NYC Public Colleges Chancellor Kamar Samuels
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Kamar Samuels and I have been among the many attendees of a city corridor within the fitness center of PS 191 on September 6, 2023, when then-Mayor Eric Adams stated that the migrant surge “will destroy New York City.” We have been all appalled, Samuels included, and never solely as a result of he’s a migrant himself. The very fact is, Adams made this assertion as Samuels was working tirelessly to offer the 1000’s of migrant kids coming into our colleges an actual shot at instructional alternative.
The New York Metropolis Division of Training enrolled about 48,000 migrant college students over the 2 years of the migrant surge. When inserting kids in his colleges as a district superintendent, Samuels was strategic, modern, and keen about his mandate to supply these kids with the perfect training his district might supply.
He prioritized under-enrolled twin language applications, thus matching migrant college students with colleges that have been well-equipped to satisfy their language studying wants whereas concurrently offering these colleges with much-needed enrollment boosts. Samuels developed a map of District 3 colleges with twin language applications near the quite a few subway traces that run by the district, highlighting applications that have been accessible to college students in close by shelters.
Metropolis Council Member Gale BrewerJohn McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit
This wasn’t the one means Samuels parlayed his distinctive abilities as an modern thinker to ship for migrant kids. PS 191, the place then-Mayor Adams made his incendiary assertion through the neighborhood city corridor, is a District 3 college. This college turned often called probably the most welcoming District 3 college for migrants, although it was not a twin language college. PS 191 and different District 3 colleges wanted new Spanish academics—and quick. Samuels labored rapidly, leveraging a grant to get Spanish academics into colleges that had none. As a longtime champion of world language studying, Samuels had this work on his radar already. The migrant surge solely made it extra pressing.
It was on this context that Samuels is alleged to have signed an “improper” contract to position Spanish academics in some District 3 colleges. I’ve seen folks calling consideration to this contract, both forgetting or ignoring the context during which it will have been signed. I, for one, don’t forget. I labored facet by facet with Samuels and D3 Open Arms to ship for the migrant kids in our district. I noticed Samuels’s ardour and his deep information of the district information his work all through the years of the migrant surge.
The contract that has been flagged highlights nothing greater than the rapid want for procurement reform within the DOE. The DOE should tighten oversight of school-level procurement and buying, by obligatory coaching, vendor vetting, and stricter bidding guidelines. I can consider nobody higher suited to guide this reform than Chancellor Kamar Samuels. He’s strategic. He’s modern. He has been within the trenches combating to make the system work for all kids for greater than 20 years, and he is aware of the challenges inside and outside. That is who we’d like on the helm to implement these wanted reforms.
Through the surge in migrants, I heard Samuels say many instances, “This may be seen as a crisis, but I believe it is an opportunity for our city.” When migrant college students be taught English in our metropolis, they constantly (and considerably!) outperform native English audio system on standardized state checks. In contrast to our former mayor, Samuels sees potential in migrants to our metropolis. To Samuels, as to myself, all kids who enter our metropolis symbolize alternative. I stay up for persevering with to associate with the chancellor on delivering for all of our kids.
