Mamdani Chooses a Veteran N.Y.C. Education Leader as Schools Chancellor

The selection of Kamar Samuels, who leads schools on the West Side of Manhattan, could help Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani craft his schools agenda.

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City, is expected to announce on Wednesday that he will appoint Kamar Samuels, a veteran leader in the city public education system, as his schools chancellor, according to three people with direct knowledge of the plan.

The selection of Mr. Samuels, who has worked in New York, the largest U.S. school system, for more than two decades, may offer insight into the mayor-elect’s priorities as he forms a more robust education agenda. Mr. Samuels is a local superintendent, presiding over Manhattan’s District 3 in Upper Manhattan.

Mr. Mamdani, who takes office on Thursday, has not shared a vision for the school system. He faced questions and criticism about the absence of a full education plan during his campaign and after the election.

The appointment of Mr. Samuels, a champion of efforts to promote integration during his time as a local superintendent, offers the clearest signal yet that desegregation could emerge as a priority for Mr. Mamdani, who had included the issue in his platform. The people familiar with Mr. Mamdani’s decision spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Few decisions carry more weight for New York City mayors than the choice of who will run the public schools. The city’s education system has an annual operating budget of more than $40 billion, and its scale is unrivaled in the United States, with more than 1,500 schools.

Mr. Mamdani has selected Mr. Samuels at a precarious moment for public education. The public school system has faced several threats to its federal funding from the Trump administration. And the mayor-elect will be forced to confront a host of daunting problems, including stark gaps in outcomes for children with disabilities and a record level of student homelessness.

The mayor-elect’s announcement brought closure to what was arguably the biggest unresolved question for his team, which had in recent weeks interviewed several candidates for the role, requested their plans for the first three months of his term and consulted top advisers on the selection.

Mr. Samuels, a parent himself who started his career as an elementary teacher in the Bronx, is regarded by supporters as a leader with a focus on equity and improving outcomes for students who have traditionally been underserved.

He is best known in New York for his efforts to promote desegregation, including through merging schools in Upper Manhattan and central Brooklyn. He also looked to International Baccalaureate programs — known for their academic rigor and focus on philosophical thinking — as a replacement for traditional gifted and talented programs.

“Access to high-quality educational experiences is how I start,” he said in an interview last year. “Especially in New York, when I know there are deep disparities.”

The news of his appointment was reported earlier by the politics publication City & State.

It was not immediately clear when Mr. Samuels would start, but chancellors typically begin when a new mayor takes office.

Mr. Samuels’s selection could cause concern among some families who fear cuts to gifted and talented offerings and other selective academic policies. As the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3 since 2022, which covers the Upper West Side and part of Harlem, he was well-liked by many public school parents, but also received pushback from some families.

It is not clear how Mr. Samuels will approach the biggest education idea that Mr. Mamdani has proposed: ending mayoral control of the school system and giving more say to parents, teachers and students.

His appointment comes as the mayor-elect continues to face questions over his broader plan for schools. Mr. Mamdani has shared plans to recruit more teachers and cut down on wasteful spending, and has often said that fixing schools depends in part on improving the quality of life for schoolchildren, many of whom lack stable housing and go to bed hungry.

Still, David C. Banks, a former schools chancellor who served under Mayor Eric Adams, said this month he believed that the incoming administration needed to divulge more of its education agenda.

“It’s important to know, ‘What’s the mayor’s vision?’” Mr. Banks said on social media. “We’ve not really heard much.”

The announcement of the mayor-elect’s pick, less than 24 hours before his inauguration, felt late to a number of education leaders. But it was not without precedent: Before his first term, Bill de Blasio — who had devoted more attention to schools during his campaign — named his chancellor, Carmen Fariña, two days before his inauguration.

Mr. Samuels will face a quick turnaround as he begins to assemble his cabinet, shape his agenda and prepare to take the helm of the education system’s complex bureaucracy, a steep challenge even for experienced leaders.

Matt Gonzales, a former member of a school diversity advisory panel under Mr. de Blasio who has advocated for integration measures, said that Mr. Samuels was “ready for the role.”

“His record particularly on educational equity and school integration are things that bring me a lot of excitement and create a sense of hopefulness,” Mr. Gonzales said.

Mr. Samuels will take over the school system at a time when traditional public school enrollment — now about 880,000 children between preschool and 12th grade — has fallen significantly.

The decline has made it increasingly likely that the Mamdani administration may be forced to confront potential school mergers or closures — often highly contentious moves for families. It is an issue that Mr. Samuels confronted as a local superintendent, with his approach to merging schools earning praise from some city officials as a potential model for the system.

The announcement on Wednesday will cap a remarkable rise through the ranks of the city’s education system for Mr. Samuels, who began his career as an educator and later served as a principal and as the superintendent of District 13 in northwest Brooklyn, which includes Clinton Hill and Fort Greene.

Micah Lasher, a state lawmaker in the Manhattan district that Mr. Samuels leads, called him an “absolutely superb educator and leader — incredibly thoughtful about how to make schools work for all our kids, and effective in implementing his vision,” and said that he would make an outstanding schools chancellor.

“He is at the same time a steady hand and a change agent,” Mr. Lasher said on social media.

Education leaders had speculated for months about whom Mr. Mamdani would select as chancellor. Mr. Samuels’s name had emerged long before the November election, and he had been viewed as a leader who shared priorities similar to Mr. Mamdani’s, particularly regarding how to address inequality.

Mark Levine, the incoming city comptroller who worked with Mr. Samuels during his tenure as the Manhattan borough president, said that school mergers and admissions changes are among “the most difficult political minefields for a superintendent to navigate.”

“Kamar Samuels has faced more than his fair share of each of these challenges,” Mr. Levine said, adding that “he has consistently managed to lead with principle and nuance.”

Still, some parent groups had pushed for Mr. Mamdani to keep Melissa Aviles-Ramos, the schools chancellor who took over under Mr. Adams last fall, hoping that retaining her would provide stability in the middle of the academic year.

“Families across the city deserve stability, experienced leadership and continuity,” a citywide parent advisory group wrote in a letter to Mr. Mamdani’s team last month. “Removing her would create unnecessary disruption and weaken the progress underway.”

Jeffery C. Mays and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting.

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