Alex Zimmerman

Alex Zimmerman

Reporter, Chalkbeat New York

Alex Zimmerman joined the Chalkbeat team in 2016. Before that, he was a staff writer at the Pittsburgh City Paper and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Village Voice, Vice and Atlas Obscura. Alex can be reached at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org

Officials hope the new role will help create a pipeline of new school safety agents, a workforce that has declined 28% over the past five years. Critics say teens should not be involved in school safety.

As city officials encourage schools to move activities inside, nearly 1 in 5 classrooms still lack air conditioning.

PLACE, a polarizing education advocacy group, lost seats in Manhattan’s District 2 amid a controversial push to rethink transgender students’ access to sports teams.

NYC’s second-largest union, the UFT, will not endorse a mayoral primary candidate because of deep divisions among members on key issues beyond education.

NYC mayoral candidates weigh in on the city’s $40 billion school system serving 911,000 students. Find out their takes on curriculum, class size, selective admissions, and more.

The city spent millions of dollars on air purifiers in schools to combat COVID. But the devices should also help with pollutants like wildfire smoke.

Small schools are expensive to operate and simultaneously struggle to afford basic programs. But closing them will likely spark community backlash.

If the suit is successful, it would become harder for schools to suspend students for long periods of time.