What to Know About New York City’s New Schools Chancellor
The New York Times
Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a former English teacher and deputy chancellor, will assume the post after David C. Banks steps down in December.
Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who will take over in January as the next chancellor of New York City’s public school system, is a longtime New York educator who oversaw the schools’ response to the arrival of tens of thousands of migrant children.
Her swift appointment on Wednesday to lead the nation’s largest school district came less than 24 hours after David C. Banks abruptly announced his resignation. He said he would step down in the middle of the academic year as Mayor Eric Adams’s administration reels from at least four separate federal corruption inquiries.
Mr. Banks’s successor is best known in New York’s education world for overseeing the city’s efforts to enroll and educate the more than 40,000 migrant children who have arrived in the last two years — areas of persistent criticism for the administration.
A native New Yorker, Ms. Aviles-Ramos, 42, has a deep knowledge of the city’s intricate educational bureaucracy, often a significant obstacle for outsiders. She rose through the ranks of the school system, serving as an English teacher, high school principal and superintendent in the Bronx — experiences that could benefit her as she enters the chancellorship.
At an introductory news conference on Wednesday, Ms. Aviles-Ramos projected a calm confidence.
“I am here to tell you that my charge is to make sure we carry through on all of the bright starts and bold futures,” she said, “all of the pathways that we’re building for our children, all of the bridges that we need to build between communities and families, because this is all in service of our children.”
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