Exclusive Interview with Chancellor Kamar Samuels

Welcome back to P.S. Weekly, a student podcast created in collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell!

In our first episode of Season 3, The Bell’s high school reporters landed an exclusive interview with schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels.

The new schools chief made his three priorities known: safety, academic rigor, and integration. But The Bell’s student reporters grilled him on the issues most important to them, including artificial intelligence, how he plans to approach racial integration, and whether he will fulfil Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s promise to make school buildings greener.

In this episode, you’ll hear Samuels’ answers — and the student reporters’ assessment of his responses.

You can watch the full, unedited video of our interview with the chancellor on YouTube.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Reach us at PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell, made possible by generous support from The Pinkerton Foundation.

Transcript

Zana Halili: Welcome back to P.S. Weekly, the sound of the New York City school system. I'm associate producer Zana Halili. We're starting season three with the new mayor and public schools chancellor. And with that comes a lot of campaign promises and possible change up on the table. But this new administration seems committed to giving students a seat at the table, including student journalists like us.
A former teacher and superintendent Kamar Samuels has begun his tenure as chancellor with listening sessions across the five boroughs. A few weeks ago, our student reporters had the opportunity to interview Chancellor Samuels before one of these listening sessions, held at the Queen's Innovation Center in Long Island City.
So here's how it'll go. You'll hear one of our P.S. Weekly reporters ask the chancellor a question and then Chancellor Samuels' response. Afterwards, you'll hear our reporter's reactions from our debrief back at our office. Our conversation with the chancellor has been condensed for the purposes of our podcast.
And you'll hear our reporters give their own analysis of the chancellor's answers along the way. But if you'd like to hear the full, unedited version of the interview, you can find it at our YouTube channel. We hope you enjoy. 
Kamar Samuels: I've been doing, um, school visits and I've gotten a lot of tough questions from kids, so I don't expect you guys to disappoint.
Zana Halili: So we actually started with some softball questions just to, you know, ease into things. 
Jasper Mallorca: Uh, hello, my name is Jasper Mallorca. I attend the High School of Art and Design. I was wondering if you wanted to play a little game with us. You could say one word to these fun rapid fire questions. 
Kamar Samuels: All right. 
Jasper Mallorca: All right.
What's one word to describe the NYC school system?
Kamar Samuels: Very good. 
Jasper Mallorca: Very good
Kamar Samuels: Two, Great. 
Jasper Mallorca: That's a good two words though. 
Kamar Samuels: Alright. 
Jasper Mallorca: Um, what was your favorite subject in school growing up? 
Kamar Samuels: Math, 
Jasper Mallorca: Math. That's a great one. Um, this one's a little hard. What's your favorite borough? 
Kamar Samuels: Ooh, that is hard. The Bronx. 
Jasper Mallorca: The Bronx. 
Kamar Samuels: I lived in Manhattan, but I love the Bronx. 
Jasper Mallorca: What's your favorite subway line?
Kamar Samuels: Oh wow. The four train 
Jasper Mallorca: Yankees or Mets. 
Kamar Samuels: Tough, Yankees. 
Jasper Mallorca: Alright, this is the last one. What is your deli order? 
Kamar Samuels: Ooh, I mean, bacon, egg, and cheese. 
Jasper Mallorca: Great answers. Great answers. 

Zana Halili: But then we did get into some more serious questions. 
Rayleen Laloi: My name is Rayleen and I attend the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts. I'm a junior, and I know that school integration is a priority for you and that you've tackled it in the form of school mergers.
So my school BILA recently merged with the school in our building, which was the School for Human Rights, but. I've noticed that our school communities haven't really blended together and a lot of people, my classmates have, you know, expressed that they have felt isolated. So if you continue to do integration with NYC schools in the form of school mergers, what would you consider a program that you would like, invest in and create that you feel would stop further isolation or cause deeper divides within school communities? 
