What you should know
- 64 Percent of Classes Now in Compliance
New York – New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramostoday announced that New York City Public Schools has surpassed the 60 percent class size reduction milestone originally planned for the 2025-2026 school year. The announcement comes after the Fiscal Year 2026 Adopted Budget funded over 3,700 teaching positions and 100 assistant principal positions across nearly 750 New York City Public Schools, as well as collaborative planning between with United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA), and school leaders across the public school system,
"Smaller class sizes change lives by making it easier for kids to learn, and today's milestone shows what's possible when we invest in our students and work hand-in-hand with our union partners and school leaders," said Mayor Adams. "Thanks to our administration's investment of $450 million in class size reductions, we're giving our educators the support they need to build more personalized, nurturing classrooms. Surpassing 60 percent of our class size reduction target for the 2025–2026 school year is a major step forward, and we're not slowing down. We will continue working with the United Federation of Teachers, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, and leaders across our system to ensure we get to 80 percent next school year, and, more importantly, to ensure every child in every borough has the learning environment they need and deserve to thrive."
"I am proud to share that in partnership with our union partners and school communities, our school system this year continues to be in compliance with the class size law, now with 64 percent of classes in compliance," said Public Schools Chancellor Aviles-Ramos. "Our priority this past year was to ensure that our school leaders had the support they needed in making the transition to lower class sizes, and we are thrilled to welcome thousands of new teachers and staff towards that end. I am eager to work closely with our district and school leaders as they continue to bring more classes into compliance."
Understanding that the complexity of this law's implementation required school and community level input, today's announcement serves as the result of a school-driven planning process, comprising an over $450-million investment in New York City Public Schools. This investment in the city's public schools — made up in part by tax levy funds — represents an ongoing commitment to fully funding public schools and supported over 3,700 teaching positions and 100 assistant principal positions across the public school system. In addition to significant investments for class size efforts, the city continues its commitment to equitably funding all public schools, and, as part of that commitment, worked to hold schools harmless this year.
New York City Public Schools will also continue to ensure equitable funding through the Fair Student Funding Formula, through the two newest weights — the concentration weight and the students in temporary housing weight, added after significant public engagement through the Fair Student Funding Working Group — and collectively providing over $120 million of funding to the highest need schools via the formula this year. Notably, schools that received additional teachers through this initiative increased compliance by 27 points, along with significant progress made across the board. Currently, nearly a third of non-compliant classes are only one to three students over the new caps, and the number of classes that were six students or more above the cap has substantially decreased year over year.
Today's announcement includes an agreement reached by New York City Public Schools, the UFT, and the CSA on exemptions for Specialized High Schools that did not have space to comply, as well as for schools without space to comply that will be positively impacted by planned and sited capital projects. This information and other reporting on the implementation approach is outlined in the Annual Class Size Implementation Report. New York City Public Schools has already announced the launch of the planning process for schools for the 2026-2027 school year. Building on the success of last year's school-driven approach and the city's continued commitment to embracing school-level engagement as essential to this implementation, all schools in Districts 1-32 are now working to assess their needed resources and report on what will be needed to support the next system-wide milestone of 80 percent of classes at or below the caps.
Today's announcement also builds off core educational accomplishments under the Adams administration, including instituting nation-leading dyslexia screening for all students, adding 57 Gifted and Talented programs, cementing new labor contracts for teachers and other education officials, investing $167 million in new funding to secure critical early childhood education programs, dramatically increasing early childhood education enrollment to 150,000 children across the city's system, and securing mayoral accountability twice in three years while investing $180 million to implement a comprehensive class size reduction plan.
"We applaud our principals and their school leadership teams for all the work that allowed New York City Public Schools to meet this year's class-size reduction milestones," said CSA President Henry D. Rubio. "Our school leaders know their students, their enrollment, and their buildings best. We commend the mayor and the chancellor for embracing a school-driven approach, and we thank them for providing the necessary resources to implement plans with care and integrity. We look forward to using this same school-driven process this year as the city identifies and builds new classroom spaces to achieve the law's goals."
"The class size law is a success. More than 64 percent of the classrooms across the city are in compliance. Thousands of students are feeling the impact. Educators are sharing they have more individual time with their students. Our job now is to keep moving until all students can benefit from lower class sizes," said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. "We will continue to work with the DOE, parents, and school communities across New York City to fulfill this promise for our school system."
"I am proud that with support from the city and our unions, our school community was able to make major strides towards smaller class sizes for our students," said P.S. 199 Frederick Wachtel Principal Lauren DeNatale. "With additional funding to hire new teachers, and a strong, comprehensive community engagement plan, bringing our families into our class size planning process, I am proud that a majority of our classes are now under the mandated caps."
"Today's announcement represents continued effort from districts across the city, including District 28, to reduce class sizes in compliance with the law and in service of our families," said District 28 Superintendent Dr. Eric Blake. "With the guidance of our school leaders and the support of SLTs, PTAs, and families, we've secured funding, added space, and taken big steps toward smaller class sizes."