funding misuse

That higher-than-anticipated revenue is at the center of one of the legal claims in the union’s lawsuit.

The suit cites a section of the state education law that “prohibits the City from reducing spending in its schools from the level provided in the preceding year unless overall City revenues decline,” according to legal documents.

The city allocated $14.5 billion to schools in last year’s budget, and $14.1 billion in this year’s, according to the suit. That amount will fall to $13.9 billion if all the cuts go through, the union claims.

Union lawyers also allege that the city is misusing a historic influx in state aid, which has increased by about $1.3 billion in recent years after the state’s fully funded the Foundation Aid formula.

Because of the city’s budget cuts, the Education Department will have to tap state funds to support programs. But state law requires the city to use any increases in state aid to “supplement” what the city is spending on education, rather than “supplant” it, the lawsuit argues — meaning that the Adams administration would be violating this provision.

Three teachers and a speech therapist also joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs, sharing their experiences to illustrate how the cuts could be in violation of a “sound basic education.”

Miriam Sicherman, a third grade teacher at Manhattan’s Children’s Workshop School, has six Spanish-speaking migrant students, four of whom are not literate even in Spanish.

Without any additional resources from the Education Department, the lawsuit claims, she is “essentially running three classes within her third-grade class to accommodate and teach the migrant children with severe educational needs alongside her other third-grade students.”

Rebecca Lopez, a teacher at P.S./M.S. 279 in the Bronx, “cannot afford basic equipment for her high-needs and disabled students or curricular materials for her class,” according to the suit.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

A broken system delays payments to nonprofits working in NYC schools. Kids lose out.

2023-12-15T14:52:25+00:00

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For the bulk of last year, Jahlil Younger barely attended his Bedford-Stuyvesant high school.

The 18-year-old fell in with the wrong crowd and was struggling at his “second chance,” or transfer, school serving over-age and under-credited students that couldn’t make a go of it at other schools.

Things changed in the spring.

During the last few months of the academic year, Brooklyn High School for Leadership and Community Service started offering an after-school program run by Inspiring Minds NYC. The local nonprofit began the program late in the year because of a broken bureaucratic contracting system. But as soon as the program launched, it tapped into Younger’s interests. He took music, cooking, and a class about politics. Younger felt understood by the adults from the organization. He opened up about things that he never felt comfortable sharing before, like his recent decision to donate a kidney to his mom.

Suddenly, he felt like he had a reason to show up.

“I’m not gonna lie: Before this program started, I wasn’t coming to school. I’d be in the school every other day or every two days,” said Younger. “I was hanging out with … people who are gang-affiliated, who just came home from jail and are going back.”

For years, nonprofits like Inspiring Minds have been hurt by the city’s notoriously complicated and lengthy contract and procurement process. Several organizations, however, said things have gotten worse recently. The delays especially hurt businesses owned by women and people of color, like Inspiring Minds, which don’t have deep cash reserves to stay afloat. These are the same organizations that the city is trying to encourage to vie for more Education Department contracts.

Mayor Eric Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander created a joint task force that issued recommendations last year to tackle the contract backlog. But nonprofits have yet to see results. New York state Rep. Stephani Zinerman, of Brooklyn, told Chalkbeat she’s exploring legislation to address “our obligations to pay people in real time.”

According to an Education Department flow chart obtained by Chalkbeat, there’s a 15-step process that can take nine months to a year from when an organization learns it’s won a contract until the contract is registered with the comptroller’s office before payments can be made. But that timeline has stretched out, many organizations say. Contracts have been arriving late to the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, which must approve them before they can be registered for payment, officials in the comptroller’s office said.

If Inspiring Minds had been in place at the start of the year, how much more could the organization have helped Younger, wonders Katrena Perou, its executive director and a former basketball star at Penn State who has lived in Bed-Stuy for 20 years.

She also wonders how much it could have helped Brooklyn Leadership, which is currently in the state’s receivership program, giving the state control over the school until it meets specific benchmarks around its low graduation rates, high dropout rates, and behavioral challenges.

Inspiring Minds leads My Brothers Keeper for 47 Brooklyn high schools, holding monthly gatherings and providing professional development for teachers. Here, Katrena Perou (center) and others are at a field day event at Brooklyn Boys and Girls High School in June 2023.

Some organizations are hurting more than others

Brooklyn Leadership is part of the city’s “community school” program, where nonprofits are embedded on campus to offer an array of services to students, their families, and educators during and after the school day. This full-service model has proven effective in New York City, according to research, and the federal government has ramped up support of such programs across the nation.

Perou’s organization was awarded an annual grant of $377,000 for two years to be the school’s lead community partner. The grant was supposed to take effect in July 2022, but Perou didn’t learn that she won it until March 2023 — nearly a year later. And the money could not be carried over to the following year.

Perou’s organization won grants to work with two other community schools, Manhattan’s Quest to Learn ($237,000 a year) and Brooklyn Collaborative Studies ($220,000 a year), but has not received the funds for more than a year and a half, she said. She finally received an interest-free bridge loan through a city program for nonprofits on Wednesday, which is supposed to help cover up to three months of payroll, rent, and other critical expenses.

And Perou has yet to receive this year’s money for Brooklyn Leadership. She had to turn to a local foundation as a stopgap measure.

Perou worries that organizations like hers, which are often from the communities they want to help, are at a breaking point. Her organization’s reserves are tapped. She’s looked into traditional loans, but high interest rates and other requirements often make things more difficult for many local programs run by women and people of color, she said.

Because of the payment delay, Inspiring Minds is offering fewer services than promised, fewer field trips, less mental health support and tutoring. Families at the schools often don’t even realize that their kids are missing out, she said.

“I’ve always been a big advocate for the organizations from and of the community having a chance to receive community school contracts,” said Perou, who started Inspiring Minds in 2019. “There’s a certain level of connection we can make [with the students] because we’re from the same space.”

She continued, “But the system needs to change so that more BIPOC organizations can compete for these contracts. It’s an equity issue and contradicts the mission of community schools.”

Many programs are struggling. Nearly 115 community schools, including Brooklyn Leadership, are funded through a $45 million pot of federal relief funds. The other two schools that Inspiring Minds won contracts for were through a federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant program, which is distributing $15 million to about 78 community schools working with 41 lead community organizations, according to city figures.

The Education Department has been working with community organizations to complete outstanding contract registrations and “disburse funds as quickly as possible,” said spokesperson Jenna Lyle, noting that the state’s notification of 21st Century grant recipients had been delayed, throwing off the timeline.

“Where possible, we have worked to expedite the process,” Lyle said. “We are working to ensure continuity of service despite delays.”

Contract system’s ‘glacial pace’ forces some to close doors

Some organization leaders told Chalkbeat they’ve had to take themselves off of payroll to ensure their employees get paid. One nonprofit leader said her organization bowed out after the first year of the community schools contract because of the payment delays.

“I’d rather walk away than put my company in that situation,” the organization’s head said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Because of the passion we have for the work, we allow certain things to be done. But passion doesn’t pay the bills and keep the lights on.”

The time it takes — from the submission to a request for proposal to contract approval to invoice — is “a glacial process,” said Terrance Winston, the executive director of the Coalition for Community Schools Excellence.

Contract delays have similarly hurt the prekindergarten sector, which is also largely run by women of color.

City officials have tried to make it “more nimble,” Winston said. “It’s just extremely challenging.”

Larger, more established nonprofits tend to be better situated to withstand the delayed payments and can “marshall their networks” for help, he said.

“For smaller organizations — those that more accurately reflect the population they serve — it’s more of a crisis situation.”

Moreover, many nonprofit organizations are dealing with problems on multiple fronts, he said. As they’re fighting to get paid, they’re facing wage increases to keep pace with the market and inflation as well as overhead cost increases. Meanwhile, they’re dealing with children whose issues, related to the trauma and grief from the pandemic, are more complicated than ever.

“Young people are still dealing with lost loved ones, learning loss, and other challenges of developing adolescents,” he said.

Inspiring Minds interns from Research and Service High School surround Katrena Perou, the organization's executive director Student interns provide feedback, support program design, co-plan events, and mentor their peers.

Brooklyn Leadership students see a change in their hallways

Perou estimated that last year’s contract delay for Brooklyn Leadership translated into the school’s community losing about $300,000 that would have gone to extended learning time for students, professional development for teachers on culturally responsive practices, and other services for families.

The program’s delay has real consequences for a school under scrutiny and with such a high-needs population. Many of its students live in temporary housing and many have been involved with the criminal justice system.

“I feel like there would have been less fights, less drama, less chaos,” said Emerald Carrion, 19, who has found a space through the program where she can express her emotions. She felt angrier last year, she said. She would slam doors around the school and hurl epithets at teachers, security guards, and other students.

Younger also said he was “constantly” getting in trouble last year.

“There was so much rage and violence. You could feel the negative energy in the hallways,” he said.

“This year, I’m a better me,” he added, crediting Inspiring Minds with not only transforming himself but the school community. Now, he’s looking forward to screening a documentary about his neighborhood of Brownsville that students filmed during an Inspiring Minds class. It focuses on positive aspects of the area to counter negative stereotypes. The music class he’s taking has also transformed his lyrics from negative to positive.

“I feel like we shouldn’t have had to wait so long,” Younger said.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Mergers, migrants, curriculum mandates: NYC schools chief David Banks on his first 2 years

2023-11-07T11:00:00+00:00

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When David Banks took the reins of New York City’s public schools, he offered a blunt diagnosis. The system is “fundamentally flawed,” he said, and in need of complete transformation.

Nearly two years later, the chancellor’s vision for improving the system is coming into sharper focus. Rather than pursuing aggressive changes in many areas of the system, he has prioritized one problem above all others: Nearly half of students aren’t proficient readers.

In a wide-ranging interview with Chalkbeat, Banks indicated the nation’s largest school system is too unwieldy to change on many fronts at once. And if children graduate without basic reading skills, little else matters, he says.

So far, the literacy overhaul has been swift and bumpy, with some elementary school teachers saying that they haven’t felt prepared enough to deploy new reading curriculums this fall — reports that Banks acknowledged while defending the pace of the rollout.

But even as Banks makes reading instruction his signature issue, the system is still facing many other challenges. Roughly $7 billion in federal relief funding is drying up, and Mayor Eric Adams is ordering significant cuts on top of that. There are a growing number of significantly under-enrolled schools — some of which Banks said will likely need to be consolidated. And the city is also contending with a massive influx of migrant children, many of whom have faced significant trauma and disruptions to their schooling.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’re coming up on two years running the nation’s largest school system. What surprised you most about the role that you didn’t anticipate?

I think the level of distrust that so many people have about the quote unquote ‘DOE’ [Department of Education]. It’s almost like we can’t trust whatever you say. When I say that, I’m talking about community members, for the most part — parents. There was a heightened state of agitation. And not something that I did. It was just…they were almost ready for battle at every moment.

And I think it was Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd who said to me, ‘There’s been a broken trust.’ And it demonstrated itself in ways like the PEP [Panel for Educational Policy]. You have the PEP meeting that goes all night long.

I said, ‘This doesn’t even make any sense to me.’ People have to stay up ‘till 2, 3 o’clock in the morning for their two minutes. I think the sense was that people didn’t feel like they were being heard. So they’re ready to be really loud to try to be heard.

Once I got in and I got settled I could understand what it was. And I think it’s also my greatest achievement of having been here so far, which is I think we’ve done a lot to help to rebuild a level of trust with communities.

When you were first appointed, you offered a fairly dark assessment of the city’s public school system, saying it was ‘fundamentally flawed.’ You suggested there were too many people working in central jobs away from school. What is your assessment today? Have you done anything to trim the central office other than eliminating the executive superintendent roles?

We have moved, since I’ve been here, over 300 people off of our payroll, number one. Number two, through the local superintendents, we have moved dozens and dozens of people closer to the action into the superintendents’ offices.

What I came to realize is that the narrative of this bloated bureaucracy that’s uncaring — is actually not true. There are a lot of people here, who care deeply about what goes on. I think that’s why the NYC Reads stuff [the reading curriculum overhaul] is so important to me. Because I think we’ve not gotten the results in our schools, which has caused everybody to be turned off. And it’s caused even the people who work here to be deeply frustrated.

Some of your early rhetoric suggested that you were interested in a total transformation of the system. It seems like that kind of rhetoric has given way to a more pragmatic set of initiatives focused on improving the quality of early literacy instruction, and also exposing more students to career options before they graduate. Are there any other big projects on the horizon?

My legacy work will really be around what we’re doing with literacy. And then I think the work we’re doing on career-connected learning and pathways will be right behind it.

But I’m really staking my reputation on reading in particular. Because I do believe that fundamentally, as somebody who’s been in the classroom for years, and has led schools, that it’s the foundation. If you don’t get that right all these other things don’t really matter. It’s the reason why you don’t hear me talking about 20 different things, although we’re doing lots of other things.

I can connect those to other areas that I think are really important and where we’re going to be going as a system. And that would really be around virtual learning, artificial intelligence, the use of technology. I think those kinds of things will fundamentally, whether we like it or not, change not just our system. All systems across America are in for a sea change in that regard. So I’m doing a lot of work behind the scenes to try to figure out how we can get out in front where New York City can lead on that.

But none of that will even matter if kids can’t read.

Your background is mostly in working with middle and high school students. How did you become persuaded to make early literacy your signature thing? Was it a conversation with the mayor?

The mayor focused when we came in on dyslexia, and so we were all in on the dyslexia and the screenings, and really making sure that we’re getting those kids the kinds of interventions or whatnot that they really need to put them on track. But in the midst of that, as I moved all over the system, I was reminded over and over again, beyond the kids with dyslexia, just the average kid who doesn’t have any of those kinds of text-based challenges, they don’t know how to read.

It was over a series of visits and conversations, and talking to teachers who were saying, ‘We are off track. Not only my school, but as a whole system.’ I would hear that over and over again. And people would say, years ago, kids learn through phonics, we learn the phonetic approach to teaching reading.

And then I think, when I listened to the podcast [“Sold a Story”]...that was the first thing that really crystallized these conversations that people were sharing with me, it framed it for me. And then behind that, when I saw the documentary, “The Right to Read,” the combination of those two, fully crystallized these loose conversations that I was having with folks. And I got to the ultimate ‘aha,’ this is where the issue is.

I’ve been spending some time recently talking to teachers who are in the first phase [of the literacy curriculum mandate]. And one of the things I’ve heard from a lot of them is they feel like this happened really fast. Some felt unprepared to teach the new curriculums. What is your message to those teachers?

I’m certainly not surprised by any of that as a response. We are all in a process of trying to catch up because there’s a sense of urgency. In the best of all worlds, we would have studied this for the next three or four years. We would’ve done all kinds of surveys. But when you add the ‘aha moment’ that it is time to move, you have to move, knowing that it’s not going to be perfect. We are building the plane as we are flying it because kids’ lives are actually hanging in the balance.

I do not expect us to have some dramatically different results over the next two to three years. But I do think you will see constant gains over the next several years. And I think you will see dramatic gains over the next five, six years.

One of the biggest challenges for the system right now is financial. About $7 billion of federal relief money is drying up, which has been used to expand summer school, keep school budgets steady despite enrollment drops, hire counselors and fund some of your own initiatives. On top of that, Mayor Eric Adams is ordering pretty significant budget cuts. Can you give us a sense of what criteria you’re using to determine which programs get cut and which don’t?

We’ve not finalized decisions. And these are not all fully just my decisions either. The mayor and the City Council are really going to have to come together and figure out what happens. Everything is on the table to see some level of reduction. I’ve made it clear that I think what we’re doing on the reading, and the [career] pathways as my priority areas. So we’re gonna do everything to fight like heck to protect those. Everything else is subject to it.

Listen, I’m a champion of the arts. I don’t want to see any reduction in the arts. So I’m going to be fighting as well. But we got dozens and dozens and dozens of other initiatives. I think Summer Rising has been a wonderful program. We had 110,000 kids last year, we could easily have 150,000. But it may be reduced because it is the fiscal reality that we are facing.

I’ve heard a lot of City Council folks say, ‘We’re going to fight like heck to make sure there’s no reductions in school budgets.’ That’s great, right? But the funding is going to come from somewhere.

Do you anticipate having to reduce the department’s headcount significantly over the coming years?

The mayor is on record as saying that we’re not going to be letting go of employees. So we’re not going to excess folks. We’re not getting rid of folks, we’re not laying people off.

The challenge is going to be where do we find it programmatically and how much our school budgets [are] ultimately impacted.

New York has seen a large influx of more than 20,000 migrant children. What’s your sense of how that is affecting schools? Can you point to examples of schools that are doing a really effective job?

We can certainly give you a list of schools. All of these schools that I have continued to visit — amazing. These folks lead with their heart. And it goes well beyond even what’s in their particular budgets. You got parent coordinators, who are leading clothing drives and food drives. You got principals who are just organizing their entire school community as a family to wrap their arms around so many of these young people, it is amazing. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, it is New York City at its best, when you see how we are responding.

I haven’t visited one school, Alex, when people are like, ‘We are at our wits end, we cannot help these kids anymore. We don’t know what to do.’ I’ve never been at one school where I’ve heard anybody say that.

The city doesn’t have a great track record of equitably distributing students who enroll after the traditional admissions process. There was some research a few years ago that found that high school students who enrolled midyear were disproportionately clustered at lower-performing schools. Does the city have an overarching enrollment strategy for migrant children? How do you think that students should be distributed in a way that’s equitable?

There’s a wide range of students. For the younger children, we’ve done everything we could to get them into the school that they are kind of zoned for. That’s been dictated by where these shelters have been. We don’t want a child who’s in a shelter in the Bronx and send them to the second grade in Queens.