Kamar Samuels: That is such a great question. Yeah, so I've worked on, uh, school integration efforts in a couple of ways, but the main things I think about is mergers, because when we look at where the school system is right now, especially with declining enrollment, we see that some schools are too small, right?
And so if some schools are too small, it means that they don't necessarily have the robust programs and resources for young people. And so I think mergers can be, uh, a tool in doing that. But in order for it to be a true merger, it means that both schools have to look at the things that they do really really well and then merge those things together.
And so you keep, you get more than uh, what was there before you get, um, a real, uh, holistic view of the school. And, and to be honest, that requires real strong work on the part of the leadership of the school and to include, um, families and young people in the process. There are some really tried and true examples of how you can engage in a merger so that it limits the feeling of loss and it ensures that both communities, um, come together.
Zana Halili: Thank you. So that was Chancellor Samuels on school mergers. We played back his answers in our newsroom and had a discussion to analyze his responses. 
Ermione Aleah Raymond: It's refreshing to hear someone who has a similar Yeah, like dialect and accent from people in my country. You don't really see that in like, yeah, Eric Adams, but, um, he can't really, he can't really fit the mark, but it's refreshing to hear someone that has the same dialect to someone from my community or to my parents.
Zoe George: Um, I thought it was interesting that he was talking about like, some schools can be too small and that means you don't get, um, a lot of resources. So I really would like to know what he thinks is too small of a school because I think there's a benefit to a school being on the smaller side because then people become more accessible and you get to form better relationships with your teachers and your peers.
Noa Salas Adam: I thought it was interesting that he talks about, he said like a true merger is if you have like the best parts of one school and then take that with the best parts of another school and put it together. Um, but I'm wondering how often that actually happens. 
Rayleen Laloi: I feel like with BILA it's gotten better as time has gone on, but initially it just wasn't like that.
So I feel like it depends on like the two school communities especially. So just in my experience, I feel like it does take time, but with a lot of schools I can see that they just would never get to that point that BILA is at.
Roberto Bailey: Um, I'm Roberto, and on the topic of integration, I go to Hunter College High School, which although not under your jurisdiction, has a pretty severe lack of diversity. It's less than 5% black, less than 12% Latina, and less than 17% low income. So I wanted to ask about screened in specialized schools, which kind of have those same inequity problems .
You've made a commitment to prioritizing integration and working to phase out gifted and talented programs, for example, during your time in district 13. So as you're kind of stepping into the role of chancellor, I wanted to ask if you have a citywide policy on integration, and if so, what that citywide policy would look like?
Kamar Samuels: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think all of the work that I've done on integration really starts with really strong engagement, engagement of families, engagement in some cases of students, but mainly communities. And, um, then we come up with ideas, we come up with thoughts together. So, um, in district three we did that through working groups. 
I think people often look at the specialized high schools, which are governed by a state law, and so thinking about how the high school screens work, I think we've come a long way as a city where that's concerned. When we think about how the groupings work and um, having it based on grades, not standardized tests, things like that, I think have, have been like significant steps in the right direction from my perspective.
And when it comes to gifted and talented programs, um, you mentioned District 13. Um. There were a group of parents that were thinking about and, um, beginning to work on the phasing out of gifted and talented programs in this district, 13, even before I got there. And so when I got there, we worked together to kind of push on the system for doing that.
And I think what our mayor has talked about is this idea that, um, if you're gonna do selective admissions or some kind of admissions process, it's probably better to start that at third grade rather than kindergarten. Um, that's something I, you know, broadly agree with. 
Zana Halili: Roberto, what did you think of that response?
Roberto Bailey: I really wanted to ask about specifically citywide policy, which he didn't really talk about. Like he just said like, oh, we should look at. Creating a system, which I think is true, but like he doesn't really get to like an actual policy platform. I think probably because he's, the chancellorship is so new.
But yeah, like that part of the question I feel like went a little unanswered. 
