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As the new school year begins, the nation’s largest school system stands at the center of major changes at the local, state, and federal policy levels.
New York City is bracing for a possible shift in leadership with the mayoral election approaching in November. As scandals continue to plague Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, he faces increasingly long odds to remain in office — which means the city’s Education Department could come under the helm of a new mayor and chancellor midway through the school year.
The city’s public schools are also contending with big directives from the state, including meeting the caps required under the class size reduction law and the new school cellphone ban.
This will also mark the first full academic year of President Donald Trump’s second term. In its first seven months, his administration announced executive orders and other policy changes related to public education at a dizzying pace.
Here are the six things we’ll be watching this school year:
A pivotal mayoral election approaches
As the November election approaches, Adams is polling in the single digits. If Adams loses, his successor would likely replace Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos. It also opens questions about the future of the mayor’s major initiatives, including the math and literacy curriculum overhauls.
The frontrunner in the mayoral election, Queens state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, has a relatively thin record on K-12 education. The Democratic primary winner’s most attention-grabbing proposal so far has been scaling back the mayoral control system that grants city executives far-reaching authority over public schools.
Mamdani faces Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who are running as independents, as well as Republican Curtis Sliwa — at this point.
If Mamdani wins, his chancellor would play a key role in one of his signature policy proposals: a free child care program from birth to 5. (The city Education Department oversees most of the existing city-funded child care system.)
Class size bill compliance grows tougher
Under the class size law, 60% of New York City’s classrooms this school year must meet the caps mandated by the state, which range from 20-25 students, depending on the grade.
Many schools have gone on hiring sprees: 750 of the city’s nearly 1,600 schools received money to hire about 3,700 teachers to comply with the law. (That’s on top of the roughly 4,000 to 5,000 teachers hired in a typical year.) The city has spent $450 million this year to meet the mandate, Aviles-Ramos recently said on WNYC.
How will this affect schools? Educators and advocates are hopeful that smaller class sizes will improve instruction as well as teacher morale and classroom management. But training a wave of new teachers might also be a lift. There are also equity concerns, including warnings from experts that high-poverty schools could experience an uptick in teacher turnover as more affluent campuses hire thousands more teachers.
The city also has to start laying the groundwork for the 2026-27 school year, when 80% of classrooms must comply with the mandate — a goal that may be hard to achieve without adding new buildings.
Statewide ‘bell-to-bell’ cellphone ban takes effect
Roughly half of the city’s public schools already have some restrictions on cellphone use, but starting this week, all schools must bar students from using them from bell to bell. The details are up to individual schools as to whether they collect students’ internet-enabled devices (including smart watches, iPads, or other personal devices), have students carry their devices locked in pouches, or mandate students keep their devices in their lockers.
The bell-to-bell ban means students cannot use devices on campus during the school day, including during lunch, in the school yard, or on athletic fields. Students who go off-campus for lunch, however, will be allowed to get their phones — potentially causing some logistical headaches. And there are exemptions for medical conditions, translation needs, and special education. Student caregivers might also be allowed to keep their devices on a case-by-case basis.
The city sent more than $16 million to schools to implement the ban, according to budget documents.
No ban is foolproof: Some kids find ways around the policies, whether storing dummy phones, or buying magnets to unlock the pouches.
While school officials can’t suspend solely for using devices during the school day, they can for repeated refusal to surrender or store phones.
The ongoing toll of immigration enforcement
In May, Dylan Lopez Contreras became the first known New York City public student to be arrested by Immigration Customs and Enforcement, or ICE, since Trump’s second term began. Since then, several schools across the city have already seen students or their parents detained, and sometimes deported, as the Trump administration has ramped up ICE arrests to meet its goal of the “largest deportation program in American history.”
Advocates worry that deportation threats will keep immigrant students home from school or extracurriculars. And immigration is now on the decline: The nation’s foreign-born population fell by 1 million people as of June, marking the first decline since the 1960s, according to the Pew Research Center.
The implications for the school system could be significant. The influx of immigrants over the past few years has propped up New York City’s shrinking enrollment. Declining immigration will not only affect the city’s “international schools,” which exclusively serve newcomers to the country, but will likely affect many other schools across the system that have welcomed migrant students.
Expanding curriculum mandates to upper grades
The Adams administration has made overhauling literacy and math curriculums the centerpiece of its educational agenda.
As all elementary schools start either their second or third year under the reading curriculum mandates, the system continues to expand the approach to older grades as well as requiring intervention programs to specifically support struggling readers.
Roughly 100 middle schools across eight districts this year will be required to use city-approved reading curriculums their superintendents selected.
For math, 84 middle schools in six districts are being added to the mandate. That’s on top of 100 schools that were already part of the mandate. (There are about 530 middle schools in all.)
City officials pointed to rising state tests scores for grades 3-8 as proof of the reading overhaul’s effectiveness. The city’s rosy framing is complicated, however, by other data: Districts in other parts of the state without similar mandates also saw their significant gains. New York City’s charter schools, which also are not part of the curriculum mandate, saw their scores rise even more dramatically than schools run by the city’s Education Department.
Graduation requirements are getting overhauled
As part of the state’s multi-year effort to rethink graduation requirements, education officials are continuing to define what students in the coming years will need to earn their diplomas.
This summer, the Board of Regents approved a new framework, known as the “portrait of a graduate,” to define the general goals for high school graduates as the state phases out Regents exams as a graduation requirement beginning in the 2027-28 school year.
In the future, students will have a variety of ways to show they meet six characteristics — that they are academically prepared, creative innovators, critical thinkers, effective communicators, global citizens, and “reflective and future focused.”
They might, for instance, demonstrate critical thinking skills by participating in debates or research projects, or complete service learning projects to show their commitment to global citizenship.
Educators and families are still awaiting more details on what the new system will look like in practice and how students will be assessed once the Regents exams are no longer required.
Alex Zimmerman contributed.
Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael atmelsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org.
