{"id":363178,"date":"2026-10-02T21:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363178\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T21:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:06:07","slug":"nyc-school-board-approves-1-65m-oracle-contract-after-earlier-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/363178\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC school board approves $1.65M Oracle contract after earlier defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat\u2019s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here<\/a> and checking the box next to our name.<\/p>\n

A month after New York City\u2019s school board failed to approve a technology contract with the software giant Oracle<\/a> \u2014 prompting officials to warn of possible disruptions to \u201cmission critical\u201d systems \u2014 the board reversed course this week.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Panel for Educational Policy approved a $1.65 million extension with Oracle, after city officials said spiking the contract could disrupt human resources help centers that serve more than 150,000 employees. The contract also supports an enrollment support center that fields about 1,000 calls a day on issues ranging from student transportation and special education. <\/p>\n

The deal represents a fraction of the Education Department\u2019s roughly $13 billion spending on outside contracts<\/a>. But the board\u2019s August contract rejection was notable: Mayor Zohran Mamdani had just appointed the majority of its members<\/a> and still could not muster the 13 votes necessary to approve the administration\u2019s proposed contract.<\/p>\n

The contract passed Wednesday evening, with 16 members voting yes and four no votes. Two mayoral appointees \u2014 Maddy Fox and and Tariq Kahn \u2014 abstained. (In August, the vote failed with nine votes in favor, six opposed, and two abstentions, falling four votes short.)<\/p>\n

Skepticism of the contract, including from mayoral appointees, suggests that the board may not hesitate to buck the mayor\u2019s wishes, as the board has grown increasingly independent<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Decisions about what technology the Education Department deploys, and which companies it does business with, are under increasing scrutiny. City officials have been rethinking what role artificial intelligence and other software should play in the city\u2019s classrooms<\/a> and have issued major restrictions this school year.<\/p>\n

Several members of the public, including activists and educators, had urged the panel not to approve the contract. They cited the company\u2019s investment in AI, even as city officials insisted there was \u201cno AI use associated with this contract.\u201d Others pointed to the company\u2019s co-founder Larry Ellison, who has embraced AI<\/a> and supported President Donald Trump\u2019s 2024 election bid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

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Those arguments gained traction with some panel members, some of whom wondered whether the Education Department could do the same work in house rather than contracting it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cFruits of the Ellison tree are all poison,\u201d Adriana Alicea, a board member appointed by Queens parent leaders, said at the Wednesday meeting before voting no on the contract.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, some panel members seemed torn about whether to approve it given the city\u2019s dire warnings about disruptions to crucial systems.<\/p>\n

Fox, a mayoral appointee, said the panel had been \u201cgrappling with this\u201d but \u201cthere are limited options for the DOE in relation to this contract.\u201d She noted the deal is part of a broader city government contract with Oracle. (She did not respond to an emailed question about why she abstained from the contract vote.)<\/p>\n

Board member Greg Faulkner, also a mayoral appointee, said he hopes the city comes up with an alternative solution over the next year. He voted in favor on Wednesday, but said he would likely not vote in favor of it in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they put an Oracle contract in front of us a year from now, I\u2019m not sure it would pass,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the board passed a resolution Wednesday requesting more information from the Education Department about the contract due by the end of the calendar year.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Oracle and the Education Department did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat\u2019s valuable education…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16350,9,56,63,65,64,22042],"class_list":["post-363178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-contract","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-oracle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}