While we want to get them as close as possible, we cannot overwhelm any individual school. So if that means we’ve got to go to the next neighborhood over with some of those schools who are saying, ‘We would love to have more students,’ many of these schools, you have to remember, are experiencing enrollment decline and low enrollment. We want to make sure that they’re the right kinds of programs and supports in those schools.

One of the other big structural issues that you’re facing is a growing number of really small schools, which are expensive to operate, and also sometimes struggle to offer a full range of programs given that a school’s budget is determined on a per-student basis. I’m wondering if there’s a cut off below which you think at school is just too small to be sustainable?

No specific number, but we had dozens and dozens of really small schools. When I say really small, I’m talking about schools with 125 kids and less. I ran a small school, but my small school had 450 to 500 kids, which was what the initial definition of a small school was. It’s hard to figure out how people can run a full comprehensive high school with 80 kids as your entire school. And we have schools with those numbers.

And should we expect to see that starting this year?

You should probably expect to hear community conversations around that this year. And we will see where it will lead us. But the notion of some level of consolidation is something that I think we would be irresponsible if we were not looking at that, particularly in light of the fiscal challenges that we’re having. So we’re looking at it — nothing definitive yet.

I’m leaving a lot of that to the superintendents themselves who know their school communities best and are already meeting with principals around the city to start those conversations.

The latest round of national test scores indicate that student achievement took a big hit during the pandemic, particularly in math. How worried are you about the lingering effects of the pandemic on student achievement? Is there anything new on the horizon to help schools close those gaps?

I was not surprised at all by the learning loss and the scores and everything else. You know, the immediate shift into virtual learning was a tremendous challenge for everybody. I think the upside is that we got a lot better at it. It’s one reason I’m really excited about some of our virtual schools work that we’re doing, because we see that as a beacon and a blueprint also for the rest of the system. But I do think we’ve got real work to do.

We’re allowing schools to provide a range of supports. Some of them are doing high-dosage tutoring, some of the buddying students up — we leave a lot of that sort of to the schools themselves. We don’t try to mandate everything. What we are mandating is this approach to the science of reading, which I think will ultimately bear fruit in ELA and math, over a period of time.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC eyes middle and high school literacy overhaul. It’s asking families to weigh in.

2023-10-19T21:42:25+00:00

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On the heels of a sweeping mandate to overhaul elementary school reading programs, New York City officials now have their eyes on middle and high school — and they’re asking families to weigh in.

The city’s Education Department is launching focus groups for parents and students this month with the goal of “evaluating ELA curriculum for grades 6 to 12,” according to a notice sent to parent leaders.

The online focus groups, which will take place on Oct. 25 and 30, are the latest sign that city officials are interested in standardizing curriculums at the middle and high school level even though they have not announced concrete plans and appear to be keeping the public engagement process fairly quiet.

Education Department officials declined to answer questions about the sessions. After Chalkbeat inquired about the online registration form — which initially included a list of possible curriculums under consideration — those names were removed.

“We’ll delve into the ELA curriculum options under consideration,” the notice initially stated. The post indicated that families would have a chance to discuss curriculum options, review materials, and provide feedback. But that language was also removed and a department spokesperson did not explain why.

New York City principals have long had wide leeway to select their own curriculums. Schools Chancellor David Banks is pushing against that approach, concerned that it can lead to inconsistency in the quality of instructional materials educators use in their classrooms.

In Banks’ “State of Our Schools” speech last month, he said the department “will announce new approaches to instruction across all our core subject areas, in all grade levels, just as we have for early literacy” — though he indicated the process will take years.

Some high school superintendents have already begun mandating specific reading programs, though there is no centralized directive for them to do so. The city has also begun rolling out a standardized algebra curriculum at a subset of high schools.

One education department official familiar with the city’s literacy efforts said budget cuts ordered by Mayor Eric Adams could complicate the Education Department’s efforts to swiftly move forward with broader curriculum changes beyond elementary school.

“It costs a good amount of money to add curriculum to schools across the board,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press. The department “probably doesn’t want to promise that … and then not be able to do it.”

Creating focus groups for middle and high school families represents a shift from the Education Department’s strategy for choosing elementary school reading curriculums. That ambitious change, which began in about half of districts this year and will reach all districts next year, involved little input from the public. (An Education Department spokesperson did not say whether there will be similar input sessions for middle and high school educators and school leaders.)

Susan Neuman, a New York University literacy expert and former federal education official, said it’s a “promising trend” that the city is considering strengthening schools’ curriculum choices at the middle and high school level.

“We’ve ignored them completely,” she said.

But Neuman also expressed concern about whether the Education Department would take input from focus groups seriously. The city did not solicit input on the mandated elementary school curriculums from its own Literacy Advisory Council, composed of outside experts and advocates, according to multiple participants.

“There was really a good deal of frustration on that,” said Neuman, a member of the council.

Dannielle Darbee, principal of the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance, said a more standardized curriculum could have benefits at the high school level, exposing students to rigorous texts consistently and ensuring teachers have more free time for other activities.

“Part of me welcomes the change because teachers spend a lot of time trying to build curriculum and tailor curriculum,” Darbee said.

Still, she said any curriculum mandate should include a long runway for training on the new materials. And, more importantly, she hopes high school teachers receive training to reach students who arrive significantly behind in their reading skills.

“High school teachers are not really trained at all to teach reading or assess reading levels,” Darbee said, “which brings me to the concern: What would professional development for high school teachers look like?”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

New York to rethink how teacher prep programs approach literacy instruction

2023-10-11T15:04:44+00:00

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Teacher preparation programs in New York and across the country have long faced criticism for not adequately training future educators to teach literacy, in part by failing to embrace long-standing evidence about how children learn to read.

Now, top New York education leaders are taking an incremental step to address that issue.

On Wednesday, officials announced a yearlong process to come up with an “action plan” for infusing “science-of-reading” principles into higher education programs that train thousands of new teachers every year. The science of reading refers to an established body of research about how children learn to read.

The Hunt Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with Duke University, is leading the effort and has worked with a dozen other states to create similar plans. Known as “The Path Forward,” the program is now adding at least five additional states, including New York, Idaho, Illinois, New Mexico, and Washington.

The goal is for state leaders to come up with a roadmap to ensure higher education programs are using research-backed methods to train teachers in literacy instruction, holding them accountable through changes in state policy or new legislation, and marshaling help from philanthropic organizations. The state’s action plan is expected next June.

In New York, the group will be helmed by the state’s top education leaders, including State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa; Board of Regents Chancellor Lester Young; New York City schools Chancellor David Banks; and the leaders of CUNY and SUNY — Félix Matos Rodríguez and John King. Several other academics, elected officials, and education leaders will also participate.

“Those are the types of people that are really going to have the respect of the higher ed faculty,” said Javaid Siddiqi, president and CEO of the Hunt Institute. “We don’t want to be coming in in an adversarial sort of space.”

Siddiqi said that states “self selected” to be part of the process. In New York’s case, the effort is being coordinated by the state’s Education Department and the Literacy Academy Collective, a grassroots organization launched by New York City parents who successfully pushed the city to open a school devoted to students with reading challenges.

Bolstering literacy instruction takes center stage across nation

The effort in New York comes as momentum is growing across the country to rethink how to teach reading and jettison more dubious practices, such as encouraging children to guess at a word’s meaning using pictures.

In New York City, officials are encouraging a greater emphasis on phonics — explicitly teaching the relationship between sounds and letters. The city also launched a new mandate this fall that will eventually require all elementary schools to abandon materials that have been widely criticized and replace them with one of three approved curriculums.

Improving teacher preparation programs could bolster New York City’s curriculum overhaul, as some educators have noted they did not receive rigorous instruction on how to teach children to read. An analysis of 38 teacher preparation programs across New York released this year by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that the state’s programs generally ranked well below others across the country when it comes to reading instruction.

Some advocacy groups, including Education Trust-New York, have also placed some blame on teacher preparation programs, calling them a “major obstacle to improved reading outcomes” in a report released this year.

Katie Pace Miles, a literacy expert at Brooklyn College who will also participate in the Hunt Institute process as part of its steering committee, said it makes sense to focus on statewide reforms to teacher preparation programs.

“There’s a lack of evidence-based instruction in our teacher preparation programs, both in New York City and across New York State,” she said, pointing to test scores that show about half of the city’s students are proficient in reading. “We can’t just keep talking about how [the scores] are unacceptable. We actually have to do something substantial to change outcomes in teacher training.”

Third grade teacher Mara Ast said her master’s degree program didn’t give her much practical help teaching children to read nearly a decade ago. At the time, her first grade son was struggling to read, so she wound up searching for strategies to help him and ultimately attended a separate summer program focused on structured literacy.

“I didn’t learn it in graduate school at all,” said Ast, who now teaches at the South Bronx Literacy Academy, the city’s first standalone district school devoted to struggling readers. She said many teachers are craving better preparation, and reforming teacher education programs could make educators more comfortable using higher-quality curriculum materials.

“A school can buy all the curriculum it wants, but if the teachers aren’t trained in how to use it, it just ends up collecting dust,” she said.

The group is expected to meet virtually every other month and will receive help from a coach to research and develop their plans, though Siddiqi said the organization does not draft legislation or push specific proposals. They’ll also have access to national experts and will convene once a year with leaders from other states. (The coaching, access to national experts, and annual meetings with other state leaders last beyond the first year.)

It remains to be seen how effective the yearlong series of meetings and action plan will be in spurring change. Despite movement in dozens of state legislatures designed to overhaul reading instruction and teacher training, New York is one of five states that has not advanced similar efforts in recent years, raising questions about the appetite for significant action in Albany.

Asked whether convening state leaders to hold meetings on improving teacher preparation programs would likely spur more dramatic efforts, Siddiqi said he understood some might be skeptical.

“We don’t want to waste a precious slot on a state that is not ready to do the work — and we believe New York is ready to do that work,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

‘We can do better’: NYC schools chief acknowledges flawed communication in response to flooding

2023-10-03T19:42:51+00:00

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New York City botched its communication to schools in response to last week’s record rainfall, Chancellor David Banks acknowledged on Tuesday. He vowed to conduct a review of what went wrong.

Hours after the school day began last Friday, Mayor Eric Adams and Banks said during a press conference about the storm that schools should shelter in place, which typically means that no one is allowed to enter or exit campuses. The Education Department issued the same directive soon after on social media.

But that order was never directly communicated to school principals, Chalkbeat reported on Monday. The communication breakdown created confusion about which procedures campus leaders should have been following in the middle of an emergency.

Banks issued a mea culpa during a Tuesday press conference when asked about the lack of communication.

“This incident does suggest to us that we needed to have a clearer level of communication all the way through,” he said, adding that schools ultimately kept children safe during the storm. “We can do better, and I think we will certainly be working to do better next time.”

The chancellor also suggested that the Education Department never intended to issue a typical shelter-in-place order in the first place. “What we’re trying to say to everybody was: ‘Stay where you are. Don’t send kids out to the streets.’”

A shelter-in-place order was the “closest thing our policies have for taking refuge in buildings,” but that approach is “ill-fitting to last week’s circumstances,” Banks said in a written statement after the press conference.

Ten school administrators told Chalkbeat that they did not enforce the shelter-in-place order largely because they weren’t aware it existed. The first official communication about it came in a 1:56 p.m. email that day to school leaders notifying them that the order had been lifted.

With many parents rushing to schools to pick up their children before the school day was over, enforcing a systemwide shelter-in-place order would have created “a level of chaos” because parents would not have been allowed to do so, Banks told reporters.

The Education Department is conducting a review of what happened “to identify policies and protocols that must be updated to account for increasingly frequent events like Friday’s rain or the air quality emergency this summer,” according to Banks’ statement.

A department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the timeline for completing that review or whether it will be made public.

The chancellor’s comments represented a departure from the Education Department’s position just a day earlier.

On Monday evening, a department spokesperson did not acknowledge any errors in communication and pointed to the mayor’s Friday press conference and subsequent social media posts as sufficient notice to schools about the shelter-in-place order.

Adams has faced intense criticism for not directly addressing the public about the storm until after some neighborhoods had already flooded, though he has largely avoided any acknowledgement that the city’s response was inadequate. Adams also deflected blame for the unclear communication to schools, implying that he hadn’t used the words “shelter in place” on Friday — even though he was the first official to publicly use the phrase. He also said that “the chancellor made a determination of what should be done.”

One Queens assistant principal said they were glad the chancellor acknowledged the miscommunication.

“I appreciate [Banks] taking the responsibility,” said the assistant principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The school leader said the city should resist the urge to make blanket directives during similar emergencies in the future, as some campuses experienced significant flooding and others were largely untouched.

“There’s no citywide guidance and directive that they should have made other than: ‘Be safe and please be in touch with your borough offices,’” the administrator said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams ordered NYC schools to shelter in place due to flooding. No one told principals.

2023-10-02T23:40:00+00:00

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As flood waters rose Friday in many parts of New York City, the message seemed clear cut.

“If you are at work or school, shelter in place for now,” said Mayor Eric Adams during a press conference about the storm just before noon that day. Schools Chancellor David Banks repeated that language later in the briefing, explaining “our protocol is in fact to shelter in place.” A social media post at 12:16 p.m. from the Education Department said the same.

Sheltering in place refers to a specific Education Department safety protocol that requires schools to shut their front doors, barring anyone from coming in or out. The procedure is meant to keep schools safe when there’s a danger outside the building.

At 1:56 p.m., a top Education Department official alerted principals that the “shelter in place has been lifted,” according to a copy of the email obtained by Chalkbeat.

There was just one problem: No one directly told schools about the order in the first place.

The email was the first Education Department communication that appeared in principals inboxes all day.

That was when Anna Nelson, an assistant principal at Bronx Latin, learned of the shelter-in-place directive.

But enforcing it would have been complicated. Many parents at her 6-12 school showed up early asking to pick up their children, fearing their commutes would be even harder later in the day due to the record rainfall. That would not have been allowed under a typical shelter-in-place order.

“Parents would have been really upset,” Nelson said. “It would have been wild.”

During previous shelter-in-place situations involving many schools, such as one for several Brooklyn schools after the subway shooting in Sunset Park last year, orders came from the NYPD and borough safety offices contacting schools.

But no such directives arrived Friday, 10 school administrators told Chalkbeat.

Flooding causes chaos in many schools

Many school leaders were dealing with immediate crises. They were helping kids dry off and scrounging up extra clothes for kids who were soaked through, while moving some children out of water-logged classrooms. They were ensuring floors weren’t dangerously slippery and figuring out if they had enough teachers to cover classes. They were communicating with concerned families about pickup and figuring out alternative exit plans for dismissal.

Many were unable to tune into the mayor’s press conference or monitor Education Department messages on X (formerly known as Twitter) during the middle of the school day — and may not even have known to watch for information through these channels.

As a result, none of the administrators who spoke with Chalkbeat actually implemented a shelter-in-place. Many were left on their own to figure out if and how to dismiss students early or let parents come and retrieve kids, with mixed messages swirling from higher-ups.

“It was very confusing honestly,” said one Brooklyn school administrator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. “I was watching the press conference live and then I heard him say it, but I was like ‘I don’t think he really means we’re going to shelter in, because that’s crazy.’”

Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer reiterated Monday that “guidance during inclement weather events is to take refuge in the school building.” When asked how the Education Department communicated that guidance, he pointed to the mayoral press conference and social media.

The idea of a blanket citywide shelter-in-place order seemed especially confusing to administrators because those directives are usually targeted at specific schools or neighborhoods, administrators said. While some schools with significant flooding outside may have benefited from such an order, it would have been a problem for other schools that needed to let students out early for safety reasons, they said.

Pointing to the need for a shelter in place, Styer said that some schools called parents and guardians to pick up children from school during Friday’s travel warnings, “which put even more members of our community in harm’s way.”

The end-of-day email to principals also suggested that schools should make sure students and staff are familiar with alternate evacuation routes, ensure children have a way to get home given disruptions to public transit, and keep a stock of supplies on hand including flashlights and blankets.

There was scarcely any time to do those things as the official guidance came less than an hour before dismissal, said Nelson, the Bronx administrator.

Though she said her school was largely spared from flooding and most of her students don’t commute long distances to the campus, she remained concerned about the lack of planning from the city.

“It is clear to me that we will have more flood issues like this in the future and the DOE doesn’t have any flood plans in place,” Nelson added.

Flooding near the Lafayette Educational Complex in Gravesend Brooklyn on Fri., Sept. 29, 2023 in New York.

At the Lafayette Educational Complex in Gravesend, Brooklyn, which is in a flood zone, students and staff had to wade through thigh-high waters to get to the schools housed there, said teacher Elizabeth Fortune. The building’s basement and cafeteria flooded, just as they did during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and she worried the building would face flooding in the future.

“We gave away all our school logo pjs to students and some were stuck in wet clothes or barefoot at school,” Fortune wrote in an email. “Once the waters began to recede, many older students wished to leave, but we were required to hold them until a parent could pick them up. Parents themselves were stranded without any ability to get to the school.”

Communication breakdown sows confusion

A total of 336 city public schools required cleanup over the weekend due to flooding, Styer said. On Friday, city officials said 150 schools were affected.

One school, P.S. 312 in Bergen Beach (originally reported by the Education Department as P.S. 132), had to be evacuated because of a smoking boiler. That school reopened Monday, and the “vast majority” of water issues across city schools were “minor, requiring only mopping,” he said.

To some educators, the botched communication over the shelter-in-place order felt emblematic of larger failures to give schools clear and timely guidance during a crisis. If top city officials misspoke about the shelter-in order, they should have clarified that immediately, said one Manhattan school administrator.

“The lack of communication is what creates people making up their own stories,” said the administrator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If this isn’t the policy, and someone made a mistake, just own that and keep it pushing.”

