{"id":85519,"date":"2025-12-31T14:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/85519\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T14:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T14:47:08","slug":"mamdani-taps-kamar-samuels-as-new-nyc-public-schools-chancellor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/85519\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani taps Kamar Samuels as new NYC public schools chancellor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"man\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Kamar Samuels is expected to be named as the new NYC public schools chancellor by incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani, published reports on Tuesday night indicated.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy NYC Department of Education<\/p>\n

Incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> is expected to appoint Kamar Samuels as the new NYC public schools chancellor, published reports on Tuesday night indicated.<\/p>\n

Samuels, who is the superintendent of Manhattan\u2019s District 3 based on the Upper West Side, will oversee the city\u2019s nearly one million public school students in 32 geographic districts around the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His appointment puts to rest rumors that Mamdani was considering tapping former U.S. Rep. and progressive firebrand Jamaal Bowman for the job, or keeping current Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos<\/a> in her post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

amNewYork contacted the mayor-elect\u2019s team to ask why he chose Samuels for the job, and is awaiting a response.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

The appointment comes just hours before Mamdani will be sworn in as the 112th mayor of NYC just after midnight on New Year\u2019s Eve; it is unclear when Samuels, a former elementary school teacher in the Bronx, will begin his tenure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"IncomingIncoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a Dec. 20, 2025 news conference. Photo by Lloyd MitchellPhoto by Lloyd Mitchell<\/p>\n

Samuels\u2019s District 3 made headlines in 2022 about middle-school admissions screens. At the time, approximately two dozen school principals protested the return of academic screenings, placing the district at the center of the citywide debate over equity and merit-based admissions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the education news outlet Chalkbeat<\/a>, Samuels led his district move away from gifted and talented programs as concerns grew about racial disparities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, some NYC middle schools have screened programs that admit the top-performing applicants citywide. Mamdani said during his campaign that he would eliminate admissions screenings for kindergarten children in the public school system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Samuels also helped implement initiatives such as NYC Reads under the Adams administration. Reading scores<\/a> improved last year across the city\u2019s public school system, with 56% of students in grades 3 to 8 considered proficient in the subject\u2014a 7.2% increase from the previous year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Queens state Sen. John Liu, who rallied in 2020 for the continuation of specialized high school admission testing, welcomed Samuels to the administration and applauded Aviles-Ramos for leadership in the Adams administration. In a statement, he praised Samuels\u2019 support of state laws that reduce NYC class sizes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHearty congratulations to Kamar Samuels on taking the helm of the nation\u2019s largest school system, a tremendous responsibility at this moment in time that will require a practiced hand and steadfast commitment to steering the ship straight,\u201d Liu said in a statement. \u201cKamar inherits a system that has been capably led by Chancellor Aviles-Ramos, who admirably kept our schools stable amid a city administration rocked by instability and controversy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liu added that education was an afterthought to the city\u2019s affordability crisis during the campaign this year, but underscored the importance of keeping schools \u201con track\u201d going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile education took a backseat to NYC\u2019s affordability crisis during this past mayoral campaign, the two topics are intricately intertwined, with the consequences of each showing up every day in our classrooms and in our homes,\u201d he said. \u201cLooking forward to rolling up sleeves and working together to make sure our schools are on track to provide the best education possible for all students in New York City Public Schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maria Odom, executive director of Advocates for Children in New York, congratulated Samuels and gave her organization\u2019s recommendations for the administration for improving education. Those recommendations include more reading support and access to direct mental health services and behavior support in schools, and scaling up specialized programs for students with disabilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to working with the incoming chancellor to strengthen existing initiatives like NYC Reads and undertake new efforts to address systemic challenges facing our public schools,\u201d Odom said. \u201cWe urge the incoming administration to pursue an education agenda that centers equity and the needs of students who are too often overlooked.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kamar Samuels is expected to be named as the new NYC public schools chancellor by incoming Mayor Zohran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[67,41579,5396,9,56,63,65,64,87,41608],"class_list":["post-85519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-education","tag-kamar-samuels","tag-melissa-aviles-ramos","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-politics","tag-zohran-mamdani-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85519","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=85519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}