{"id":175226,"date":"2025-08-25T20:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T20:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/175226\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T20:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T20:38:15","slug":"nyc-student-journalists-interview-chancellor-melissa-aviles-ramos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/175226\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC student journalists interview Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter<\/a> to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

As roughly 900,000 New York City students prepare to return to school on Thursday, Sept. 4, three student journalists got a preview of the year ahead from the head of the nation\u2019s largest school system. <\/p>\n

In this special back-to-school episode of P.S. Weekly, schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos shared her thoughts on pressing education issues ranging from the cellphone ban to restorative justice and whether she\u2019d encourage her middle school daughter to take the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

On the cellphone ban, the chancellor acknowledged there will be a \u201cdetox\u201d period and promised the Education Department is working \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d to develop a way for students and families to communicate issues with their schools\u2019 rollout. For restorative justice \u2014 initiatives that focus on conflict mediation rather than punitive punishment <\/a>\u2014 Aviles-Ramos said she \u201ccompletely\u201d supports the practice and expects to \u201camp up\u201d the focus on it. And for the SHSAT, she said she\u2019s not encouraging her daughter to take it, but will follow her daughter\u2019s lead and support whatever decision her daughter chooses in terms of pursuing the test or not. <\/p>\n

Inspiration, advice, and best practices for the classroom \u2014 learn from teachers like you.<\/p>\n

Across all of our bureaus, Chalkbeat reporters interview educators with interesting, effective approaches to teaching students and leading their schools. Get the best of How I Teach sent to your inbox for free every month.<\/p>\n

Student journalists Aponi Kafele of Essex Street Academy, Roberto Bailey of Hunter College High School, and Autumn Wynn of Park Slope Collegiate also pressed the chancellor on her commitment to the city\u2019s Journalism for All<\/a> initiative and asked what students can do if they don\u2019t feel their schools are sufficiently academically rigorous. <\/p>\n

Aviles-Ramos, a former student journalist herself, said the Education Department was looking for ways to successfully implement journalism programs across schools. And she encouraged students to think critically about whether they are being challenged in class, not in terms of the amount of homework they\u2019re getting but rather whether they\u2019re learning to think for themselves and build new skills. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re outlining what a classroom should look like and what the teacher should be doing, what the students should be doing, and what the family should be doing and experiencing,\u201d she said, previewing a push for the new school year to give students and families a new tool to understand whether they\u2019re getting a quality education. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how we build accountability,\u201d Aviles-Ramos said.<\/p>\n

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy atazimmer@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for Chalkbeat New York\u2019s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC\u2019s public schools delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,99625,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,99626,99624,99627,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-175226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-chancellor-melissa-aviles-ramos","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-nyc-schools-chancellor","17":"tag-p-s-weekly","18":"tag-student-journalists","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115091335078417398","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}