Instead, school leaders were left largely on their own to figure out the protocol — and the confusion trickled down to teachers and parents.

Some schools let students out early. Anxious parents showed up to retrieve kids, and some students feared longer-than-normal commutes on public transit.

“A lot of our kids travel an hour each way on a good day,” said the Brooklyn administrator. “We don’t want kids traveling on buses they don’t normally take in the dark.”

Brooklyn dad Geoff Sanoff, who has two children in two different high schools, recounted the widely varied response from his children’s schools.

At Brooklyn Tech, where one son attends, the school emailed families about what they were doing, where families should go to meet their teens, and options for kids to stay in the building as they waited to get picked up. At the smaller Brooklyn high school his other son attends, there was “radio silence,” Sanoff said.

Brooklyn Tech is walkable to their Park Slope home, so the commute home for that son was doable. The other school, however, is accessible by the G train, which was not running. Sanoff’s son at that school, a freshman, wasn’t sure what to do, or where to wait to be picked up since he was not allowed to stay inside the building.

“With no subway, getting home from school turned into a three-hour round trip in a grandparent’s car to pick him up,” Sanoff said, adding that his son waited outside for more than an hour.

Sanoff understands that Brooklyn Tech — which is the nation’s largest high school with nearly 6,000 students — has kids from across the city and needs to be on top of coordinating its communications. His other son’s school, which may serve more kids who live locally, may not have realized that new students who travel further may have needed more help and may not have known who to ask for help, he said.

“It kind of baffles me that nobody said anything to him,” Sanoff said. “I am not angry with them, just frustrated at this situation. At the end of the day, the real question to me is, ‘How is it that each school has been left to fend for itself in a situation like this? Has there been no guidance from on high?’ No thought for school buses to be set aside, nothing from the DOE to help parents and schools know where to go, what to do, or who to reach out to for help.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

In ‘State of our Schools’ speech, NYC schools chief emphasizes literacy and career readiness efforts

2023-09-20T22:17:31+00:00

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In his 20 months as chancellor of New York City’s schools, David Banks has repeatedly emphasized the need to boost literacy rates and expose more students to career opportunities before they leave high school.

Those ideas were front and center in a “State of our Schools” address he delivered Wednesday at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Boys and Girls High School, in an auditorium packed with school staff, administrators, union officials, and parent leaders.

The speech hewed to priorities Banks has repeatedly advanced and provided some insight into how he’d like to expand existing efforts.

A program that gives schools resources to spin up new career tracks and offer early college credit is set to grow next year, he said. And Project Pivot — a $15 million initiative that pairs schools with community organizations that provide counseling, mentorship, and violence interruption — will expand to 250 schools this year, up from 144.

Banks didn’t name any new education initiatives, which could indicate that the chancellor’s focus this year will be on implementing existing programs rather than scaling up new ones. It could also reflect budget constraints, as the city grapples with dwindling federal relief dollars and a new round of budget cuts mandated by City Hall.

Here’s what Banks’ speech did — and didn’t — focus on. We’d also love to hear from you about what you think the chancellor should prioritize. Let us know by filling out this survey.

Literacy, literacy, literacy (and maybe other subjects, too)

Banks’ speech focused on his highest-profile policy initiative: boosting the city’s middling literacy rates by overhauling school reading curriculums. Beginning this fall, elementary schools in nearly half the city’s districts are required to use one of three reading programs — with the rest of schools following a year from now.

For years, principals enjoyed wide latitude to pick their own curriculums — and hundreds selected “balanced literacy” programs that Banks has blamed for poor reading outcomes. During his speech, the schools chief played a video of a student using illustrations to guess the words in a picture book instead of sounding them out, a common element of balanced literacy programs that has been widely discredited.

“That is how we’ve been teaching the kids to read — it’s a completely misguided way,” Banks said. “We are fixing that playbook starting right now.”

Banks signaled that he’s interested in changes beyond elementary school literacy. Already, the city has tapped 250 high schools to use a single algebra curriculum. In a less coordinated effort, some high school superintendents are beginning to institute their own reading program mandates. And early childhood centers are also moving to a uniform curriculum. More curriculum changes could be on the horizon across a range of subjects and grade levels, a process Banks suggested would take years.

“Teachers need more support,” Banks told reporters after the speech. “They need a little bit more of a script of what we’re expecting from them.”

A focus on career and technical programs

Banks framed the event with a philosophical question: “What is the purpose of school?”

Part of the answer, he said, is better-preparing students to enter the workforce, a shift that comes as college enrollment is dipping locally and nationally. This year, 100 high schools are part of a program called FutureReadyNYC that gives schools resources to launch new career tracks and paid work opportunities in education, technology, business, or health care. Officials said they sent about $18 million to those schools to support new programming.

“Historically, too many 12th graders leave our school system with a diploma but not much else,” Banks said. “Our pathways work is rewriting the script.”

Banks said FutureReady will grow by at least half next year, in line with previous promises to expand the program. By 2030, officials also vowed to create plans for every student that outline their postsecondary goals and map out a strategy to achieve them. About 70% of students have similar plans right now, officials said.

The new career tracks created through FutureReady are typically less intensive than state-certified career and technical programs and are easier to quickly scale up, allowing the city to reach more students. However, some observers worry that in an effort to expand those offerings to a wider array of schools, the programming will be less rigorous. (City officials contend that the programming is just as rigorous.)

Principals generally said they’re glad the Education Department is making it easier to set up work-based learning experiences, but it may prove challenging for officials to offer them at a large scale. A department spokesperson said that just over 2,800 students have received paid work opportunities through FutureReady so far.

A separate initiative aims to provide students with paid apprenticeships, and officials have previously said their goal is to offer those opportunities to 3,000 students over three years. About 150 students began apprenticeships last school year and another 257 are expected to start in October, a spokesperson said.

What didn’t get mentioned

Banks’ speech didn’t touch on some of the biggest looming challenges, including a fresh series of budget cuts ordered by Mayor Eric Adams, which could initially require a $700 million reduction to the Education Department’s budget but could exceed $2 billion if the city follows through with all of the planned cuts. The city’s schools are also facing the expiration of billions in federal relief funding, enrollment declines that raise the specter of mergers and closures, and alarming rates of chronic absenteeism.

The federal relief funding has supported a slew of initiatives, including expanded preschool for 3-year-olds, summer school, and hundreds of social workers. It also supports bilingual staff for English learners — a growing need as 26,000 children in temporary housing, many of them new migrants, have enrolled in the school system over the past year and half, Banks said.

Taking questions from reporters, Banks said decisions about cuts have not yet been made.

“Anytime you’re talking about cuts of that magnitude, it’s going to impact some of the programs that we already have in place,” Banks said.

The chancellor added that the department hopes to avoid slashing school budgets and will prioritize the city’s literacy and career pathways initiatives.

“That’s where we’re going to be making sure that the investments are still there,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional responses from the Education Department, which were provided days after this story was published.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Instagram accounts shut down after NYC principal threatens to suspend student followers

2023-09-20T00:40:41+00:00

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After a Queens principal threatened to suspend students who followed Instagram accounts with anonymous posts about their classmates — igniting a fierce debate about how to respond to students’ online behavior — the social media pages were removed.

One student was behind the two Instagram accounts, Francis Lewis High School Principal David Marmor said Tuesday afternoon during a meeting of the School Leadership Team.

He said the school was in the process of suspending the student. Marmor and an education department spokesperson declined to say if any of the Instagram account followers faced disciplinary action.

“Over the past few days the entire school community came together to condemn the online bullying and hate found on the two previously highlighted Instagram accounts,” Marmor wrote in a letter posted on the school’s website on Monday. “I am very proud to announce that the account owners have been identified, and BOTH ACCOUNTS ARE GONE!”

A range of “celebratory extracurricular activities” that had been canceled in response to the Instagram accounts — including a senior trip, prom, and an upcoming pep rally — would be allowed to resume, the principal wrote.

Francis Lewis High School is not alone in struggling to manage students’ online behavior, including social media accounts that allow kids to publicly post messages without identifying themselves.

But Marmor’s threat last week to suspend any student who followed two specific Instagram accounts — and withhold recommendation letters for college or work — represented a striking crackdown against students regardless of whether they had posted any harmful or bullying content. The move prompted criticism from civil rights groups and legal experts who said such discipline would violate students’ constitutional right to free speech.

The city’s Education Department stood by the policy, however, signaling to other school leaders that aggressive measures to curb students’ online posts may be tolerated on other campuses. The threat of harsh discipline also won backing from some members of the school community, including Shirley Aubin, president of the school’s parent association, who said the school has long wrestled with social media accounts that serve as platforms for bullying.

“This is not the first time that this situation arose, and I expect more to come, but the way he handled it met our expectations,” she said.

Principal dangles future discipline threats for other Instagram accounts

In his letter last week to the school’s more than 4,000 students, Marmor explicitly named two Instagram accounts that he characterized as “horrifying” and including “graphic and direct threats to specific children with bullying comments.”

One of them included videos of student fights that took place on and off campus, according to school officials and students who viewed them. That account was shut down by Instagram after students complained, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

The second account circulated anonymous posts that included gossip, criticism of the school’s bell schedule, and students revealing their crushes.

But it also amplified more troubling material. Some posts repeatedly bullied specific students. Others included racist language. One identified a student who allegedly had a sexually transmitted infection. A small number of posts targeted Marmor in vulgar or offensive ways.

Francis Lewis High School Principal David Marmor updated the School Leadership Team about the school’s response to the Instagram accounts on Tuesday.

The student responsible for the account voluntarily shut it down after getting caught, a department spokesperson said. The two accounts each had over 1,000 followers, school officials said.

Marmor indicated that several similar social media accounts were still active, but had far fewer followers. He warned that if they gained traction, he might once again cancel student activities — and he said the school might still discipline students who followed them.

Preston Green, a professor of educational leadership and law at the University of Connecticut, said schools can punish students for speech that disrupts the school’s learning environment or for conduct that occurs on school grounds. But he said suspending kids for following certain Instagram accounts would likely violate their First Amendment rights.

“Mere ‘following’ can’t be sufficient,” he said. “That’s going too far.”

Letter prompts swift action from students

As students streamed out of the campus on Tuesday afternoon, several said they thought the principal had overreacted. Although they acknowledged some of the Instagram posts may have been hurtful or offensive to some of their peers, they said the accounts didn’t seem to be causing major disruptions to the community.

“I don’t think anyone was talking about it that much,” said one sophomore. “Since he sent those emails to everyone, it became more of a well-known thing.” (Chalkbeat is withholding student names because of the threat of discipline.)

The sophomore acknowledged that the principal’s threat was effective. But “just because a problem was fixed doesn’t mean it was a good fix.” Punishing students who had nothing to do with the more hurtful posts by canceling student activities seemed unfair, he said.

Another student said she’d followed the two Instagram accounts and noted that the vast majority of posts weren’t geared toward bullying or naming specific students.

“They were just posting like weird content … weird fantasy stuff,” she said. “I just don’t feel like it was that serious.”

But after Marmor’s letter last week, she said she swiftly unfollowed them.

Another 10th grader also said he unfollowed the accounts after Marmor’s letter last week, partly at the urging of his mother who worried about him losing a recommendation letter for college.

This student thought that his peers should have the right to follow Instagram accounts without fear of reprisal, but the risk didn’t seem worth it. “I don’t really know too much about laws and what [the principal] can do legally,” he said.

A smaller number of students said they were glad the principal responded to the accounts. One said a lot of her peers were angry about canceling student activities. But if students are being bullied online or embarrassed by the posts “then I feel like he has to take some kind of action.” A stricter response, she said, is preferable to no response.

During the School Leadership Team meeting on Tuesday, Marmor acknowledged that most of the posts on the anonymous Instagram page did not name specific students or constitute bullying. But he emphasized that even a small number of posts can have an outsized effect, especially for the students who are targets.

“If you go to the random page and start pursuing it might take a little while to find them,” he said. “But if it’s about you, you know where it is.”

He noted that some of the accounts focus more directly on him — “I’ve got memes of me all over the internet doing horrifying things” — but he insisted that that wasn’t a motivation for the harsh response.

“I don’t care what anybody thinks about what I’m doing,” he said. “In the end, the only thing I care about is the safety and security of the kids in the building.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC principal threatens to suspend students who follow specific Instagram accounts

2023-09-15T21:37:31+00:00

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A New York City principal issued an unusual threat this week: All students who follow anonymous social media accounts connected to the school community could face suspension and lose out on a recommendation letter for college or work.

In a Wednesday letter to more than 4,000 students at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, Principal David Marmor identified the handles of two Instagram accounts he said are posting “horrifying content” including “graphic and direct threats to specific children with bullying comments,” according to a copy obtained by Chalkbeat.

Beginning Sept. 18, “any student still following either of the two sites or any other [similar] ‘confession’ type site, will be disciplined,” he wrote. “This will likely include suspension.”

He added: “The ability to use social media anonymously is the most destructive and dangerous challenge that society has faced, possibly ever, in my opinion.”

The threat of disciplinary action immediately drew fierce criticism from civil rights advocates who say punishing students based on the social media accounts they follow is a violation of their free speech rights.

“It’s unconstitutional in a number of ways,” said Justin Harrison, a senior policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “The right to speak anonymously and the right to receive information anonymously — without having to identify yourself to the government — is one of the oldest First Amendment protections there is.”

Plus, there are a number of logistical complications in disciplining students for following specific accounts. It’s unclear how the school could prove the identities of all the students who follow the Instagram accounts and then discipline them in a consistent way, since many students don’t use their real names on Instagram.

Marmor also vowed to cancel a range of “celebratory extracurricular activities” until the accounts are shut down or lose all of their followers, including a senior trip, prom, and an upcoming pep rally. Any students with information about who runs the Instagram accounts will “receive an appropriate award,” the letter notes.

Education department spokesperson Chyann Tull defended Marmor’s threat to suspend students. She noted the department’s policy allows for disciplining students who access or post hateful, discriminatory, harassing, or inflammatory material while on school premises or using school resources, such as WiFi.

“Our school leaders are empowered to take action against matters that threaten [the] wellbeing of the school community, and the principal’s actions are in line with the New York city Public Schools’ Internet Acceptable Use Policy and Discipline Code,” she wrote in an email. “We encourage our students to be upstanders and not bystanders, which includes upholding the values of their school communities.”

Marmor did not respond to an interview request.

One of the Instagram accounts identified in the letter had already been shut down by Friday, and Marmor indicated that the other site had already lost hundreds of followers in a note to school staff.

Chalkbeat reviewed hundreds of posts connected to one of the Instagram accounts Marmor cited. It solicits anonymous comments that are then republished. Many of the posts include musings, gossip, and crushes. “I lowkey miss my ex,” one post reads. “Being special Ed is embarrassing I hate it,” another said. One post links to a petition to change the school’s bell schedule.

Still, many others are sexually explicit, single out specific students, or include racist language. One post declares: “I dont like black people” and is signed with a first name. Another names a student who allegedly had a sexually transmitted infection. A handful of posts mention Marmor in vulgar or offensive ways.

Harrison noted that the school may be within its rights to discipline students who specifically target other students or school officials, though the anonymous nature of the messages makes that challenging.

“I’m not unsympathetic to the principal’s situation here,” he said. “The better responses are positive ones. You can’t threaten your way into a good school climate.”

One student at the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the principal’s reaction seemed extreme given that the Instagram accounts didn’t appear to be causing major disruptions.

“I haven’t heard much about the account at all,” the student said. “I think the big deal he’s making of it actually made it more popular.” Canceling events, the student added, made students angrier with the principal than whomever is behind the Instagram accounts.

The student said it’s not the first time the school has grappled with anonymous social media accounts, noting that school administrators have raised concerns about them in the past.

Shirley Aubin, president of the school’s parent association, said she supports the principal’s crackdown on students who follow the social media accounts.

“He can’t prevent them from following [the accounts] but he can create deterrents,” Aubin said. “It is a reasonable response,” she added. “The reality is there are consequences for your actions.”

Still, Marmor hinted in his letter that some members of the community may perceive the new disciplinary measures as draconian and he invited those with concerns to set up an appointment to speak with him.

“I am aware that the above steps are serious and dramatic,” he wrote. “The problem warrants it; this is a matter of life and death to me.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC disbands literacy coaches amid reading curriculum overhaul

2023-07-13T15:25:15+00:00

Hundreds of literacy coaches hired under a program to help improve literacy instruction need to find new roles, even as many elementary schools are working to adopt new reading programs.

The literacy coaches, originally part of the city’s Universal Literacy Program, must apply for other jobs, according to education department officials familiar with the city’s efforts and emails sent to coaches and school leaders obtained by Chalkbeat.

The move represents a shift in the way educators who teach reading are trained and supported at a key moment. Education officials are mandating that all elementary schools use one of three reading curriculums, beginning with 15 of the city’s 32 districts this September, with the rest to follow in 2024-25. In the past, school leaders had wide leeway to pick their own programs, with many choosing materials that city officials now say are inadequate.

To help get teachers up to speed on new curriculums, the city plans to use the three publishing companies to provide initial training and then create partnerships with outside professional learning organizations, officials said.

The city’s new literacy approach scraps the remaining elements of the Universal Literacy program, launched by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2016 to ensure that all third graders were reading proficiently by 2026. About half of third graders are meeting that benchmark, according to the most recent state tests. At its peak, the program sent about 500 literacy coaches to work with teachers in more than 600 schools, largely focusing on grades K-2.

Mayor Eric Adams has chipped away at the program, cutting the number of coaches this past school year to about 200 for grades K-5, with an estimated 60 coaches for middle and high schools. A separate Bloomberg-era program known as the Middle School Quality Initiative, which supported literacy efforts, is also coming to an end, two eduction department sources said.

