Mamdani to appoint Kamar Samuels as schools chancellor

Kamar Samuels, current superintendent of District 3 in Manhattan. Photo: NYCDOE

CITYWIDE — MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI is set to appoint Kamar Samuels, superintendent of District 3 in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, as New York City’s next schools chancellor, according to Chalkbeat and other sources. Samuels has decades of experience in education, starting his career as a teacher and then principal in the Bronx, moving on to become the deputy superintendent of Brownsville’s District 23, and then taking on the role of superintendent of District 13 in Brooklyn, which includes Brooklyn Heights, Vinegar Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Chalkbeat highlights Samuels’ experience in school mergers as a means to achieve equity, including the merger (and move) of the popular pre-K-8 Arts & Letters in Clinton Hill with an undersubscribed school in Bedford-Stuyvesant; and his groundwork towards the elimination of Gifted & Talented programs, aiming to replace them with the rigorous International Baccalaureate program.

Samuels will replace Melissa Aviles-Ramos, NYC Public Schools’ current chancellor.

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