Photo Courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
“As a lifelong New Yorker, a product of our City’s public schools, and a career educator, it is the honor of my lifetime to serve as Chancellor,” said Incoming Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday appointed Meisha Porter—a borough native, City public school graduate, and 20-year veteran who has led at every level in the system—the next chancellor of New York City public schools, and the first Black woman to serve in the role.
After three years at the helm, Richard Carranza will begin transitioning out of the role of chancellor. Porter will begin as chancellor on March 15.
In a media availability, Carranza said that he is resigning because he needs time to grieve for the 11 family members and friends that he lost in the past 12 months to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a man who’s been through hell this last year, and he and I talked about it many times and, you know, he chose today to make it public, but this has been going on for a long time,” de Blasio said on Friday on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC. “It has almost been impossible to imagine, as he has told me, each time another family member was lost. Each time a childhood friend was lost. It has taken a huge toll, but he kept going somehow, and I admire it, but he also, you know, to his credit, was able to bring out that he was really suffering, and he had been through a trauma, a repeated trauma, and he needed to get away from the stress and the intensity of this job, and just have time to grieve and address what he was going through.”
Porter currently serves as Bronx Executive Superintendent, leading community school districts 7-12 and New Visions Affinity schools, covering the entire borough’s 361 schools and 235,448 students. She started her career as a youth organizer in Highbridge, and joined the Department of Education as a teacher at the Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice, a school she helped conceive and found. After 18 years at the school, where she became Principal, she spent three years as Superintendent of District 11, which served the Pelham Parkway, Eastchester, and Woodlawn neighborhoods of the Bronx.
In addition to previous roles within the DOE, Porter has also taught at CUNY as an adjunct professor and been a Columbia University Cahn fellow, an Aspen Institute fellow, and a member of the Harvard University National Institute for Urban School Leaders and the Fordham University—Carnegie Foundation iLead team. Porter has also received the National Association of Negro Women Sojourner Truth Award, Mercy College honorary degree and multiple state and local recognitions.
Porter was born in Queens and comes from a family of educators. She was raised by a single mother who returned to school to finish her degree and become an educator herself. Porter said her upbringing has taught her the power of public education, and the difference one teacher can make.
“As a lifelong New Yorker, a product of our City’s public schools, and a career educator, it is the honor of my lifetime to serve as Chancellor,” said Incoming Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter.