Publishers of the three mandated curriculums have already begun training educators, said Nicole Brownstein, an education department spokesperson. The training includes various instructional routines and planning for their first unit.

During the school year, districts will be paired with an “external professional learning partner” to provide “shoulder-to-shoulder” training to educators, including monthly coaching, Brownstein said. Officials estimate the first phase of training will cost about $30-35 million for the initial group of schools.

The city had previously budgeted nearly $69 million annually over the next three years for the Universal Literacy Program, according to the Independent Budget Office.

“It’s been an expensive proposition to have centralized coaches,” said an education department official familiar with the city’s literacy efforts, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But it’s bad timing.”

‘They won’t be there now’

Some observers contend that the impact of the Universal Literacy program has been modest and a reset could be beneficial, giving the city a chance to deploy a new suite of training options that are more consistent for teachers. But others said the coaches, who already have relationships with educators, are a valuable resource as schools work to navigate a new set of curriculum materials.

“They could have been the folks on the ground supporting the [new curriculum mandate],” the education department employee said. “They won’t be there now.”

The official expressed concern that schools will have less coaching support overall, including significantly fewer days of on-site support, even if the new training efforts are high-quality. They believe that ending the program could be an effort to cut costs.

Brownstein did not dispute that cost was a factor but also did not offer a detailed explanation of why the coaching program is ending. She emphasized that the coaches could apply for other roles that will support the city’s new reading curriculum mandate.

According to job descriptions sent to coaches, some of the new roles they’re encouraged to apply for involve helping struggling readers directly, rather than focusing on training other teachers. Another recommended job involves supporting superintendents’ offices, a role that department sources said would likely involve working with a much wider group of schools than the coaches currently support.

“This group is being offered roles in making the implementation of NYC Reads a success,” Brownstein said in a statement, referring to the curriculum mandate. “Ensuring every student grows as a strong and confident reader is priority one for this administration.”

Coaching program’s impact is mixed

Brian Blough, who served as principal of P.S. 161 in the Bronx, said his experience with the coaching program was uneven, but the program grew on him. The first coach he worked with didn’t seem to have much direction or training, making it difficult to deploy the coach effectively. But after the school received two new coaches last year, Blough found the program more useful.

“The coaches we got this year were effective and came with a real depth of knowledge about what they’re doing,” said Blough, who left P.S. 161 and will lead a charter school this fall. The coaches helped P.S. 161 teachers implement and interpret reading assessments and deploy a new program for phonics, which teaches the relationships between sounds and letters. On other campuses, coaches helped teachers learn to implement new curriculums and reading strategies.

Blough said he is disappointed that P.S. 161 won’t have access to coaches going forward. “They had purpose and direction in making the teachers successful. It’s unfortunate that now they’re trying to pull them.”

The city’s own evaluations of the program showed modest evidence of success. A 2022 progress report obtained by Chalkbeat through a public records request described the program’s impact as promising, according to assessment data, but also concluded that “the initiative had not yet achieved impact at scale before the onset of the pandemic.”

Most principals believed the coaches were helping their schools improve reading instruction, according to education department surveys, though some also said there were disconnects between what their schools needed and what the coaches could offer.

Susan Neuman, an early literacy expert at New York University and member of the education department’s advisory council, said little information has been shared with the council about how the city plans to train teachers on the new reading curriculums, making it difficult to assess whether those efforts will be more effective than the coaching program.

Still, Neuman said it could make sense to “start anew and bring in people who might all have the same basic training. I think that’s not a bad idea.”

But she emphasized that effective training requires building trust, something that coaches said they worked hard to build.

“If you don’t like that coach you’re going to resist what that coach might suggest,” she said. “These new people need to know that relationships really matter.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Salary disparity: Teachers, directors in NYC’s free pre-K program push for more money

2023-06-28T21:23:17+00:00

In her own words, Joanne Derwin was “not a runner.”

Then last year, as Derwin embarked on her annual quest to raise money for the preschool she oversees in Brooklyn’s Windsor Terrace neighborhood, a parent persuaded her to train for the Brooklyn Half Marathon with a large group. Since then, they’ve used the race to raise tens of thousands of dollars that are crucial, in part, for covering teacher salaries.

Derwin’s center is one of hundreds that contract with New York City for its free prekindergarten programs, expected to serve roughly 63,000 3- and 4-year-olds this fall. But these centers — which have offered seats to about 60% of the children in the city’s program — have faced a long-standing issue that is gaining renewed attention: Their city funding covers the salaries for their veteran teachers at the same rate as new teachers in city-run public schools. That makes it tough to retain staff, providers say, unless directors like Derwin find a way to close the salary gap.

“We literally have to run the Brooklyn Half Marathon to be able to have our program,” Derwin said.

Boosting wages for teachers, directors and other support staff will be a central sticking point in upcoming contract negotiations between the city and unions who represent community-based preschool staffers, with the hope that the city extends benefits to non-unionized staffers, too.

On the campaign trail, Mayor Eric Adams said he wanted to pay these teachers for their years of experience, and he promised a path to salary parity within two years of his first term.

“It’s almost humiliating what we are paying these professionals,” he said at the time.

Whether he follows through on those promises remains uncertain. Spokespeople for City Hall referred Chalkbeat to the city’s labor relations office, which did not immediately respond for comment.

The brewing battle comes four years after the city boosted teacher pay in community-based programs to match their public-school counterparts, eventually including non-unionized employees, in what was heralded as a huge achievement. Pay grew to $61,070 by 2021 for teachers with bachelor’s degrees and $68,652 for those with master’s degrees, with a one-time 2.75% raise for other staff.

That agreement, however, didn’t pay teachers according to their years of experience, nor did it address salary parity for directors or other support staff, such as assistant teachers or custodians — all issues that unions and providers plan to advocate for.

The negotiations will happen against the backdrop of a chaotic year for the city’s early childhood education system, including late payments to providers and a controversial decision by Adams to not expand preschool seats for 3-year-olds. The City Council has called for $46 million to address pay parity issues. It’s unclear if that will meet the unions’ demands, as the Day Care Council said it does not yet have cost estimates.

Preschool workers eye contract set by teachers union

Wage increases could make the difference between keeping workers or losing them in an industry that’s already burned out from the pandemic, said Nora Moran, director of policy and advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses, which represents many providers.

Community-based preschool programs, like many industries, have faced hiring shortages since COVID, leaving them scrambling to find staff, Moran said. Programs are not just struggling to hold onto teachers; directors are also leaving. Many of these employees work longer hours and throughout the summer.

Acknowledging a need for better pay, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently announced up to $3,000 in retention bonuses for 150,000 childcare workers, with unused federal stimulus dollars.

Without better pay, Moran said providers will be in a “dire situation,” ultimately impacting families who need preschool but can’t afford private programs.

“That sounds dramatic, but it’s true,” Moran said. “The compensation has become such a sticking point for folks.”

DC 37, which represents 7,900 early childhood workers, and the Day Care Council, which represents providers, are expected to begin negotiations with the city once their contract expires this fall. DC 37 also represents workers at federally funded Head Start programs, whose contract expired last January.

Separately, the city’s Council for Supervisors and Administrators, or CSA, is expected to restart their push to raise salaries for the 180 community-based preschool directors they represent. Pressure will likely mount in July, when the union begins court proceedings in a lawsuit that alleges the city is discriminating against community-based preschool directors, who are largely women of color, by not paying them at the same rate as directors of city-run sites.

Unions will be looking to the tentative contract deal reached between the city and the United Federation of Teachers, or UFT, which represents educators and other workers inside of public schools. Under that tentative agreement, starting salaries for new teachers with bachelor’s degrees will jump from $61,070 to $72,349 by November 2027.

Pay gap angers teachers and other support staff

Veteran teachers in New York City’s community-run preschool programs can make 53% of their counterparts with similar years of service in public schools, according to the Day Care Council.

To close such gaps, Derwin’s school, called One World Project, relies on multiple fundraising events, as well as income from their other programs that charge tuition, such as after school.

Derwin said she’s proud to pay her teaching staff as well as teachers who are covered by the teachers union. But that also means her teachers must receive raises annually as they gain more experience and with new contracts, leaving Derwin to close a larger gap every year without any additional help from the city.

“Every year, it’s a more precarious situation for us,” Derwin said.

About 10 miles east at the Howard Beach Judea Center Preschool in Queens, site director Lisa Pearlman-Mason said they struggle annually with enrollment, leading to tight budgets. Their two teachers each make just under $69,000 annually, or the same as a first-year teacher in public schools, as required by the 2019 agreement, even though one has about 15 years of experience and the other about 10.

They host an annual fundraiser, but the proceeds aren’t enough to cover salary bumps. (Last year, they used the money to buy an outdoor toy for their playground.)

Their teaching assistants make roughly $25,000 a year. The starting salary for the comparable title of a paraprofessional will be $34,257 by 2027, according to the tentative teachers union agreement.

“I don’t get to keep them for more than a couple of years because they realize what’s going on and they leave,” Pearlman-Mason said.

Salary disparity for directors pushes them out

Separate from teachers, the CSA is hoping to see pay boosted for about 180 directors of community-run preschools over a three-year period, for a total cost of $16.7 million, according to union officials.

Pre-K directors with master’s degrees at city-run programs make at least $133,375 with one year of experience, according to CSA. Under the expired contract for directors at private programs that are publicly funded, however, the city is only required to pay $63,287 to directors with master’s degrees.

Henry Rubio, the CSA’s president, said directors will sometimes take other jobs to make ends meet, or their centers might raise money to pay staff more. Still, the union sees directors leave their jobs “on a weekly basis” for better paying positions, including within the education department.

The union’s plea for raises traces back to at least 2019. At the time, when New York City agreed to boost teacher pay under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, officials promised to negotiate a similar “path to parity” for preschool directors, Rubio said. But since then, he said, the city has declined to do so.

Negotiations over a new contract stalled in 2021. That December, CSA filed its discrimination lawsuit, which states that community-run programs are overseen by directors who are 92% women of color, compared with the 31% at city-run sites who are Black or Latino.

“I think this is an opportunity for the mayor to really right a stark wrong here,” Rubio said. “For Black and brown women who have been dedicating their lives to the city, I think it’s an opportune time for both the City Council and the mayor to make a statement about his values.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC updates 2023-24 school calendar, adding 4 more days off

2023-06-26T16:54:19+00:00

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After many educators complained about certain holidays missing from the 2023-24 school calendar, New York City’s education department is adding four additional days off, officials announced Monday.

The city also shared the calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years — after families expressed outrage over calendar delays the past few years.

The extra days for the upcoming school year are:

Monday, April 1, for the day after Easter.
Monday, April 29, and Tuesday, April 30, for the last two days of Passover, which did not fully overlap with spring break this year. (This extends the weeklong break by another two school days.)
Monday, June 17, for Eid al-Adha. (The holiday begins on June 16.)

The changes mean that there will be 178 instructional days for students on the calendar, down from the original 182, though state law requires that school districts remain in session for at least 180 days or risk losing state funding. City education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said the city will not violate the 180-day rule because certain days devoted to teacher training will count toward the requirement.

State officials confirmed that up to four conference days, including staff orientation, curriculum development, and parent-teacher conferences, may count toward the 180-day requirement. But a state education department spokesperson said compliance with the mandate would depend on how the city reports the days to the state and couldn’t yet offer a definitive answer.

The long-delayed calendar, released earlier this month, touched off a wave of anger among educators and families of various religious groups. Because Easter and Passover are so far apart this year (since the Jewish holiday follows a lunar calendar), spring break became a scheduling conundrum.

The city initially had a day off for Good Friday but not Easter Monday, sparking some backlash. And though spring break coincided with the start of the eight-day holiday of Passover, it did not include the last two days, spurring a petition that garnered nearly 4,000 signatures. Some also expressed concern that the calendar left out Eid al-Adha, which families observe starting on Sunday but continues into the next day.

The calendar changes, announced on the second-to-last day of the school year, came hours after city officials held a celebration at City Hall to commemorate the passage of a state law that mandates Diwali as an official school holiday.

The holiday will not affect next year’s calendar because Diwali falls on Sunday, Nov. 12. (There is no set date for Diwali each year, as it is governed by the lunar calendar, but it falls in October or November.)

“For over two decades, the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean community has fought for this moment,” state Assembly member Jenifer Rajkumar said during the celebration at City Hall on Monday that included a smattering of state and local officials, including Mayor Eric Adams and schools Chancellor David Banks.

Diwali, known as the “festival of lights,” celebrates the triumph of good over evil and is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists.

Lawmakers initially proposed removing Anniversary Day, also known as Brooklyn-Queens Day, a holiday that celebrates the founding of the first Sunday school on Long Island. But some legislators objected to removing that holiday and pushed behind the scenes to keep it.

Rajkumar initially said that the city would not be able to meet the 180-day requirement without finding another holiday to leave off, though city officials say they will be able to add the new holiday without such a change.

The bill has not yet been signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, but a spokesperson signaled the governor’s support of the holiday and said the legislation is under review.

Banks emphasized that the education department plans to use the new holiday as an opportunity to teach children about Diwali, offering schools sample lesson plans and suggested activities. According to calendars posted Monday, New York City schools will be closed for Diwali on Monday, Oct. 20 in 2025. They will also be closed Friday, Nov. 1 in 2026.

“It’s less about the fact that schools will be closed in recognition of Diwali — it’s more about the fact that minds will be open because of what we are going to teach them,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

New York wants to revamp how schools are evaluated. Here’s what could change for now.

2023-06-22T16:45:25+00:00

How does the state determine whether schools are doing well or if they are struggling and need extra support?

Before the pandemic, state officials relied on standardized tests and high school Regents exams to figure out how well students were doing, along with other factors, such as graduation rates. But the public health crisis paused state testing and affected school performance metrics in other ways.

Now, education department officials are seeking a new, temporary evaluation system for the next two school years, with the hopes of creating something more permanent for the 2025-26 school year.

If a school is found to be struggling, it is required to develop an improvement plan that must be approved by local and state officials. Schools that don’t make progress for five years could face state takeover or closure — but it’s a route that state officials rarely took even before developing the current accountability system, which is meant to be less punitive for schools.

In the short term, over the next two years, state officials want to exclude certain science and social studies exams, as well as measures for student growth and college and career readiness, when deciding which schools need improvement. These changes are necessary, officials say, because schools are still missing a trove of data, such as enough student participation in state tests, because of the pandemic.

Already, the conversation is sparking some controversy. Some groups focused on education reform believe the move represents a step backward just as schools need more help as they recover from the pandemic. Other observers believe the state’s proposed plan is reasonable.

Ultimately, the federal government must sign off on these proposed changes, since the state’s accountability system is required by federal law and is written into New York’s federally required Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, plan.

“They’re doing a decent job of balancing what’s of interest in the state and the federal ESSA requirements, and incorporating all the instability and uncertainty that came with the slowdown of testing during the pandemic,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Teachers College and an expert in testing.

But Education-Trust New York, an advocacy organization focused on equity issues, worried that several of the proposed changes could mean masking “bright spots and disparities,” according to their written public feedback to the state.

“I think these next two school years are incredibly important for kids coming out of the pandemic,” said Jeff Smink, the group’s deputy director, in an interview with Chalkbeat. “We have to both give them all the support they need but also hold them to high standards, and I just don’t feel like we’re doing that right now.”

What metrics would still be used?

Under the state’s proposal, schools will still be measured on English language proficiency (based on a state language exam for English learners), graduation rates, how well students are doing in core subjects based on Regents and state test scores, and chronic absenteeism. In New York City, chronic absenteeism has been a pressing issue, with 41% of students last school year absent for at least 10 school days.

What do state officials want to ditch (for now)?

The state wants to put a pause on measuring academic progress based on certain goals for student scores on state English and math tests.

State officials say they want to update these goals — first set in the 2017-18 school year — before they use them to determine whether schools are struggling.

The state’s proposed plan would also pause the use of “Measures of Interim Progress,” which more broadly measures whether schools are meeting goals for academics and other things, like their graduation rates.

For elementary and middle schools, officials want to pause how they’ve been measuring student growth, largely because of the lack of testing data. Typically, they calculated student growth using three years of testing data, but the pandemic caused big disruptions: For example, just one in five New York City children took state exams in the 2020-21 school year, when most children chose to learn from home.

For high schools, officials won’t consider college, career, and civic readiness metrics, which include advanced coursework or extra credentials in specialized jobs-based courses. That’s because the pandemic may have hampered students’ access to some of these programs or courses, officials said. They also worried that the pandemic’s impact on learning may have caused students to perform worse academically than they otherwise would have, such as on AP exams.

What will the state do with data, even if it’s not being used to evaluate schools?

State officials still plan to provide all of this data to schools for “informational purposes only” for the next two school years, they said.

Why do state officials want to exclude elementary school science exams and high school social studies assessments?

Science tests would be excluded because the state has changed who must take those exams. Traditionally, students in fourth and eighth grades take the state science test. However, only eighth graders took the test this school year, as the state prepares to offer the exam next year to fifth graders instead of fourth graders. That means they won’t be able to compare results equitably across elementary and middle schools that have different grade configurations.

Fifth graders will take the exam next spring. Asked why those scores won’t be taken into account for the 2024-25 school year, a spokesperson said that it allows districts to have “consistency and predictability” for now, as they attempt to rebuild the accountability system.

While calling it a “logical” move, Ed-Trust argued that excluding science tests “undermines the importance of science education” and worried schools will have less reason to focus on it. The organization suggested that the state should instead work with local districts to “ensure a smooth transition” to the new science assessments without entirely removing it as one way to measure student performance.

On the high school level, officials want to pause using social studies tests because of multiple exam cancellations in recent years. The state looks at cohorts of students, such as the graduating class of 2023, when considering how they performed on these tests, namely the Regents exams for Global History and Geography and U.S. History and Government.

