Town Hall on NYC School Integration Raises Questions About Future Plans

At a town-hall meeting held on a Tuesday evening at the Washington Irving campus in Manhattan, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones spent more than 40 minutes questioning Chancellor Kamar Samuels about the New York City Department of Education’s approach to integrating the city’s public schools. The session, organized by the pro-integration group New York Appleseed and the student-journalism incubator The Bell, drew several hundred attendees and highlighted the tension between the chancellor’s cautious stance and the urgency expressed by city officials.

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Samuels identified “community opposition” as a primary obstacle, noting that without broad local support, integration efforts could stall. He pointed to the Education Department’s formation of working groups in five of the city’s 32 local districts, though details about membership or recommendations remain undisclosed. The chancellor also emphasized the need to address “small schools” with shrinking enrollment—about 30,000 students attend highly segregated schools with fewer than 200 pupils, which typically offer fewer advanced courses, extracurriculars, and resources.

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Samuels reiterated that the department is not abandoning efforts to confront segregation, but he emphasized differing views on the methods to be used. The chancellor also highlighted recent expansions of high-demand programs for students with disabilities into pre-kindergarten classrooms as part of broader integration work.

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Parents and observers expressed disappointment over the lack of a concrete plan. Social-media commentary described Hannah-Jones’s questioning as a forceful challenge to Samuels’s leadership.

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• Working groups are active in 5 of 32 city districts.

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• Approximately 30,000 students attend under-enrolled schools with fewer than 200 students.

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• 33 high schools now have fewer than 150 students, and 113 have fewer than 250, marking an eight-fold increase from 25 years ago.

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• “While they said it’s a conversation, it’s really about to be an interrogation,” — Nikole Hannah-Jones, york times journalist

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• “If you don’t have the conversation well, you will see a level of pushback that will essentially start to end the conversation,” — Chancellor Kamar Samuels

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• “I am not saying that we will not address segregation in our schools,” — Chancellor Kamar Samuels

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• “Despite the truly heartbreaking reality that the kids themselves know exactly how they are being shortchanged, there doesn’t seem to be any plan for them,” — Johanna Bjorken, the parent of a senior at Urban Assembly Maker Academy

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