Incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani is expected to appoint Kamar Samuels as the new NYC public schools chancellor, published reports on Tuesday night indicated.
Samuels, who is the superintendent of Manhattan’s District 3 based on the Upper West Side, will oversee the city’s nearly one million public school students in 32 geographic districts around the city.
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 in her post.
amNewYork contacted the mayor-elect’s team to ask why he chose Samuels for the job, and is awaiting a response.
The appointment comes just hours before Mamdani will be sworn in as the 112th mayor of NYC just after midnight on New Year’s Eve; it is unclear when Samuels, a former elementary school teacher in the Bronx, will begin his tenure.
Samuels’s 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.
According to the education news outlet Chalkbeat, Samuels led his district move away from gifted and talented programs as concerns grew about racial disparities.
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.
Samuels also helped implement initiatives such as NYC Reads under the Adams administration. Reading scores improved last year across the city’s public school system, with 56% of students in grades 3 to 8 considered proficient in the subject—a 7.2% increase from the previous year.
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’ support of state laws that reduce NYC class sizes.
“Hearty congratulations to Kamar Samuels on taking the helm of the nation’s 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,” Liu said in a statement. “Kamar 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.”
Liu added that education was an afterthought to the city’s affordability crisis during the campaign this year, but underscored the importance of keeping schools “on track” going forward.
“While education took a backseat to NYC’s 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,” he said. “Looking 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.”
Maria Odom, executive director of Advocates for Children in New York, congratulated Samuels and gave her organization’s 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.
“We 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,” Odom said. “We urge the incoming administration to pursue an education agenda that centers equity and the needs of students who are too often overlooked.”