But students who will graduate this year couldn’t take Regents exams in 2021, when they were in 10th grade, because of the pandemic. U.S. History and Government exams were also canceled last year, when these students were juniors, in the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, with the state education department claiming there was material on the exam that could “compound student trauma.”

State officials have emphasized that this plan “in no way diminishes” the importance of science or social studies instruction.

How will schools be labeled if they need support?

The lowest performing schools are known as schools in need of Comprehensive Support and Improvement, or CSI. But the state won’t list new CSI schools until the 2025-26 school year because they identified a group of such schools this year under a tweaked system, and that process only happens every three years, officials said.

A total of 139 New York City schools were identified this year as in need of some level of improvement, with 83% of them listed as CSI schools, according to state data.

However, New York will identify schools for Targeted Support and Intervention, or TSI, next year, which must happen annually per federal law. Those are schools that aren’t meeting goals set for specific student groups, such as by race, economic status, and those with disabilities.

In one recent — and perhaps confusing — change, schools that are meeting or exceeding their goals are no longer called “Schools in Good Standing” and instead are now labeled by the state as schools identified for Local Support and Improvement, or LSI.

What will happen for the 2025-26 school year?

State officials plan to revamp the accountability system for the 2025-26 school year after collecting feedback from the public. The new plan will also incorporate any changes to the state’s graduation requirements, which could come as soon as the end of this year. The education department is rethinking the role of Regents exams in graduation, among other considerations.

Pallas said that the plan for the 2025-26 school year and beyond would still have to meet federal ESSA requirements and earn the buy-in of school district leaders — meaning that it likely won’t be “a dramatic break from the past.”

“It’s gotta be something that feels progressive but also comfortable,” Pallas said.

Thomas Wilburn contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

PLACE-endorsed candidates win nearly 40% of seats on NYC’s parent councils

2023-06-17T00:26:37+00:00

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Candidates endorsed by a polarizing group that advocates for screened school admissions won the majority of seats on about half a dozen parent councils this year, according to election results released Friday by the New York City education department.

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, endorsed 147 candidates across the city for local district council seats, with 115 of them winning their races. The group’s preferred candidates will make up nearly 40% of the Community Education Council members across the five boroughs, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Established in 2019, PLACE supports the status quo when it comes to academic screening policies that have resulted in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. That includes keeping the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, and expanding gifted and talented programs. The group generally opposes lottery-based admissions and paring back screened admissions to the city’s middle and high schools.

The Community Education Councils, or CECs, have the power to approve or reject school rezoning plans, pass resolutions about various school-related issues, and work with district superintendents. The 32 councils, which each have 10 elected members and two appointed by the local borough president, hold monthly public meetings.

There are also citywide councils for high school students, English learners, students with disabilities, and those enrolled in the city’s District 75 programs, which serve children with the most challenging disabilities.

This was the second CEC election where voting was open to parents citywide. To many watching races across the city, this year’s elections seemed more divisive than ever, with some candidates localizing culture wars playing out across the nation. CEC 2 winner Maud Maron, who co-founded PLACE and was previously on the District 2 parent council, told THE CITY, “Land acknowledgements don’t teach anybody more math,” referring to lessons about Indigenous people who inhabited land before European colonialism.

With her victory Friday, Maron will again sit on a CEC that represents one of the most affluent swaths of Manhattan.

Some of PLACE’s ideas have found favor with schools Chancellor David Banks, such as expanding gifted and talented seats. The organization had Banks’ ear at the very start of his tenure, appearing on his schedule last March.

Some education advocates have grown concerned about PLACE’s influence, pointing to the views of some of their members, including comparing critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism, to Nazi ideology, as reported by THE CITY. Several candidates endorsed by the group backed away from that support during the election season.

PLACE wasn’t alone in endorsing candidates. A group called Parents for Middle School Equity, based in Brooklyn’s District 15 (which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and part of Sunset Park), appears to be ideologically opposed to PLACE. The group’s interest is in preserving the district’s middle school integration plan. But its influence fell far below PLACE’s: Less than a quarter of its endorsed candidates won seats across the city, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

A few districts appeared to be PLACE strongholds: Every person elected to the CEC in Brooklyn’s District 20, which spans Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, and part of Sunset Park, was endorsed by PLACE. All of the group’s preferred candidates also won seats on the CECs representing two large Queens districts — nine people in District 26 (which covers northeast Queens, including Bayside) and seven in District 28, where a controversial push to integrate its middle schools from Forest Hills to Jamaica was derailed by the pandemic.

Still, the Equity group’s preferred candidates outnumbered PLACE’s endorsed candidates in a handful of districts, including East Harlem’s District 4, Harlem’s District 5, Williamsburg’s District 14, and District 15.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that District 26 includes northeast Queens, including Bayside.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

College felt impossible to this student in foster care. Then NYC offered to pay.

2023-06-15T16:14:05+00:00

At the age of 16, Marowa, a Bangladeshi immigrant, entered New York City’s foster care system, after her parents had physically abused her for much of her life.

Two years and five foster homes later, Marowa fled to California to build a new life but returned to New York City by the age of 19, in search of stable housing and a familiar community. (Marowa said she does not have a legal last name.)

After she reluctantly re-entered foster care, a social worker asked Marowa if she knew that Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, could help her pay for college and other expenses.

“I was just thinking about surviving,” Marowa said. “I wasn’t really thinking about college.”

Last week — five years after that conversation — Marowa graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brooklyn College, with the help of the financial assistance that her social worker had described.

Marowa is one of 300 students who used the College Choice program this year to fund up to $15,000 of tuition, room and board, and $60 in daily stipends, according to ACS officials, who said that no eligible student who applied on time was turned away.

The program, announced in October, combined with other state and federal grants, covers all tuition and living expenses for these students. It was similar to other programs that preceded it when Marowa first entered college with some updates that aim to ease the burden on participants: College Choice doubles the daily student stipend and allows them to live on the same campus as where they go to school.

For the 2023-24 school year, the Adams administration has proposed keeping this $10 million initiative.

A more stable future for students in foster care

The program attempts to set up a stable future for students like Marowa, who might otherwise be unable to pay for college or incur student loan debt, even with federal and state grants. In New York City, the cost of higher education is not the only barrier: Last school year, 45% of students in foster care graduated from high school on time, compared with 84% of students not in foster care, according to state data. In 2019, before the pandemic and the loosening of certain graduation requirements, just one-quarter of youth in foster care graduated on time.

The city’s Fair Futures program, which advocates pushed the city to create in recent years, attempts to improve those graduation rates by linking students in foster care ages 11 to 26 with academic, career, and life coaching.

Even children who make it to college can find it financially impossible to stay enrolled, said Jess Dannhauser, commissioner for ACS. Dannhauser, who previously oversaw foster care agency Graham Windam, said he’d hear about students who dropped out of college because they couldn’t afford pricey textbooks or even doing laundry regularly.

“The things that came up both were expensive, and it was hard to be nimble to meet all those needs,” Dannhauser said of students’ experiences. “And it sends a message that they don’t belong there.”

In order to be eligible for College Choice, young people must currently be in foster care, earn a minimum GPA of 2.0, and apply for financial aid grants, such as the federal Pell Grant and New York State’s Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP.

Larger stipends and more places to live

Before Marowa used College Choice this year, there was “The Dorm Project,” which used a total of about $7 million to provide housing and tuition help to about 200 students in foster care last year who attended CUNY schools. ACS also provided $31 daily stipends to college students in foster care.

Marowa pictured on her graduation day at Brooklyn College.

College Choice ironed out a few wrinkles with the previous program, officials said. Unlike previous years, the program helps cover costs for students who attend any college, not just CUNY. Students also receive a $60 daily stipend — and will now receive that money for six months after graduation.

The old program provided year-round housing at certain CUNY dorms where the city had purchased space but not necessarily where students were attending school. In what felt like a particularly important change for children, College Choice allows them to live on the same campus where they’re enrolled.

“We heard from young people that they really wanted to live and go to school in the same place, that they wanted that choice, that they wanted to have the opportunity to go out of state,” said ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser in an interview. “And the College Choice program allows for that.”

The program is a positive start at helping students access college, but broadening the eligibility requirements would help many more students in need, said Chantal Hinds, a researcher focused on students in foster care at the Next100, a policy think tank based in New York City. Hinds noted that the program doesn’t benefit students who aren’t in foster care anymore but might still be struggling financially and mentally from their experience in the system.

She noted that Marowa could have been one of those teens had she not re-entered the foster care system after her time in California.

“If you’re in the foster system for a month or 12 years, you’re still impacted,” said Hinds, who was once an attorney for ACS. “There was still a significant portion of your life that was changed because of this experience.”

Marowa began receiving financial support through the old college aid programs and then switched over to College Choice this past school year, which meant her daily stipend doubled in size.

In college, Marowa changed majors twice before landing on English literature, which she fell in love with after being forced as a newcomer immigrant years ago to learn the language.

Marowa was one of the students who pushed ACS for better college assistance, and she continues to advocate on behalf of foster youth, both she and an ACS spokesperson said. She’s considering a teaching job offer, and has qualified for subsidized housing.

Once she becomes more financially stable, she’s hoping to fulfill a longtime dream: to become a foster mom.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC teachers union and Adams administration reach tentative deal on 5-year contract

2023-06-13T20:12:43+00:00

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New York City reached a deal with the teachers union for a five-year contract that includes annual raises, expands opportunities for virtual learning, and allows some remote work for certain employees, Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday.

The tentative deal for the United Federation of Teachers’ 115,000 full-time and 5,000 part-time education department employees includes 3% wage increases for the first three years, followed by a 3.25% increase in the fourth year, and 3.5% in the fifth year. The full contract would cost the city $6.4 billion, city officials said.

Starting salary for new teachers will jump from $61,070 to $72,349 by the end of the contract. In five years, the most experienced teachers will earn $151,271. The deal also proposes to cut in half the amount of time it takes teachers to reach a $100,000 salary — from 15 to eight years.

It also includes annual retention bonuses that will grow to $1,000 in 2026, for as long as an employee is an education department employee, and will be built into the system going forward. It’s the first time the union has negotiated such a payment, said Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, during a press conference announcing the deal.

“We’re saying to all of our titles and every member, whether you’re in the first year or your 25th year, New York City is saying that we appreciate you, we recognize the challenges that you take on every day and you will receive $1,000 every [year] for that,” Mulgrew said. [Mulgrew initially misspoke, and his statement has been clarified.]

The retention bonus is “a good strategy” for keeping teachers, said Melissa Arnold Lyon, assistant professor of politics and policy at the University of Albany, who has been following the UFT’s contract negotiations. Teacher turnover rates in New York City and elsewhere hit an unusual high after last school year, potentially exacerbated by the stresses of the pandemic.

“There are a lot of costs of trying to find and hire new teachers,” Lyon said. “If $1,000 helps you to keep a teacher, at least on the micro level, that’s worth it.”

The agreement is retroactive to Sept. 14, 2022, and runs through Nov. 28, 2027, city officials said. The wage increases follow the pattern of raises set by the February agreement with District Council 37, which includes cafeteria workers, parent coordinators, and crossing guards.

Many teachers expected that their union would follow suit and had expressed concerns given that the previous deals were not keeping pace with inflation, which has moderated somewhat in recent months but reached 6.5% last year. Teachers had complained that their responsibilities have only increased since the pandemic, as they continue to catch up students academically and socially from years of interrupted learning.

A virtual learning program to expand

The contract would expand a pilot remote learning project that allowed small schools to offer virtual courses — such as AP Chemistry — that they otherwise couldn’t because of staffing issues. This year, the program used federal funding to grow, reaching about 1,500 students across 58 schools, with 23 separate online courses outside traditional school hours.

Under the tentative deal, high schools, as well as schools that serve grades 6-12, could offer virtual courses after school and on the weekends starting in the next academic year, union officials said, though nothing would bar schools from creating tutoring programs, too. Those programs would be available to students who volunteer to participate, and would be staffed by volunteer teachers. A quarter of high schools would be allowed to participate next year, growing to all high schools by the 2027-28 school year. High schools must apply to participate, education officials said.

Courses might be offered at individual schools or through the central education department, and high schools must apply to participate, education officials said. Part-time remote teachers can apply to be part of their school-based remote program and work before or after the school day; there will also be full-time, centrally hired teachers for the other program.

Programs could vary, Gendar said. For example, a school could offer evening courses, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., for students who are missing classes because they’re working day jobs, she said.

Schools could offer non-traditional schedules for students and teachers who want them. If a teacher volunteers to work a virtual program in addition to their regular work day, they will be paid overtime, Gendar said.

During a press conference, schools Chancellor David Banks said the virtual learning agreement gives students more flexibility, noting that some benefited from remote learning during the pandemic.

“Students who were at risk of dropping out were able to continue their coursework on a schedule that works best for them,” Banks said of remote learning during the start of the pandemic. “This expands those types of opportunities across the entire system.”

The contract would also allow some employees, who don’t work directly in schools, to work remotely for up to two days a week. It was not immediately clear which employees that would include.

Another sticking point was over how teachers would get to spend an extra 155 minutes each week after school. The deal would allow them, as they did this year, to do professional development and parent outreach, and it added a new option for teachers to do other classroom work of their choice in that time.

Teachers have mixed feelings

The contract is not yet final. First, the union’s negotiating committee, composed of 500 members, along with its executive board and delegate assembly will decide whether to send the tentative deal to all union members for a vote. Union officials did not immediately provide dates for those votes.

Some teachers took to social media to criticize the deal, but pushing back against it could be an uphill battle. The union cannot easily pull off a work stoppage because a teachers strike would violate New York’s Taylor Law, which imposes significant financial penalties for public sector unions that strike.

Robert Effinger, a union chapter leader at the Bronx High School of Business, said the pay increases surpassed his expectations.

Although some educators hoped that the salary increases would exceed inflation, the union was hemmed in by the pattern set by unions that negotiated contracts earlier this year. But Effinger said he was glad to see the union negotiate a quicker path to higher pay, an issue he hopes will help retain more educators.

“One of the reasons people burn out in education is they feel like they’re doing a lot of labor that is not appropriately compensated,” he said. “Having an accelerated early track is better for keeping people in.”

Still, he said he’s eager to hear more details about other elements of the contract including increased teacher autonomy, a major part of the union’s campaign, which focused on burdensome paperwork requirements educators face.

The union plans to hold a virtual town hall for members on Thursday at 4 p.m.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

How to support LGBTQ students: New York education officials update guidance

2023-06-12T13:00:00+00:00

As some states pass anti-LGBTQ legislation, New York state education officials have moved in the opposite direction, issuing new guidance on Monday on how schools should support transgender and gender-expansive students.

The 42-page document includes a slew of information for schools, including the correct terminology to use for gender identity, or how to support students who are coming out at school or want to transition. It has information on students’ privacy rights — including in relation to their parents — and research about LGBTQ students’ experiences at school. It also outlines the laws that prohibit discrimination against students on the basis of their gender.

Many of these laws were created after the state’s initial guidance from 2015, said Kathleen DeCataldo, assistant commissioner of the state education department’s Student Support Service office. One of those laws is the GENDA Act, which in 2019 added gender identity and expression as a protected category to New York’s Human Rights Law.

The document also includes more information and resources for schools than the 2015 guidance. For example, the guidance released Monday includes 26 words schools should know in relation to LGBTQ students, such as misgendering. The older document had just eight words.

The document opens with results from a 2021 national survey conducted by Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, which found that nearly 82% of the LGTBQ student respondents reported feeling unsafe at school. More than two-thirds of those students said they felt unsafe was because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Two-thirds of the respondents said they heard homophobic remarks at school, and roughly 40% said they “often or frequently” heard transphobic words, such as “tranny” or “he-she.”

As other states pass laws that seek to curb the rights of LGBTQ people, officials in New York “understand the climate right now,” DeCataldo told Chalkbeat.

“That makes it even more important to be clear about what the law requires of schools, so this is the perfect time to really have this update,” she said.

As one of the first states to release guidance nearly a decade ago, New York was ahead of the curve on pushing schools to create safer spaces for LGTBQ students. But members of New York’s Democratic committee recently signaled that the state is not doing enough. In May, the committee passed a resolution that called for elected officials and the governor to create a statewide LGTBQ curriculum for public schools. Efforts to do so in the past have failed.

New York City’s education department has a social studies curriculum supplement that centers the voices of LGTBQ people. On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order that, among other things, prohibits the city from cooperating with out-of-state investigations into gender-affirming care.

State officials developed the new guidance with the help of a roughly 30-person advisory committee that included representatives from advocacy groups such as the New York Civil Liberties Union, or NYCLU, and the Trevor Project, which focuses on preventing suicide among LGBTQ youth.

Allie Bohm, policy counsel for NYCLU and advisory committee member, praised the committee’s array of voices, including parents of transgender youth, lawyers who work in this subject area, school psychologists, and adults who had the experience of transitioning as children. She was especially glad that state officials asked transgender students themselves about their experiences to help shape the updated guidance.

The document quotes some of those students anonymously. For example, one student shared that it took about eight months to get a legal name change at school. “They will let you put in a nickname in the system,” the student said, “but teachers never really use it, especially in the beginning of the year.”

The state’s guidance cites a 2016 study that says LGBTQ students who felt discriminated against for their sexual orientation and gender expression got worse grades than students who reported fewer instances of harassment. Those students were also roughly three times as likely to miss school.

Bohm said her organization hears about different ways schools across the state have discriminated against transgender youth, such as people who were told they couldn’t use a bathroom that matches their gender identity. It’s less common to hear examples in New York City but not unheard of, she said.

“This is a document that really, clearly says from the state’s highest education agency, ‘We see you,’ to trans youth, and, ‘We support you,’” Bohm said. “To feel like your state has your back is incredibly powerful.”