Noa Salas Adam: Hello, Chancellor Samuels. How are you? Good. My name is Noah Salas. Adam and I go to Stuyvesant High School. 
Um, so just shifting focus a little bit, the average New York City public School is 75 years old, which means that many of them are struggling with filling HVAC systems and mold and dust mites even.
And schools are also significant contributors to our pollution in the city. Um, the buildings themselves. So I know that mayor Mamdani outlined his green schools for a healthier New York City plan, um, which would include renovating 500 schools and, um, having 500 green schoolyards as well. Um, but this is, this comes from a campaign document, so I was wondering.
What plans you and Mayor Mamdani have now to make this a reality and to make schools greener and also healthier? 
Kamar Samuels: Yeah, so we are going to need to build more schools for a host of reasons. Um, one of them being the class size law. We have to meet, uh, the need. And, and since schools are huge around the city, there are, you know, 1600, um, schools that are in, you know, something, a a thousand or so buildings.
And I think we provide a great opportunity for our city to be greener. And so that's something that we are definitely gonna be working on, and, uh, I'm sure, uh, the mayor would agree that, you know, we wanna keep that campaign promised to think about, um, how we're gonna make our schools greener [00:11:00] and do some renovations in the upcoming years and months.
Noa Salas Adam: Are there any specific plans in the works right now? 
Kamar Samuels: We're gonna continue to talk about them to see how it's still early. All right. I'm, I'm only, I've only been here for two months, but um, that's something that we're gonna be talking about in the upcoming weeks, months. Yeah. 
Noa Salas Adam: Great. Thank you.
Well, that was like not really what I was looking for, but also I wasn't too surprised to be honest, because I mean he, he is new. It is like a new administration. That was kind of an ambitious question, I guess, but I mean, since it is in his campaign, I was hoping there would be at least some sort of follow-up, like an action item maybe, but.
Also, he talked about class sizes, which wasn't really what my question was. And I tried to ask a follow up, but he was like, yeah, no, no plans right now 'cause it's new, which I guess is fair, but it was a little bit disappointing.
Zoe George: Hi, chancellor Samuels. My name is Zoe and I attend Bard High School Early College Manhattan. Um, you've addressed this desire or the need for, um, schools to be both mentally safe and physically safe, but I have noticed in my own experience that um, students are experiencing high levels of stress because of our, like political climate and just all the things that are going on in the world right now.
Um, whether it's the effects of the 24 hour news cycle or the ice rates in our communities. And so I was wondering what is your plan to kind of help students in NYC sort of manage stress in these particular contexts? 
Kamar Samuels: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, look, the world is stressful. I think, uh, uh, I mean, I think adults also struggle with, um, the things that you're talking about.
One of the things I've noticed, uh, and we're concerned about is, you know, current events often leads to not only stress, but bias in school as well. You know, when I first started teaching, it was 2003. And the current event was 9/11 and the bias was in Islamophobia. Then we've seen coming all the way through there were times where there was, um, LGBTQ bias or there is, uh, we had COVID as the current event and then we had, we saw, um, a rising in anti-Asian hate. We had October 7th and we saw a horizon. Antisemitism. And all through that we have seen anti-black racism in our city. And so as young people in school, um, navigate this, um, this, these situations, I think number one.
We have to make sure that we have, um, a guidance counselor, a social worker, or, um, access to a mental health clinic in every single school. Number two, we also have to make sure that when we think about our curriculum, when we think about our teachers, um, that they have resources to help support young people through these challenging times.
So for, for us, we're looking at, of course, um. Uh, or work with, um, facing History on ourselves, or we work with hidden, making sure our hidden voices, um, resources are available to everyone. Making sure that we have, um, our Black Studies curriculum that's, um, in place. And, and of course our Hidden Voices has like nine different identities.
It works though. So, um, that's one the, you know, in terms of making sure that our. Our young people feel safe, a sense of belonging, um, in what's happening in school. I think it's important to build our teacher's capacity to handle, um, difficult situations. And then of course, uh, you're talking about stress and mental health.
