Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is set to name a Manhattan superintendent who worked to dismantle Gifted & Talented programs as his next schools chancellor, The Post has confirmed.
Kamar Samuels, a longtime educator who currently works in Manhattan’s District 3, will take over the largest school system in the country with more than 900,000 students and 135,000 employees come Jan. 1.
During his six-year stint as superintendent, Samuels promoted racial diversity in the classroom via school mergers in the district that covers parts of Harlem, the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights, according to Chalkbeat.
He also focused on chipping away at the controversial Gifted & Talented program, which some parents claimed is racially biased.
Samuels instead opted to use the International Baccalaureate Organization, which he found “aligned with [his] philosophy” of expanding opportunities for all students while also investing in teachers.
“Access to high quality educational experiences is how I start this journey, how I think about it, especially in New York where I know that there are deep disparities. They’re not only structural inequities, but they’re instructional inequities,” Samuels said in a video for the IB program.
Doing away with the longstanding Gifted & Talented program for kindergarten students was one of Mamdani’s core campaign promises.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio began to phase out the program in 2021 – before Mayor Eric Adams entered office and revitalized it.
Samuels, a Jamaican immigrant, also highlighted the importance of providing an “international education” so that students can “see a global perspective.”
“We here in New York especially are seeing even today why it’s important to understand what’s happening in the rest of the world. We’re impacted by that every day,” he said in the video.
Samuels boasts a two decade history working in the sprawling New York City education system. He started as an elementary school teacher in the Bronx for five years before moving to a principal position at the Bronx Writing Academy for another six years.
While leading the Bronx Writing Academy, or PS 323, Samuels implemented several new policies, including staggered start times for teachers, adjusted class lengths, and experimented with a city program that paid for the school’s new computers to promote online learning, Chalkbeat reported.
He served as the deputy superintendent to Brooklyn’s District 13 for two years before becoming superintendent in 2019.
Mamdani’s long-awaited schools chancellor pick was first reported by City and State.
The horse-race for the next top official in the city’s school system came down to Samuels and the current chancellor, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who hasn’t been shy about her willingness to stay on the job.
But neither were the first pick for the job.
Instead, former Mayor Bill de Blasio schools leader Meisha Porter had been expected to land the gig.
“She was this close,” one insider said, adding, “[Porter] was not happy with Mamdani.”
After she fell out of favor, the transition had to look at the rest of the shortlist, dragging out the selection until the last minute.
“This was not a simple process,” they added.
Moshe Spern, the head of United Jewish Teachers, said Samuels was a “really good choice” for schools chancellor.
“He is a well experienced superintendent and school leader. I am very hopeful he will be a partner in combating antisemitism that is still happening in our public schools across the city,” Spern said in a statement.
Additional reporting by Carl Campanile
