Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.Since taking office in January, schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has repeated a refrain that he wants the nation’s largest school system to be safe, academically rigorous, and integrated.But he has revealed little about his tangible policy goals in each of those areas. Now, he’s signaling that some of those ideas may come from local communities rather than top-down from the Education Department or City Hall.On Wednesday, education officials announced that five of the city’s 45 superintendents will convene working groups with parents, teachers, principals, and community organizations that will “address structural and instructional inequities in their district,” according to a press release. They are expected to meet monthly.The groups represent “local solutions for systemic problems,” Samuels said Wednesday morning during a discussion with author Heather McGhee who has written about how racism has broader effects beyond people of color. Officials said all districts will have similar groups within three years.Samuels suggested that the groups, which will be led by local superintendents, could begin to tackle some of the system’s biggest policy challenges. His conversation with McGhee touched on declining enrollment and the growing number of underenrolled schools; a state mandate to lower class sizes; and segregation of students by race, ability, socioeconomic status, and language. Officials did not share who was selected by superintendents to serve on each working group, or commit to release each group’s recommendations publicly. Previous administrations have also set up working groups to tackle thorny policy problems. Under pressure from parents and advocates to address deep racial segregation in the city’s schools, former Mayor Bill de Blasio created a working group to recommend solutions. Some advocates were frustrated that the city did not embrace some of the group’s most sweeping suggestions. Still, some local districts have taken action to integrate local schools absent a broader citywide mandate, though others have sputtered. (Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that he would adopt some of the recommendations from de Blasio’s diversity advisory group that were not implemented, but he has yet to do so.) On the campaign trail, Mamdani committed to getting rid of mayoral control — which gives the mayor largely unfettered power to set the school system’s policy direction — in favor of a more democratic system. He reversed his position just before taking office and recently won a two-year extension for it from state lawmakers.But he has consistently vowed to give families and educators more of a say in policymaking and Samuels signaled the working groups were an effort to make good on that promise.“When people ask me … ‘You have mayoral control, and are you going to really listen to parents, and are you going to listen to communities?’” Samuels said, “this is one of our main initial first steps.”The first five districts that will participate are: Manhattan District 3 (Upper West Side, Morningside Heights, and parts of Harlem); Bronx District 7 (Mott Haven and Port Morris); Brooklyn District 13 (Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill); Brooklyn’s District 16 (much of Bedford-Stuyvesant); and Queens District 25 (College Point, Whitestone, Hillcrest). Samuels previously led District 3 and 13.The Wednesday morning event was livestreamed but the Education Department did not invite reporters to attend. Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said members of the working groups were invited and there wasn’t additional room due to the fire code. The five working groups are expected to share their recommendations with the Education Department by the end of next school year, Brownstein said.She indicated those reports could take multiple forms and officials plan to wait to release broader policy ideas until they review the recommendations. No funding has been earmarked for the working groups, officials said.“We have to figure out what is the thing that we are going to do on behalf of our most marginalized young people, oftentimes, but on behalf of every single child in your district,” Samuels said.Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