We think, um, obviously phone usage and social media as a part of that, which is, which is why I supported and implemented the phone, the cell phone ban, and I think that has, has gone very well. And so we're always going to be thinking about ways to continue to help young people navigate this. Polarized world in some ways that I think you, you're bringing up because I think that's a huge part.
You know, becoming an empathetic citizen, and I think that's a huge part of what it means to be prepared in the current landscape and prepared for and for career and college and beyond. 
Zoe George: So could we maybe see more of a student voice impact on our curriculum and our schools? 
Kamar Samuels: Yeah, so it's a great question.
I've visited probably about 30 schools since I started in two months. Um, what I take away from, and I'm always heartened by and, and challenged by too, is the fact that our young people and their voices play a huge part in, in our school. And when we know those kids. Feel safe, um, is when we see them being a part of the decision making process in their school and when we see them, um, that they're, when we see their voice being not only lifted up, but they're lifting up their own voices, right?
And, and so. I have a student advisory council. Um, we're starting a multicultural Student Advisory Coalition as well, student coalition as well. And so I am completely committed to this idea and this notion of how do we ensure that student voices are driving our system. 
Zana Halili: Thank you so much. 
Kamar Samuels: Thank you. 
Zana Halili: Zoe, what did you think about his answer to your question?
I feel like he had a lot to say. 
Zoe George: I liked his answer that he had to my question. I appreciated the listing of different associations and organizations and things that he was either. Adding that have already been established or looking to create. And so I was even just happy that he was open about sharing that and like was providing resources.
I also do appreciate his willingness to go to different schools and have this whole listening tour to listen to student voices. 'cause that's my main concern. These schools not leaving space for student voices. 
Zana Halili: We learned that one of our P.S. weekly reporters had a unique connection to past efforts to include student voices in the classroom.
Ermione Aleah Raymond: In 10th grade, I was actually a part of the chancellor's, um, advisory council. It was very interesting. We just ate pizza and talked and made videos. As a student who was actually on the like council myself, I felt like it was just more of one of those things that's like, Hey, I have this opposed to let's actually utilize these skills.
Cause there was kids from all types of different schools and we created curriculums. We created this, we created that. And I've never seen them implemented. I've never seen anyone ever talk about it besides the people in the group. 'cause like I made a good few videos, like I made a good few social emotional learning curriculums and said like what we want to include.
But what does that do if. It has no reach 
Zoe George: To your point, Ermione. I think that, um, the good thing about this listening tour is in going to schools is that hopefully he'll be going to schools and hearing student, individual voices. 'cause there is cases when there's things like biases that you can't get from like just a overall like review.
Jeremiah Dickerson: My name is Jeremiah Dickerson. I'm a student at Williamsburg Charter High School in Brooklyn, and I kind of wanted to pick your brain on AI policies in schools. For me as a student and Gen Z, I know that if something is taken away from us, we're just gonna find another way to access what was taken away, you know?
Fair. Um, so I kind of went to pick your brain and see like, what stance do you think schools should be taking right now on AI policies? 
Kamar Samuels: Yeah, it's a big one. AI is something that's causing a lot of fear, but we can't be crippled by that fear. I do believe there are responsible ways to use AI tools. I do believe that AI tools can serve, serve in ways to accelerate learning, to accelerate and make our teachers work more efficient.
And so we ought to be looking and thinking about how do we, um, work with and, and use AI tools. And quite frankly, you all are using it anyway, right? And so we are thinking. We'll be releasing soon  our first, uh, essentially draft on guidance on AI and which will trigger a, a 45 day period of feedback or not, because I think, you know, and we're gonna be clear around what tools are, are, are there, but, but we do think that we have to be able to look at what the potential benefits are because we see, especially when it comes to who need interventions, there might be opportunities there. 
