Mayor elect Zohran Mamdani has selected veteran educator Kamar Samuels to serve as New York City’s next schools chancellor, according to sources familiar with the decision.
The appointment was confirmed by City Council Education Chair Rita Joseph, who said the Mamdani transition team informed her directly. Two individuals affiliated with the transition also verified the selection.
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Samuels brings more than 20 years of experience within the New York City Department of Education. He currently serves as superintendent overseeing schools on the Upper West Side and in Morningside Heights. Prior to that role, he was superintendent of District 13 and District 23 in Brooklyn.
During his tenure, Samuels played a leading role in school mergers aimed at addressing declining enrollment while improving racial and socioeconomic integration. He was also instrumental in eliminating selective admissions criteria at several middle schools as part of a broader effort to promote diversity and equity.
Before entering district leadership, Samuels began his career as an elementary school teacher in the Bronx and later became the principal of a middle school in the borough.
Joseph said she was informed Tuesday night that Mamdani intended to announce Samuels’ selection on Wednesday.
“I look forward to working with him,” she said.
The decision follows weeks of speculation about whether current Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos would be retained. Aviles Ramos had recently highlighted gains in reading and math scores and publicly expressed interest in continuing in the role. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew had urged Mamdani to seriously consider keeping her, and Mamdani himself said in October that she had done a good job.
It remains unclear how the chancellor’s responsibilities may change if Mamdani moves ahead with his campaign pledge to overhaul mayoral control of the public school system. Under the governance model introduced during the administration of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the mayor appoints a chancellor charged with implementing the administration’s education agenda.
In recent years, parents and educators have increasingly criticized mayoral control, arguing that it creates a top down system disconnected from classroom realities, limits transparency and reduces meaningful input from teachers and families. Others have complained that shifting mayoral priorities every four to eight years lead to instability and wasted resources.
On his campaign website, Mamdani pledged to end mayoral control while strengthening shared governance through the Panel for Educational Policy.
The leadership transition comes at a challenging time for New York City public schools, which are grappling with declining enrollment and pressures linked to federal immigration policy under the Trump administration.
Since 2020, the city’s public school system has lost approximately 100,000 students. While an influx of migrant students briefly slowed the decline, many of those families have since left the city, reversing the temporary stabilization.
At the same time, the Department of Education has been pushing back against federal efforts to withhold funding tied to city and state policies on diversity initiatives and protections for transgender students.