Creating this guidance may also mean that students might not have to constantly explain themselves, said Kraig Pannell, director of the Office of LGBTQ Services for New York’s state health department and another advisory member.

“Regardless of how you identify or regardless of what your gender expression is, if you have to go in and explain and teach somebody something, that gets burdensome,” Pannell said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools go remote Thursday for staff training as wildfire smoke engulfs region

2023-06-07T22:12:02+00:00

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New York City educators will not be expected to report to their buildings in person on Thursday, as wildfire smoke from Canada engulfed the region in a thick haze leading to the worst air pollution on record.

They will instead participate virtually in staff training on what’s known on the school calendar as “Anniversary Day/Chancellor’s Conference Day,” according to a text message the teachers union sent to its members on Wednesday.

Students were already scheduled to be off from school.

“The DOE, with our encouragement, is making Chancellor’s Conference Day tomorrow fully remote for all staff,” the text message said. (The union sends texts to teachers to let them know about cancellations and snow days.)

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks confirmed the move at a press conference alongside Mayor Eric Adams Wednesday evening.

The air quality index hit 484 at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Adams said. It was believed to be the highest index level since the 1960s.

Anything above 300 is considered hazardous, officials said. The index tops out at 500.

Adams encouraged all New Yorkers to remain indoors, if possible, especially elderly and younger children.

The decision to switch to remote staff training came after pressure from educators, who launched a petition, and Rita Joseph, a former teacher and leader of City Council’s education committee. City officials signaled earlier on Wednesday afternoon to prepare for a remote pivot, telling staff to bring materials and laptops home with them.

Still, some schools operate programs for children in partnership with community organizations on staff development days. Whether Department of Youth and Community Services-funded programs such as COMPASS, Beacon, and Cornerstone open on Thursday is up to the program’s discretion, city officials said. If they’re running, all activities should be indoors. The programs should check with their school partners about whether the building will be open. If it’s closed, these programs may offer remote activities, if they elect to do so.

Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated on Wednesday that the smoke could continue for days and described the situation as an “emergency crisis.”

Officials said they would make a decision on Thursday about Friday’s school schedules.

“We’re taking it day-by-day,” Banks said.

Elementary and middle school students were already scheduled to be off from school on Friday for “Clerical Day.” Students attending standalone District 75 schools, which serve children with more complex disabilities, also have the day off.

But thousands of students attending high school are scheduled to report to buildings on Friday.

The wildfire smoke has already disrupted some school programming. On Wednesday, city officials canceled outdoor school activities, including athletic competitions, recess, and field trips — a decision that was announced on Twitter just before midnight on Tuesday. Banks also postponed a town hall meeting in the Bronx.

Health officials have warned that the polluted air poses greater risks to young people, the elderly, and those with pre-existing breathing issues, such as asthma. Nearly 1 in 10 public school students in grades K-8 have “active asthma,” according to the city’s health department, though the rates are higher among Black and Latino students and disproportionately affect children living in low-income neighborhoods.

The city’s health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, said children may be susceptible to air pollution because their lungs are still developing. Officials urged residents to stay indoors.

“Right now, our health guidance to all New Yorkers is to limit outdoor activity as much as possible,” Vasan said. “For people who must be outdoors, a high quality mask like an N95, a KN95 or a KF94 is recommended.”

Vasan expressed concern for New Yorkers who were feeling rattled by the air pollution.

“If you feel anxious, if you feel worried, that’s totally understandable,” he said. He encouraged New Yorkers to call the 988 crisis hotline for help, if needed.

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC failed to provide full services to 9,800 preschool children with disabilities last year: report

2023-06-06T09:30:00+00:00

More than one-third of New York City’s preschool children with disabilities did not receive all of the extra support they’re entitled to in the last school year, according to a report released Tuesday morning.

The report, by advocacy organization Advocates for Children New York, analyzes the most recently available city data for the 2021-22 school year. The figure represents an increase from the 2020-21 school year, when 30% of children, or about 7,800, didn’t receive all of their required services.

The data means that a child may have received some of their required speech therapy, for example, but no required physical therapy — services that are spelled out in an individualized education program, or IEP.

Among the 9,800 children — or close to 37% — who didn’t receive all of their required services:

About 6,500 children who required speech therapy — or about a quarter of children who needed monolingual speech therapy and a third of children who required bilingual services.
Nearly 28%, or 5,300 children, who required occupational therapy.
About 2,000 children, or nearly 26%, who needed physical therapy.

The report showcases a yearslong problem with the city’s public preschool system, which serves 3- and 4-year-olds: Programs struggle to provide all children with the services they need, as they are legally required to do. Young children’s access to these services might be more crucial now, since some of these students may have missed out on necessary services as infants and toddlers early in the pandemic, like tens of thousands of kids nationally.

The greatest disparity in who received services was based on language: Sixty-nine percent of children who required only English instruction received their services, versus 53.5% of those who needed to be taught in another language.

The racial and socioeconomic disparities were smaller. While 69% of white students fully received services, the same was true for 67% of Hispanic children, 65.5% of Black children, and 62% of Asian children. Sixty-seven percent of permanently housed students received services, versus 61% of homeless children.

The city’s data might actually “significantly” underreport the problem, the report said. The education department considers a child “fully served” if they received at least one session of all of their required services, the report said.

“A child whose occupational therapist quits in November and is never replaced, or a preschooler who waits six months for mandated speech therapy to begin because the DOE is unable to find a provider, is not fully served from the perspective of their parents and teachers, but they are left out of the counts above,” the report said.

In December, Mayor Eric Adams vowed to open hundreds of additional seats for preschool children with disabilities to ensure that all children get the seats that they’re entitled to. Advocates have praised that commitment, but it already is being tested. While the city has opened 700 new seats this school year for students with more challenging disabilities, about 300 preschoolers are still waiting for a spot, the report noted.

Having access to seats is a perennial issue. Last year, just over 1,000 preschool children who required a small special education class did not have access to those seats by the end of last school year, according to the report.

“We agree with the concerns of our parents and advocates that for far too long students with disabilities were excluded from programming and services,” Nicole Brownstein, a spokesperson for the city’s education department, said in a statement. “This administration is committed to righting this wrong.”

But the city’s commitment to open more seats doesn’t address the ongoing shortage of staff who can provide extra required services for these children, one significant reason why children are missing out on services, said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates For Children. The city contracts with outside organizations to provide many of these services, so Advocates For Children is calling on Adams to spend another $50 million to increase pay for those service providers and hire their own staffers.

Brownstein noted that the education department has expanded its own teams who provide services to preschool children, including hiring an additional 24 speech therapists, 23 occupational itinerant therapists, and 12 physical therapists.

The $50 million request from Advocates For Children would also go toward speeding up evaluations for children, another weak area the report cited. Nearly 16% of children, or 1,974, who were eligible for preschool special education services waited more than 60 days — the legal deadline — for a meeting to determine what extra services they should receive, according to the organization. That’s a similar rate to last school year.

Over the last three years, the education department has opened 21 Preschool Regional Assessment (PRAC) teams, which provide evaluations in addition to state-approved agencies that the city contracts with. This school year, staffers on PRAC teams had the option of working overtime, allowing more students to get evaluated — something they plan to do again next school year, officials said.

Still, education department officials said there are not enough agencies to meet the evaluation needs of preschool students, as more children have been referred for services since the pandemic. They plan to work with city, state, and federal government officials to ensure there’s enough funding to link students with necessary services.

While data for this school year is not yet available, the organization reported that it’s received many calls from families who have struggled to access services for their young children. One of those calls was from Terese, a mother in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn who asked to use her first name only for privacy reasons.

Her 4-year-old son required the help of a special education itinerant teacher, or an SEIT, who helps children like hers with disabilities inside of a general education preschool class. But in February, that teacher left her son’s preschool with no replacement.

Terese spent a month emailing the main special education contact in her district about a replacement teacher with no response, even taking days off work to deal with the issue, she said. Meanwhile, her son was talking less at home.

“The teacher started reporting to me that he was not communicating in the classroom,” Terese said.

Terese’s problem was not unique. According to the report, roughly 1,300 preschoolers, or nearly one in five children did not have an SEIT all last school year, even though their IEP required one.

Eventually Terese contacted Advocates For Children, which advised her to lodge a complaint through 311. After that, a special education official with her district responded, blaming the lack of a teacher on a staffing shortage. By mid-May, her son once again had an SEIT, she said.

“I felt all alone,” Terese said. “The DOE just left me to fend for myself with my child with special needs.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s 2023-24 school calendar is out, and many teachers aren’t happy

2023-06-02T19:12:26+00:00

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The wait is over: New York City’s 2023-24 school calendar is live.

The first day of classes will be Thursday, Sept. 7, according to the calendar posted on Friday. Teachers are expected to report two days before that, education department officials said.

The state requires a minimum of 180 instructional days, but this year’s calendar has 182 days for students since several holidays fall on weekends. Under the teachers union contract, however, the end date remains unchanged. (Next year, the last day of school is Wednesday, June 26.) Because of this, many teachers are complaining about having to work more days than usual.

Families and educators across the five boroughs have been eagerly awaiting news on the calendar, expressing frustration with the delay. Last year’s calendar was released slightly earlier, on May 31.

Before the pandemic, New York City’s school calendar was released in March or April. Other school districts that start after Labor Day approved their calendars in March, including Newark, Philadelphia, and Boston.

*angry mob outside of Tweed returns home* https://t.co/lupNYRE4ey
— Nathaniel Styer (@necs) June 2, 2023

Here are some other calendar quirks to be aware of:

Unlike in some years that are filled with days off in September, the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah falls on a weekend, so the only day off that first month is for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur on Monday, Sept. 25.
As in this school year, Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7, is a day off for kids. (The year before that, students were supposed to be learning remotely that day.)
Veterans Day falls on Saturday, Nov. 11, so will not be observed as a school holiday.
There’s been a push to make Diwali a school holiday, but that holiday — observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists — falls on Sunday, Nov. 12, so it wouldn’t overlap with school regardless. (The state legislature has yet to approve that.)
Winter recess is from Monday, Dec. 25, until Monday, Jan. 1.
Lunar New Year once again falls on a weekend, on Saturday, Feb. 10, so there’s no day off for that holiday.
There will be days off sprinkled through spring for various holidays: Schools will be off for Good Friday on March 29 and for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr on Wednesday, April 10. Spring break, which coincides with Passover, is from Monday, April 22, to Friday, April 26. Schools are open for last two days of Passover, however, and some educators are worried that those who observe may have to take extra time off. (Education department officials said spring break doesn’t always cover the entire Passover holiday.) Some teachers also were upset about not having off for Holy Thursday and Easter Monday.
Similar to this year, schools will be closed for students on Thursday, June 6, and Friday, June 7 for “Anniversary Day” and “Clerical Day.”
Eid al-Adha falls on Sunday, June 16, so it will not be a day off for schools.

Under New York State law, federal holidays that fall on a Sunday are observed the following Monday, but if they fall on a Saturday, they are not observed on a weekday. When holidays that New York City schools observe but are not federal holidays fall on a weekend — such as Rosh Hashanah, Lunar New Year, and Eid al-Adha — students do not get a day off during the week.

The city is continuing its practice of going remote for snow days, though this year, the lack of snow meant no cancellations.

Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew expressed concern about the calendar in an email to his members, saying that the education department released it without having completed negotiations about how teachers should use extended time during the week. In recent years, they used an extra 155 minutes each week for professional development and family engagement. Without an agreement in place, Mulgrew said, that time will revert back to a prior agreement of using 37.5 minutes on tutoring or small group work after school on Monday through Thursday.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s literacy mandate: Why one reading program is gaining the most traction

2023-05-31T10:00:00+00:00

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Under NYC’s aggressive literacy push announced earlier this month, officials are mandating all elementary schools use one of three reading curriculums.

One is proving to be far more popular than the others.

Thirteen of 15 local superintendents charged with selecting their districts’ reading curriculum in this first phase of the rollout picked Into Reading, a program published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The education department vetted all three of the mandated reading programs, including Wit & Wisdom and EL Education, officials said. And all three received high marks from the independent curriculum reviewer EdReports.

So why is Into Reading far and away the most popular option among superintendents?

Curriculum experts and department insiders pointed to a series of interlocking factors that may have helped Into Reading elbow out the competition. The program is widely perceived as easier for teachers to implement, especially with little time remaining before deploying it in September. Plus, Into Reading has a Spanish version, which may appeal to superintendents who oversee many dual-language and bilingual programs.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt may have also benefited from a savvy marketing strategy, current and former department employees said. When the pandemic forced school buildings to shutter in March 2020, the company quickly made a slew of free digital materials available to the city’s public schools, including Into Reading and its Spanish counterpart.

“It was a huge help. We were able to make sure that schools had the digital resources they needed during remote learning and hybrid learning,” said a current education department employee familiar with the city’s literacy efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Within two years, the education department had added Into Reading to its approved list of curriculum offerings. That meant if principals choose Into Reading, the cost was subsidized, though they were still free to use their own budgets to purchase other curriculums.

“Houghton Mifflin made a strategic decision during the pandemic and they hoped it would pay off,” the official said. “And it did.”

EL Education, one of the other programs included in the new mandate, was also on the approved list at the time. All three curriculums covered by the new curriculum mandate, including Wit & Wisdom, will be similarly subsidized.

A spokesperson for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt downplayed its decision to make materials free as a key driver of superintendents’ decisions to mandate their product. “There were already hundreds of schools across the city using HMH reading resources,” Bianca Olson, a company spokesperson, wrote in an email. “These partners have seen strong results and they want to continue that momentum in support of student achievement.”

A city education department spokesperson noted that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was one of more than a dozen vendors that provided free digital resources during the pandemic. But officials have generally not collected or published comprehensive curriculum data over time, making it difficult to ascertain the full impact of the company’s strategy.

The education department also declined to say how much they are projected to spend on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt materials and training now that Into Reading is being widely mandated, saying they are still working on creating cost estimates.

Focus turns to ‘science of reading’

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s move to make its materials free came at an opportune moment. Before the pandemic struck, many schools were already in the process of reconsidering their reading curriculum choices, multiple curriculum experts said, pressured in part by a small army of literacy coaches dispatched to schools.

A growing movement backed by years of research, known as the “science of reading,” was persuading more school leaders to back away from “balanced literacy” — an approach that sought to foster a love of literature by allowing students ample time to independently read books of their choosing. It also sometimes included dubious methods, such as encouraging students to use pictures to guess at a word’s meaning instead of focusing on the letters and sounds themselves.

“Every school that I was in was in the midst of changing,” said Heidi Donohue, an early literacy expert at Teaching Matters, an organization that works with city schools to improve reading and math instruction. “They were really talking about, ‘Is the curriculum high-quality? Is it meeting the needs of our kids?’”

More recently, schools Chancellor David Banks has declared that balanced literacy is not an effective approach, often singling out a curriculum developed by Lucy Calkins at Columbia University’s Teachers College — one of the most popular reading curriculums in the city’s public schools. (Heinemann, the publisher of Calkins’ curriculum, is also a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.)

NYC Chancellor David Banks stands at a podium, with Mayor Eric Adams standing off to the left at Tweed Courthouse on June 27, 2022.

Some observers said they were not surprised that Into Reading has become a popular choice in New York City, since it is also widely used elsewhere. An Education Week survey found that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s reading offerings are among the five most popular early reading programs in the country, in large and small districts alike.

Others emphasized that its lessons may seem easier to unpack: Donohue noted that many lesson plans from the teachers manual can fit on two pages. Experts also said Into Reading has common DNA with curriculums that schools have used for years that are structured as anthology-style textbooks with passages written specifically to teach reading skills. (In education jargon, those programs are often referred to as “basals.”)

“A basal-type program is going to have much more structure in the teaching, in the lesson plan itself,” said Esther Friedman, who directed the city education department’s literacy efforts until 2020. Although Friedman said the other two programs also have detailed teacher guides, Into Reading may feel “a little bit more manageable.”

In Brooklyn’s District 16, which covers a large chunk of Bedford-Stuyvesant, teachers got a head start. About two years ago, nearly all of the district’s elementary schools adopted Into Reading, and the new superintendent, Brendan Mims, plans to keep the program in place.

Even though the district’s schools have already used Into Reading, Mims said there’s still room for improvement. “We haven’t hit that bar yet,” he said, in terms of implementing it as effectively as he thinks is possible. He’s hopeful that a more centralized approach to training will help. “Now, teachers and principals and district staff can work together to make sure that they’re getting what they need,” he said.

No curriculum checks every box

Into Reading has the potential to reshape reading instruction across hundreds of elementary school classrooms. That number could grow as more than half of superintendents aren’t implementing the curriculum mandate until September 2024.

Curriculum experts offered mixed feelings about the popularity of Into Reading. Nearly all said that it has many strong elements, including challenging readings, and a broad array of lessons that build vocabulary, spelling, and grammar skills.

But some also said in an effort to sell the curriculum to the widest array of districts, Into Reading is jam-packed with different strategies and resources, similar to other anthology-style programs. That will require teachers to be selective about which lessons to teach.

“Teachers really have to plan for this, and they have to understand that they’re not going to use all of the resources,” Merryl Casanova, a literacy coach who works with schools in the Bronx, previously told Chalkbeat.

Donohue, of Teaching Matters, said the program can be used effectively, but there are also elements of it that feel “watered down.” She said the texts and vocabulary tend to be slightly less challenging, and the other two curriculums include deeper student discussions and units with more sophisticated themes.

The other two programs “bring a higher quality of text and expectation for kids,” Donohue said. A New York University report also found that Into Reading materials are not culturally responsive, though Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has disputed that characterization and some educators told Chalkbeat the materials do speak to the diversity of New York City’s student body.