Jeremiah Dickerson: Absolutely, and thank you so much for answering that question with such transparency,
I feel like I was satisfied with his answer, especially with his introductory statement where he said to me basically that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be crippled by fear when it comes to AI. Um, because I personally feel a lot like older teachers in my school. They're like, it's a divide where some teachers are like, Hey, like we need to like flat out ban it, and some teachers and staff and administrators are like, Hey, like why don't we find ways to teach students how to use this collaboratively and actually use this in ways where we can prepare them for a world that works collaboratively with ai, 
Noa Salas Adam: Even though it wasn't a concrete policy he did have, here is the next step.
We're coming out with our first draft of guidance on AI for schools. That felt pretty satisfactory. Yeah, for me, especially since he is so new. And he probably can't tell us more details, but the idea of having something that you know is going to be worked on. Yeah. Um, I thought that was, I thought that was really great and I understand maybe why he couldn't say more specifics.
Zana Halili: Since our conversation with the chancellor, that new AI policy he mentioned has come out. It's a bit complicated, but essentially potential uses by teachers with AI in the classroom have been put into traffic light categories. So approved uses are considered green light cases. Unapproved uses are red light cases and situations that would require supervision are yellow light cases.
For example, brainstorming for lesson plans is a green light case, and crisis intervention is an example of a red light case. Translating materials for a bilingual student is a yellow light case. Whether or not students are allowed to use AI is still being discussed by the DOE. Our reporters had mixed feelings about these guidelines.
Noa Salas Adam: I just think that it's interesting because they're recommending certain uses, but of course then they're all of these big tech companies that want to partner with the DOE. I think that's an important point. At Stuy, you're not really allowed to use any AI. I know at least in our English department, if you use it at any point in the process.
Um, so that would be brainstorming, outlining, writing, revising. You'll get a zero on the assignment. You'll have a meeting with your teacher, the assistant principal of the department and your parents. So they take it really seriously. So I don't really think that we'll be affected by this guidance. 
Jasper Mallorca: I just feel like the timing is pretty interesting 'cause I know in my AP calc class, we just started using AI, like our teacher assigns AI on this thing called glimmer where you get to like chat like this AI to finish every assignment and like every question. It's like if you're confused, like you have to, you have to ask it. And then once you solve it, you have to ask, is this all right?
And they'll like to go through all these unnecessary steps on like, so like you spend like hours on it. It was just like, I don't know. It was just kind of interesting that now there's this whole, like these AI rules and just as like teachers started to incorporate it. 'cause I guess AI has blown up a lot.
Mateo Tang O’Reilly: I guess something that surprised me was that it was more centered around like. Restrictions on staff and teachers rather than students, because I thought it would be mostly like, students can use it as support, but not like to do their assignments for them. I thought it would be more about that rather than like, teachers can use it as a shortcut for like translation and organizing data and whatever else.
So I guess that was my takeaway.
Zana Halili: That's all for today on this episode of P.S. Weekly. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with the Chancellor and each other. If you're interested in hearing more, check out our bonus episode from last season where our student reporters interviewed the previous chancellor, Melissa Avilas Ramos. And be sure to look out for the next episode of season three of P.S. Weekly.
Or one of our reporters investigates a student movement advocating for increased diversity at Hunter College High School. P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between the Bell and Chalkbeat made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation. The P.S. weekly reporters you heard in this episode are Rayleen Laloi, Jeremiah Dickerson, Noa Salas Adam, Ermione Aleah Raymond, Jasper Mallorca, Mateo Tang O’Reilly, Roberto Bailey and Zoe George. 
Our senior producer for the show is Maria Robin Somerville, and our technical director is Jake Lummus. Executive editors are Amy Zimmer and Taylor McGraw. Additional production and reporting support was provided by Mira Gordon, Sabrina DuQuesnay, Katelyn Melville, our friends at Chalkbeat, and me Zana Halili. Music is from APM and Blue Dot Sessions, and the jingle you heard at the beginning of this episode was created by the one and only Erica Huang.