Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has selected Kamar Samuels, a Manhattan superintendent with two decades of experience in the education department, as his new schools chancellor, sources said.
The appointment was confirmed by City Council Education Chair Rita Joseph, who said the Mamdani team informed her directly, and two people affiliated with the transition.
Before serving as superintendent for the Upper West Side and Morningside, he was superintendent of District 13 and District 23 in Brooklyn.
He helped lead school mergers to address declining enrollment and improve integration. He also played a key role in removing selective admissions criteria for some middle schools as part of a broader push for diversity.
Samuels was also an elementary school teacher in the Bronx before becoming the principal of a middle school there.
Joseph said she heard from Mamdani’s team Tuesday night that he planned to announce his selection of Samuels on Wednesday.
“I look forward to working with him,” she said.
Current Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos had been touting her achievements in recent weeks, including rising scores in reading and math, and had said she’d like to stay in her role. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, had encouraged Mamdani to seriously consider keeping Aviles-Ramos, and Mamdani said in October that the current chancellor had done a “good job.”
It was not immediately clear how the chancellor’s role would change if Mamdani follows through on his campaign’s pledge to overhaul mayoral control of the schools.
Since the start of mayoral control under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor has appointed a chancellor responsible for executing the administration’s vision for the schools.
In recent years, some parents and educators have pushed back against mayoral control, saying the top-down structure separates decision makers from the reality on the ground, lacks transparency and reduces input from educators and parents. Some have also complained that mayoral control means that priorities shift every four to eight years, leading to waste of resources and whiplash for teachers.
On his campaign website, Mamdani said he would “end” mayoral control, while strengthening co-governance by the Panel for Educational Policy.
The shift in leadership and potential change to school governance comes at a challenging moment for the public schools, which face declining enrollment and mounting challenges linked to immigration policy under the Trump Administration.
New York City public schools have lost approximately 100,000 students since 2020. An influx of migrant students seemed to stabilize the precipitous decline, but that increase was only temporary, since many of those families have left the city amid the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
In recent months, the education department has fought back against efforts by the federal government to withhold funds because of city and state policies on diversity and protections for trans students.