Other observers said that EL Education and Wit & Wisdom are somewhat more focused on exposing students to nonfiction in an effort to boost their background knowledge of topics they’re likely to encounter in the future, a strategy meant to boost students’ ability to understand texts about a wide range of subjects.

Still, experts emphasized that all three curriculums come with tradeoffs. And much of the success of the literacy mandate may rest on whether educators buy into the changes — which can be tricky given there was not a public input process. The quality of the training they receive is also critical to the program’s success.

“Really none of the three [curriculums] give a teacher all of the tools for teaching what needs to be taught,” Friedman said. “That has to come from the professional development.”

With just over three months until the next school year begins, there is limited time to fully prepare.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Diwali gains support to become a school holiday in New York and across the U.S.

2023-05-26T19:30:03+00:00

Efforts to make Diwali a New York state and federal holiday gained traction this week.

Such a change, which many of New York’s Indian Americans have hoped for, would impact school calendars every fall.

On Thursday, New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said his chamber plans to pass legislation that would make Diwali a state holiday. Also known as the “festival of lights,” Diwali is observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists as a celebration of light over darkness and good over evil.

Heastie said he expects the bill to pass before the end of the legislative session on June 8. The legislation also designates Lunar New Year as a holiday. (New York City schools already recognize Lunar New Year, though schools did not observe the holiday this year because it fell on a weekend. Absences were excused for children who celebrated on the following Monday, the education department told NY1.)

There is no set annual date for Diwali; it is dictated by a lunar calendar and falls in October or November. (The holiday falls on Sunday, Nov. 12 this year.)

“It is important to recognize New York’s rich and diverse culture,” Heastie, a Democrat from the Bronx, wrote in a tweet.

And on Friday, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat who represents Queens, announced legislation that would make Diwali the nation’s 12th federal holiday. She was joined by many local officials, including New York City Council member Shekar Krishnan, the council’s first Indian American legislator, and schools Chancellor David Banks, who called the effort a “righteous fight.”

“The diversity of our city and country is what strengthens us, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the members of our community who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists,” Banks said during Meng’s press conference. “And I think it’s really important that we show them through our actions that we value their heritage, not just with words and lip service.”

New Yorkers have pushed for years to make Diwali a school holiday along with other religious holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Eid al-Fitr. While the U.S. Census Bureau does not ask people what religion they practice, the agency estimated in 2021 that roughly 262,000 Indian Americans lived in the five boroughs. (That figure may include people who practice religions that don’t recognize Diwali and, inversely, could be missing people without Indian heritage who celebrate Diwali.)

Officials have so far declined to recognize Diwali. One complicating factor: The state requires districts to offer at least 180 days a year of instruction.

Mayor Eric Adams vowed on the campaign trail to make Diwali an official school holiday. Once in office, however, Adams and Banks decided in October to support state legislation that would make Diwali a school holiday in New York City by getting rid of Anniversary Day, or Brooklyn-Queens Day, which children get off in June.

It’s still unclear how state legislation would impact school calendars and whether it would compel employers to add it to their list of company holidays.

Heastie said the Assembly is still talking to “stakeholders as to how this affects the school year calendar.” A spokesperson for his office did not immediately respond to offer more information about the legislation they plan to pass or whether they expect the Senate to approve.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s Summer Rising program rejected 45,000 applicants, launching scramble for child care

2023-05-24T21:50:38+00:00

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Roughly 45,000 children have been shut out of New York City’s free, popular summer program, education department officials said this week.

The program, which runs between six to seven weeks for most students, provides academics during the morning and enrichment activities in the afternoon for children in grades K-8 across the five boroughs from July to August.

Like last year, a total of 110,000 seats were available this year, with a portion held open for students mandated to attend summer school. During a City Council hearing this week, the education department’s Chief Operating Officer Emma Vadehra said there are 94,000 seats available for 139,000 applicants. Officials initially reported that 30,000 families did not receive spots.

It’s possible that some of the rejected applicants will have to attend the program anyway for academic reasons and will get a seat that has been set aside. Still, many of those families, who were notified earlier this month that they didn’t get seats, are likely scrambling to find summer programs for their children before the school year ends on June 27.

“The basic challenge is that demand outstripped supply pretty dramatically,” Vadehra told City Council members. “And so there’s different ways that could have looked, but we just didn’t have enough seats in the program for the number of kids and families that really wanted this program despite the fact that it is the largest summer program we’ve had – and the largest in the country.”

Two of those unsuccessful applicants were Alejandra Perez’s 5- and 10-year-old sons, who should have been prioritized for seats because they attend an after-school program run by the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, through a community-based organization that helps oversee Summer Rising.

Perez, a lifelong East Harlemite, paid $2,250 last summer for six weeks of child care, which she can barely afford again this year.

But in mid-May, about three weeks after applying, she was informed via email that her sons, who attend a charter school in East Harlem, didn’t get in. While she can probably rely on a relative to care for her older son, she is scrambling to find free or affordable care for her 5-year-old.

“I am still trying to find a program,” she said. “By the act of God, maybe I’ll get an email like, ‘Hey, we found you a spot!’”

Some children with priority did not get spots

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio established the program two years ago with federal relief dollars as the city clawed its way out of the pandemic, attempting to provide children with a bridge back to school after remote learning. It differs from summer programs in the past: It’s open to any child, including those in charters and private school, not just those who are mandated to attend summer school.

The program, though bumpy with its initial roll out, has grown in popularity. This year, city officials made a couple of key changes to the application process. While still open to the same number of children, applicants were allowed to rank choices for Summer Rising sites instead of the first come, first served process last year. Additionally, students who attend after-school programs subsidized through the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, or DYCD, were supposed to be prioritized for seats, like Perez’s children. That’s in addition to students living in temporary housing, children in foster care, and children with disabilities who must have services year round.

Perez had ranked three Summer Rising sites close to her home. Perez said the application did not ask if her kids were in an after-school program. According to an education department spokesperson, Perez’s children didn’t receive a spot because there was likely a lot of demand at the sites she chose.

When she asked someone from the after-school program why her sons didn’t get into Summer Rising, they didn’t have an answer — except that none of the kids in the program who applied got in, Perez said. (A representative for their SCAN-Harbor Beacon after-school program did not return a request for comment.)

During the City Council hearing this week, officials said that just over half of the seats that have been filled went to students in the priority groups. Of those, 29,000 spots went to students who were in DYCD-run after-school programs, 16,000 went to students in temporary housing, 3,000 seats to children with 12-month individualized education programs, or IEPs, and another 1,000 to students in foster care. (Last year, Summer Rising had 12,000 students in temporary housing, 2,700 students with 12-month IEPs and 1,000 students in foster care.)

New seats won’t be added, but filled seats might open up

Vadehra said they’re not planning to add seats — emphasizing that this program is being supported by federal dollars that are set to run out next year — and there is no wait list for seats. But they are expecting an unspecified number of spots to open up, either because fewer students will be mandated to attend summer school or because families may decline a seat they’ve been offered. The education department is working with DYCD to figure out how to make families aware of empty seats in June and how they can apply for those, she said.

In the meantime, parents are scrambling to find options that seem few and far between — and too pricey.

Perez’s rejection email from the education department included a link to other DYCD programs that might be available. She said she has called every local community-based organization near her home for some type of programming with no luck.

“At this point I am just emailing everyone,” she said.

Tia Jackson, who lives in Central Harlem, knew she would potentially need to scramble for summer options if her son didn’t get into Summer Rising, so she signed him up for a YMCA program near her home. Her planning came in handy: Her son did not get a Summer Rising seat.

While he doesn’t fall into any of the priority groups, her son, who is autistic, also has an individualized education program. The YMCA program has staff who can assist him if he needs extra support, Jackson said. She will be reimbursed up to $2,250 for summer care expenses through the state’s Office of People With Developmental Disabilities, but that only ensures four weeks of summer programming for her son. He’s planning to visit his aunt in Florida for one week, and she will pay out of pocket for child care for an additional week.

She feels thankful for having a “Plan A and Plan B.”

“I feel like the way they rolled out the program to start was very late, and it wasn’t the best for working parents, typically because when you think about summer camps most applications for summer camp start in February and March,” she said. “We didn’t get the Summer Rising notification until April.”

The department spokesperson did not explain the timing of the Summer Rising application, except to say there are several factors that impact the timeline.

Both of Loretta Bencivengo’s children got into Summer Rising last year, likely because she submitted her application as soon as it opened during the previous first come, first served model. This year they didn’t get spots, said Bencivengo, who lives in Windsor Terrace.

The most affordable alternate option she’s found so far is with the local YMCA for a $5,000, eight-week program for both of her children, which she equated to two months of rent. Many places don’t have space this late in the spring, she said.

“All those slots are filled up in January and February,” she said of private programs. “If that’s the case, why not put this application out in November and December so that you can open an appropriate amount of slots?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC won’t slash school budgets at first, but mid-year cuts are still possible

2023-05-22T22:33:01+00:00

New York City schools won’t have to brace for budget cuts next school year — at least at first.

All schools will receive the same amount of money or more at the start of the 2023-24 academic year as they did this year despite some of the “fiscal challenges” facing the city, Chancellor David Banks announced on Monday during a City Council hearing about the education department’s proposed budget for next fiscal year.

But school budgets may not need the extra cushion this year. Unlike the significant drops over the past few years, the education department is projecting enrollment to largely hold steady next year, dipping by less than 1%

The move represents a shift from what happened last summer, when budget cuts tied to declining enrollment, sparked severe backlash, including a lawsuit, and forced schools to shrink staff and programming.

It also comes as Mayor Eric Adams has proposed cutting the education department’s budget by 3% next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That $30.5 billion budget is expected to include less spending on fringe benefits and cut a previously announced expansion of preschool for 3-year-olds.

The decision to start the new school year with steady budgets, however, doesn’t mean schools are completely immune from cuts. Banks said the city hasn’t yet decided whether schools will see cuts during what’s known as the “mid-year adjustment”— a practice put on pause this year using $200 million in federal COVID relief dollars.

Schools get money in the summer based on the city’s enrollment projections, and when the final tallies are taken on Oct. 31, schools could lose money mid-year if they’ve enrolled fewer students than projected — or get extra money if they have more children.

“If a school has 500 students, but by the middle of the year, they’ve dropped down to 200 students, we’re not going to make the commitment today to say, ‘No matter what, there’ll be no adjustment even at that point,’” Banks said during the hearing.

That might leave some school leaders with tough decisions. While principals might get the same amount of money as last year, they may be hesitant to hire more teachers or create more programming in anticipation of losing money during the school year.

One the one hand, some city principals said they understand the city’s desire to bring funding more in line with enrollment to avoid big disparities in per-student spending between schools.

“There are schools that are serving many fewer students than they were five years ago, and the city can’t afford to just fund those schools endlessly,” said a Brooklyn principal who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

But on the other hand, the principal wishes that the education department would make it easier for schools to plan by promising budgets will not be cut more than a certain percentage in a given year rather than having to make educated guesses.

And even if a school does not have to return money later in the year, it can be difficult to use before the spending deadline, especially to hire staff. If a school has an unexpected surplus in January, “all of a sudden there’s a spending spree and it’s not effective and efficient,” the principal said. “It doesn’t help to get money in November or January if you needed to hire a teacher in September.”

Schools are expected to receive their budgets by the end of this month, said Emma Vadehra, chief operating officer for the education department. When principals receive those budgets, Vadehra said, they might notice cuts to individual funding streams, such as Fair Student Funding, which is the city’s main school funding formula. (Schools with higher needs and higher enrollment get more money under the formula.)

Such drops will be backfilled with “other funding streams” to hold budgets steady, Vadehra said. However, officials did not clarify how schools will be able to use those funds. While Fair Student Funding can be used to hire teachers, money from other pots can sometimes be restricted for other uses.

The education department plans to use funding from multiple sources to keep budgets level at the start of the school year, Vadehra said. That includes a $160 million in federal stimulus funds that had been announced previously, as well as money from the state, which has boosted dollars for districts through its own school funding formula, known as Foundation Aid.

Several council members raised concerns about education department programs that are relying on expiring federal stimulus dollars, including preschool programming and expanded summer programming. Vadehra acknowledged that the education department does not yet have a plan on how to fund these initiatives once the money runs out in 2024.

“This is a major challenge,” Banks said to council members. “I mean, there’s a lot of great programs — even as we came on board — that have been built off of access to these stimulus dollars. The stimulus dollars are going away. We’re going to have to work very closely together to try to figure this out.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s 2023-24 school calendar delay frustrates families and educators

2023-05-22T20:15:31+00:00

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Many parents and educators are asking: Why isn’t New York City’s 2023-24 school calendar out yet?

The first day of school is typically the Thursday after Labor Day (which would be Sept. 7). But as families try to plan for the coming year, frustrations are rising without confirmation of opening day or other holidays.

Last year, the education department released the calendar on May 31. Officials declined to answer questions about when they’ll share the new calendar.

“The calendar has been pretty static for years now, so I don’t understand what the hold up is,” said Nelli Stoller, a Brooklyn mom of a fifth grader and a ninth grader. Though families can assume the start of school as well as winter break and mid-winter recess, they can’t be certain, she said, and the hold up could make trips more difficult and expensive to plan.

One thing that’s likely: There will be fewer disruptions at the start of the school year, with the two-day Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah occuring on a weekend. Though the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur will fall on a Monday, Sept. 25. But some questions remain for what spring break in 2024 will look like as Easter falls on March 31, Eid al-Fitr is celebrated on April 10, and Passover begins on April 22.

Before the pandemic, the education department released the calendar much earlier. For the 2018 and 2019 school years, the calendar was posted in April. Prior to that, the calendar had been out in March.

New York City’s start date is among the latest in the nation, but other districts that start after Labor Day approved their calendars in March, including Newark, Philadelphia, and Boston. Chicago’s calendar for next school year, which starts at the end of August, was finalized in February.

.@NYCSchools @NYCMayor @GovKathyHochul @UFT pretty please - we are BEGGING you for the NYC school calendar, so we can plan our lives, and not live in chaos w/everything up in the air. Thank you from every single parent, grandparent and caregiver of a NYC student.
— Diana Preisler (@Diana_Preisler) May 18, 2023

The first day of school is based on the teachers union contract. A new contract is currently being negotiated.

Traditionally, teachers use the two days after Labor Day to plan before welcoming their new students. In many other school districts, teachers start much earlier than their students — and some educators here wish that New York City could follow suit, especially as many elementary schools in 15 districts will have to begin implementing new reading programs.

“If we had all the money in the world, we would be able to pay teachers to come in a week or two earlier than they do right now … and receive the kind of intense literacy training that they’re all craving,” Darlene Cameron, principal of Manhattan’s STAR Academy, said at a Chalkbeat panel on literacy in August. “It can be challenging to have the amount of time that needs to be dedicated to providing that kind of training, and I think administrators could also use that kind of training and support.”

The state requires 180 instructional days. The city is expected to continue its practice of going remote for snow days, though this year, the lack of snow meant no cancellations.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school suspensions spike 27% during the first half of the school year

2023-05-19T23:01:29+00:00

New York City public schools issued significantly more suspensions during the first half of this school year, according to long overdue department statistics.

Between July and December 2022, schools issued just over 10,600 suspensions — 27% more than the same period in 2021. The number is about 6% higher than in 2019 just before the pandemic hit, even though the number of K-12 students has declined over 10%.

Drilling down into the data, principal suspensions — which last five days or fewer — jumped by about 29%. Superintendent suspensions, which stretch longer than five days, and are served at outside suspension sites, spiked by 21%. (The figures do not include charter schools.)

Before the pandemic hit, suspensions were on a downward trajectory, owing in part to a slew of policy changes that made it more difficult to exclude students from classrooms. When COVID forced the city’s school buildings to shutter, suspensions mostly stopped.

Last school year — the first time students were required to attend school in person since March 2020 — suspensions ticked back up but remained far short of pre-pandemic levels. That surprised some student discipline experts, who expected a larger increase given widespread concerns about student mental health and students’ ability to reacclimate to regular classroom rules.

Educators may have been more reluctant to exacerbate learning loss after years of pandemic schooling. Skyrocketing rates of chronic absenteeism and declining enrollment may have also played a role, as there were simply fewer students in school buildings to suspend.

Social distancing rules could have made physical confrontations, which may lead to suspensions, less likely. Suspensions are disproportionately issued to Black students, and teachers may have tempered suspensions in the wake of the racial reckoning after George Floyd’s murder.

Whatever the cause of the decline after the pandemic, suspensions are now ticking back up, mirroring educator reports across the country of more disruptive student behavior. Local data for the full school year, including demographic breakdowns, will not be available until later this year.

The uptick in suspensions raised concern among some discipline reform advocates.

“That is a huge problem that the city is choosing to increase the use of punitive and exclusionary approaches,” said Dawn Yuster, director of the School Justice Project at the nonprofit group Advocates for Children. “We are in the midst of a youth mental health crisis and we know our young people are literally crying out for more support.”

Jenna Lyle, an education department spokesperson, emphasized that the use of suspensions have generally declined over the last decade.

“We are continuously focused on equipping schools with the resources they need to address any issues in a positive, supportive, and less punitive manner, including through implementation of restorative practices,” she wrote.

Under city law, the education department’s mid-year suspension report is due by the end of March. Despite multiple requests, education department officials did not provide the suspension report for weeks. Lyle did not answer a question about why the city did not provide the figures within the required timeframe, a deadline the city regularly met before the pandemic.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC drafts plan to shrink class sizes, but changes won’t start next school year

2023-05-19T22:43:25+00:00

Many education advocates cheered when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law last September a five-year plan to reduce class sizes in New York City’s public schools.

For the first year, however, the city’s education department plans to make no changes, according to a draft plan shared with reporters on Friday.

