Mayor Adams is expected to announce new schools chancellor Wednesday

September 25, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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NEW YORK CITY — NEW YORKERS EXPECT THE NEXT SCHOOLS CHANCELLOR to be Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a top deputy in the department. Aviles-Ramos will be appointed on Wednesday afternoon, according to reports from the Daily News and Chalkbeat.

The appointment will come following Tuesday’s surprise announcement from Chancellor David Banks that he will retire at the end of this year. However, the name of Ms. Aviles-Ramos, who is the city’s current deputy chancellor of family and community engagement and external affairs, was quickly floated as a viable successor.

Already familiar to the Adams administration, Aviles-Ramos has served as deputy chief of staff to Chancellor Banks and is the highest-ranking Spanish-speaking official. She coordinated the local Education Department’s response, starting in 2022, to the influx of migrants that included 45,000 school-aged children, in an initiative named Project Open Arms, which the mayor considers one of his administration’s successful programs, Chalkbeat reported. She started with the NYC Public Schools as an English teacher in 2007, serving in the Bronx.

Chancellor Banks, in his resignation letter, pledged “do everything possible to ensure a smooth transition.” Wednesday’s announcement will be made at Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, which Banks helped launch in 1997 as founding principal.

Caban’s successor, NYPD’s Interim Commissioner Thomas Donlon, is already on the radar of federal authorities, who on Friday, Sept. 20 seized documents from his home, although he said those were unrelated to the NYPD, as he worked outside the department.

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