Under that plan — which is supposed to spell out how the city will meet the law’s new requirements — class sizes will remain the same in September. That’s because the education department says that enough of its core classes — an average 39% — for K-12 exceed the requirements in the law for the first year of the plan. (The plan only affects city-run schools, not charters.)

But, for future school years, education department officials are bracing for some big expenses to comply with the law. They estimate it will cost $1.3 billion a year for new teachers when the plan is fully implemented as well as about $30-$35 billion in capital expenditures to construct new spaces or reconfigure old ones.

The education department said it would gather feedback from the public and educators to determine the best way to shrink class sizes by 2028, when state law requires that the entire school system meet the new requirements.

The city teachers union — one of the entities that must approve the plan — blasted the education department’s effort, emphasizing that they will work with the state to ensure the city “fulfills its obligations” of the law.

“Meeting the new class size standards is going to require a real plan — and so far, the DOE hasn’t managed to create one,” said teachers union president Michael Mulgrew in a statement. “This document is missing a strategy for implementation and a targeted proposal for where and when new seats should be built.”

Education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer responded in a statement that the draft was created after consulting “extensively” with the unions, and they will continue to be able to share feedback.

“The tradeoffs involved in implementation are too important to be made behind closed doors and our entire community must be involved in informing these decisions,” Styer said.

The education department will begin collecting public comment on the plan, which is posted online, in June. Within two weeks of the end of that process, officials must submit the plan to the state education department for approval.

Here are seven things to know:

What are the new class-size caps?

Kindergarten through third grade should have no more than 20 children.

From grades four through eighth, classes should have no more than 23 students, while students in ninth through 12th grades can have up to 25 students.

That’s down from a previous cap of 25 students for kindergarten, and 32 students in the rest of elementary school grades, according to the teachers union contract agreement. Middle and high schools were supposed to be capped previously at 33 and 34 students, respectively, with a 30-student limit in Title 1 middle schools (where at least 60% of students are from low-income families).

What will change next year in terms of class-size reductions?

Nothing. State law requires 20% of the city’s classrooms be in compliance with the new state law each year, reaching 100% by 2028. According to the education department, an average 39% of classes meet the new requirements, meaning they expect to meet the state’s requirements for next school year. This includes elementary school homerooms, where children receive their core instruction, and core subject classes for grades 6-12 — meaning math, science, social studies, and English courses, including gifted and talented, integrated co-teaching, which includes a mix of students with and without disabilities, and accelerated courses.

Ninety-one percent of performing arts and gym courses are in compliance.

In year two, 40% of classes must comply, then 60% and 80% until the final year when all classes are expected to meet the targets (unless they get exemptions).

How will the education department shrink class sizes by 2028?

We don’t know the details yet, but the education department offered some clues in its plan.

From May to October, the education department plans to meet regularly with a working group that it convened this spring to gather feedback on how to meet the law’s new requirements.

Officials wrote that they will identify additional classrooms for space; work with the city’s School Construction Authority on the next capital plan, which lays out building plans for the school system; and would focus on high-poverty schools not meeting requirements, as required by the law.

Starting in November, officials will begin changing policies “and reprioritization of programming” in order to meet the class-size mandates. Officials did not immediately explain what sort of policies or programs would change. But before the law passed, Chancellor David Banks warned that the law could mean a cut in school services or programming because of the cost of creating more classes.

Who will be exempt from the class-size law?

Any exemptions must be approved by the chancellor, as well as the heads of the teachers union and the union representing principals and other administrators. Disagreements will head to arbitration, the law mandates.

Schools might be exempt because of space limitations, but the education department will have to show that they are working to resolve the issue through their capital budget plan. Schools that are overenrolled or ones in which they would face severe economic hardship to comply might get exemptions. (The plan offered no other information on this.) There might be exemptions for schools where they have insufficient numbers of teachers in subjects that are hard to fill, like bilingual math; the teachers union can negotiate higher class sizes for electives and specialty classes if the majority of a school’s staff approves the increase.

Does the law prioritize any particular schools in regards to meeting the new class-size mandates?

The law requires the education department to start with schools with high shares of students living in poverty. In its plan, the education department said that schools with the highest numbers of low-income students are more likely to have smaller class sizes.

Fifty-nine percent of classes meet the new requirements at schools with the most students from low-income families, according to education department data shared in the plan. In contrast, schools with the fewest students living in poverty have just 23% of classes meeting the new requirements.

Where else are schools more — or less — likely to meet the class-size mandates?

Schools with larger classes also hew closely to racial demographics. Roughly 54% of classes already meet the class-size targets at schools with the highest percentage of Black students compared to schools with the highest percentage of Asian and white students, where only about a quarter of classes meet the targets.

Three Brooklyn districts — Ocean Hill/Brownsville’s District 23, Crown Heights’ District 16, and District 18 in Canarsie/East Flatbush had the greatest share of classes at or below the caps, according to the education department data. These three districts have among the highest shares of Black students in the city.

Two Queens districts — Bayside’s District 26 and Flushing’s District 25 — along with Staten Island’s District 31 have the lowest share of classes that meet the targets. District 25 and 26 have the city’s highest share of Asian students, while District 31 has the highest share of white students.

Of the five boroughs, the Bronx might have the easiest time meeting the class-size caps, with 50% of its schools already hitting the targets. Staten Island could have the most challenges, with only 22% of its schools meeting the class size requirements.

Schools that have grades 6-12 or 9-12 are more likely to have smaller class sizes, the figures show, with about 44% of these schools already meeting the new class-size mandates. Only 30% of standalone middle schools meet the targets, followed by K-8 and K-5 schools.

What happens next?

The education department must collect public comments on the plan and then submit it to the state education department for final approval. The teachers and principals unions must also sign off on the plan, which must go into effect in September.

Next month, city officials are holding online public hearings for each borough via Zoom on the following dates, starting at 6 p.m.:

Staten Island: Friday, June 2

Queens: Tuesday, June 6

Brooklyn: Thursday, June 8

Manhattan: Tuesday, June 13

The Bronx: Thursday, June 15

The city will have two weeks to analyze the public comments before submitting its final proposal to the state.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

600 children would lose child care with end of free NYC program for undocumented families

2023-05-18T21:27:57+00:00

Angela and her family left their home in Colombia after her husband, a police officer, received multiple death threats amid rising violence in the South American country.

Along with thousands of asylum seekers, her family arrived in New York City in September. They made ends meet through her husband’s sporadic construction gigs, but Angela, unable to find affordable private child care, stayed home to watch her toddler son.

Then, through tips from other newly arrived Colombian mothers, Angela discovered a new city pilot program called Promise NYC, which in January began covering up to $700 a week in child care for low-income, undocumented immigrant families. In late March, Angela’s son, just shy of 2 years old, became one of about 600 children who received vouchers to enroll in subsidized day care or after-school programs that are otherwise unavailable to those without legal immigration status.

Angela has since started a part-time job cleaning, is taking courses that would allow her to work in construction, and is figuring out how to obtain legal immigration status. But that could all end on July 1, if the City Council approves Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed budget, which slashes the pilot program for next fiscal year.

“My child wouldn’t be able to share or he wouldn’t be able to learn and grow with other children in the day care that he is part of, and I would have to resort to finding alternatives that I’m not yet prepared for,” Angela said through a translator.

The move has confused program providers, advocates, and some City Council members, who described Promise NYC as successful and netting more demand than they expected. The mayor himself touted the $10 million initiative in his vision for early childhood education last year, but in recent months, advocates became worried that Adams would cut the program. Spokespeople for City Hall and the Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, declined to explain the mayor’s decision.

”To take that away would mean, you know, possibly the family loses employment or a kid has nowhere to go during the day,” said Kimberly Warner, deputy director of legal, organizing, and advocacy services for the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, or NMIC, a nonprofit organization tapped by the city to help enroll children in Manhattan and the Bronx. “It would be very destabilizing.”

The mayor has proposed cuts across many city agencies, including about 3% of the education department’s budget, citing in part rising costs as more asylum seekers come to the city.

A group of about a dozen elected officials, including some City Council members and state lawmakers have called for the city to provide $20 million for the program next year, which would cover the same number of slots for a full year. Some are hoping for even more funding, as thousands of newcomer immigrants are expected in New York City.

In a statement, Queens Council member Tiffany Cabán, one of the lawmakers who pushed to create Promise NYC, said the program has been a “game changer.”

Without legal immigration status, undocumented immigrants have limited options for work, often turning to low-paying, under-the-table jobs. Nearly 29% of undocumented New Yorkers were living in poverty as of 2017, compared to 18% of naturalized citizens at the time, according to city estimates.

That means many likely struggle to pay for child care, but undocumented children typically don’t qualify for state or federally backed programs because they must be legal residents of the United States. HeadStart programs are an exception, but there are a limited number of seats, providers said.

Private care is pricey: In 2022, the median annual cost of toddler care in Manhattan was just over $17,800, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Three and 4-year-old children can attend many of the city’s free preschool programs, regardless of immigration status. But there are some programs within the city’s sprawling system, run through centers and by organizations outside of brick-and-mortar school buildings, that require children to be legal residents, including those that offer care past 3 p.m., advocates pointed out.

“That is the exact problem that Promise NYC was trying to resolve,” said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates for Children New York.

After advocacy from elected officials last year, City Hall agreed to launch the program. Adams even touted Promise NYC in his “Blueprint for Child Care & Early Childhood Education in New York City,” saying it would allow families to seek care “without compromising the confidentiality of their immigration status.”

The program was publicly announced in December 2022 and launched one month later, in mid-January. The four organizations charged with doing outreach and connecting families to child care are responsible for making sure families are eligible.

Warner, from NMIC, said she and her team were overwhelmed and “surprised” by the calls that immediately flooded in, mostly seeking care for kids ages 2 to 7 years old. They’ve enrolled 245 children across Manhattan and the Bronx and have roughly 150 people on a wait list. According to an ACS spokesperson, 600 children — the agency’s target — enrolled across all five boroughs by the end of April. Costs were fully covered for all but three children, the spokesperson said.

The Chinese-American Planning Council, which was tapped to oversee enrollment in Queens, has about 170 people on a waiting list, said Sumon Chin, the organization’s director of early childhood learning and wellness services.

Besides handling high demand, Chin’s organization also struggled to find child care options for infants and toddlers in certain pockets of Queens that are known as “child care deserts,” such as the Corona neighborhood. Along with keeping the program, Chin hopes the city will provide more funding so that each organization can hire more help, due to the demand and difficulty of the work.

Soneyllys, a mother from the Dominican Republic, enrolled her toddler son in day care through Promise NYC in February. Since then, she has noticed he’s talking and is generally more active at home. It also allowed her to work for the first time since coming to the United States two years ago, she said through a translator.

She worries that losing child care will make it difficult to get legal immigration status.

“I cannot afford day care, and I will not be able to give my child a better life because I don’t have the opportunity to find a full-time job that I can provide for my child,” she said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Housing migrants in school gyms: What we know (and don’t) about NYC’s shelter plans

2023-05-16T20:56:16+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Up to 20 New York City public school gymnasiums could be transformed into emergency shelters for asylum seekers, a sudden move that Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday he was reluctant to make.

“This is one of the last places we want to look at,” the mayor said in an interview on NY1. “None of us are comfortable with having to take these drastic steps.”

Adams contends that the city is running out of space in shelters, hotels, and other emergency accommodations as more than 65,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last year.

A handful of school gyms, largely in Brooklyn, are already being outfitted with cots, and at least one has already opened its doors to migrants. The plan has drawn concerns about possible disruption to school activities and whether the spaces have adequate access to bathrooms and showers.

Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about the city’s plans to transform schools into emergency shelters:

NYC is gearing up to use school gyms to house migrants, but only detached gyms.

Adams stressed that the city is only considering gymnasiums that are physically separated from the rest of the building, an effort to ease concerns about students coming into contact with adults who have not been vetted with background checks, as school staffers typically are.

Students are “not going to be impacted,” Adams said during a radio appearance on 1010 WINS.

City officials said the police department will be present at those sites around the clock. Still, some parent leaders said ensuring that students and migrants aren’t in contact may require logistical coordination to manage nearby entrances and exits.

So far, the city is gearing up to house migrants at the following schools in Brooklyn, according to parent leaders and news reports: Coney Island’s P.S. 188, Crown Heights’ P.S. 189, Sunset Park’s P.S. 172, and Williamsburg’s P.S. 17, P.S. 18, P.S. 132 and M.S. 577.

City officials did not provide a full list of school gyms under consideration for emergency shelter, nor did they say which buildings are currently housing migrants. The Daily News reported that some migrants were already staying at P.S. 188 over the weekend.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio implemented a plan in 2017 to build about 75 stand-alone school gyms across the city, since many schools blamed space issues for flouting mandated minutes for gym instruction.

Tensions are rising in some school communities.

At Williamsburg’s P.S. 17, students and parents gathered Tuesday morning to protest the use of the school’s gym to house migrants. Some children held signs reading “We Need Recess!!!” and the crowd chanted, “We support asylum seekers, but not on school grounds.”

Outside PS 17 in Williamsburg, kids chant, “we support asylum seekers but not on school grounds.” pic.twitter.com/35iFNRuxIw
— Gwynne Hogan (@GwynneFitz) May 16, 2023

Tajh Sutton, the parent council president in Brooklyn’s District 14, which includes P.S. 17, said the lack of transparency from the city about their plans helped fuel the backlash. Sutton also contends that Adams has directly stoked anger toward migrants by regularly highlighting the costs associated with connecting them with services and claiming they have “destroyed” the city.

“He’s created the conditions for this vitriol,” she said. The protest at P.S. 17 “made me really sad because I think that parents’ frustration about not being communicated with is valid and parents’ exhaustion about a lack of transparency from the Department of Education is valid. But when you’re allowing that to let you veer into racism and xenophobia, you have to check yourself.”

Still, Sutton said some school communities are trying to be flexible. At P.S. 18, in East Williamsburg, the principal is working to communicate what’s happening with parents, funding alternative spaces for gym class, and tracking down an alternative venue for their graduation, she said. Some members of the community are working with a mutual aid group to provide toiletries to asylum seekers.

“The principal has done a really wonderful job,” Sutton said.

Groups from all corners are calling on the city to reverse course.

The city’s teachers union, local elected officials, the union representing school safety agents, and even immigrant advocates have raised concerns about the city’s plan.

“We don’t agree with utilizing active school buildings as housing for emergency shelter right now because we don’t want to disrupt a school environment,” said Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

The union representing school safety agents, who are police department employees, also claimed in a letter to city officials that they were improperly asked to “monitor recently arrived asylum seekers in schools” and contend with “agitated” local residents.

The gym at P.S. 18, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is expected to be used as a shelter for asylum seekers.

It’s not the first time schools have been used as shelters.

Nor is it the first time that families feel like they are being kept in the dark about using schools as shelters.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg opened emergency shelters in 76 public schools for New Yorkers who had no place to go after the storm flooded their homes or residential facilities.

At Brooklyn Tech, the nation’s largest brick-and-mortar high school, more than 200 adults from assisted living facilities in the Rockaways stayed in the school’s cafeteria and other spaces for two weeks while class was in session. The residents shared entrances with the students unlike the city’s current plan where there are separate entrances for the shelter.

“It was a terrible situation for all of these people who were homeless and displaced,” recounted Elissa Stein, a high school admissions consultant, who had a child at Brooklyn Tech at the time. “But the kids were having this experience that wasn’t necessarily safe.”

Residents needed medical services, like blood draws, and families were concerned about medical waste as well as strangers wandering the hallways and stairwells.

The city kept promising that the shelter would wrap up, but the end date kept getting delayed, Stein said.

“It was hard to get answers,” Stein said.

The city has not yet said how long schools will operate as shelters.

The goal is to close the shelters “as soon as possible,” a city hall spokesperson said. Officials did not provide a firm timeline, though, and noted that they have run out of space elsewhere and are seeking federal and state help.

Education officials acknowledge school programming may be affected.

The full scope of how school activities could be disrupted remains unclear.

At Williamsburg’s P.S. 17 and M.S. 577, which share a gym, parents were concerned that kids would lose their gym and also lose outdoor recess and some after-school activities since the gym fronts the playground, according to the New York Post.

City officials said they’re working to select facilities that wouldn’t have a direct effect on programming, but they acknowledged some schools will have to shift their physical education classes to a different venue, including outdoors or in other school spaces.

Under state law, children in elementary school are required to have at least 120 minutes of physical education each week. Middle schoolers must have at least 90 minutes, and high school students are required to have at least 180 minutes for seven semesters.

Officials say the gyms are supposed to house adults, not children.

As the influx of migrants has strained the existing shelter system, Adams last week used an executive order to temporarily suspend some of the city’s rules around guaranteeing the right to shelter, including the requirement to place families in private rooms with bathrooms and kitchens. That could provide a path for the city to house children in school gyms, but a legal aid attorney told THE CITY that state regulations still prohibit children from group shelter settings, and that the city has moved children out of such sites after learning they were there.

A City Hall spokesperson said their “intent” is to only house adults in school gyms.

The city has not explained how habitable the gyms are.

City officials did not share information on what kinds of facilities the gyms offer, such as adult toilets or showers. While high school gyms might have showers, typically elementary and middle schools do not, and all of the schools currently identified as housing asylum seekers are elementary and middle schools.

Jessamyn Lee, an elected parent member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, said details have been scarce about whether the city plans to bring in shower or bathroom trailers and how that might work logistically. “Where will those go — are they going in the street? Are they going in school yards? No information has been released,” she said.

Residents around at least two of the schools, Coney Island’s P.S. 188 and Sunset Park’s P.S. 172, filed complaints with the Department of Buildings raising questions about the legality of using the gyms to house people, public records show.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.