Mike Elsen-Rooney

The shutdown canceled their U.S. Capitol tour. These Bronx students got one from AOC instead. Students from Zeta Charter School got a tour of the Capitol they’ll never forget when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez escorted them through the building.

The rare feel-good gov't shutdown story: I talked to some Bronx 8th-graders on a field trip to DC whose tour of the Capitol was canceled bc of the shutdown - and who ended up getting a personal tour from @aoc.bsky.social instead: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Eric Adams’ first schools Chancellor David Banks shares his thoughts on the last year of Adams’ tenure as news comes he won’t seek a second term. Via @alexzimmerman.bsky.social:

www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

NYC educators are pushing the joys of ‘distraction-free’ schools over fears of ‘cellphone ban’ NYC educators and mental health professionals are trying to help students adjust to school without cellphones. Just don’t call it a ban, they advise.

“It’s truly more socializing than I’ve seen in my 10 years working in a high school.”

Seyma Bayram w/ a great story on the early challenges + triumphs of school without phones in NYC.

www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

More from @amyzimmer.bsky.social and @alexzimmerman.bsky.social on why Adams does not have legal authority to roll back the DOE's bathroom access policies for trans students in NYC despite these comments: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Families of gender-nonconforming students in NYC have been worried about something like this for months given Mayor Adams’ stance towards Trump + his wide authority over schools (www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...). Now Adams is openly promising to review school bathroom policy.

Really excited for this talk next week at Lofty Pigeon about two important books. NYC education folks - would love to see you there!

Always a pretty wild reminder of the scale of NYC’s school system to see the class of new teachers assembled in the same place

Follow 2 students as SEPTA cuts complicate their commute on the first day of school Students across Philadelphia are waking up earlier and waiting longer for SEPTA to get them to school. But many say they’re bound to be late anyway, with less reliable service and more crowded routes....

The stellar @rebeccaredelmeier.bsky.social got up at the crack of dawn to ride SEPTA to school with two Philly students. The whole trip took over an hour and they missed a bus and had to walk the last mile to Palumbo. These cuts are already having a real impact on Philly's young people:

'The goal is to survive': NYC school for immigrants faces an uncertain future under Trump Normally, in the final month of school, students at ELLIS Prep worried about moving to the next grade or graduating. This year, they wondered: “Is a masked person going to grab me off the street?”

"Normally, in the final month of school, students were worried about moving to the next grade or graduating. This year, he said they wondered: 'Is a masked person going to grab me off the street?'"

via @chalkbeat.org / @michaelelsenroo.bsky.social

@michaelelsenroo.bsky.social’s eye for detail is impressive

Thank you @bgrueskin.bsky.social for highlighting my reporting on a Bronx HS and undocumented teen navigating the Trump administration.

Here’s Part 1: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

And Part 2: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

"Her unexpected removal...will likely have a deep emotional impact on her classmates and our entire school community. She belongs with her family and her classmates."

Message from principal of P.S. 89 in Queens, whose 7 y/o student was detained by ICE + sent to Texas, via @gwynnefitz.bsky.social

Thank you so much!

So lucky to work with amazing photographers like Jose Alvarado and Wendy Correa whose stirring images bring this story to life.

Part 2 is out today. It’s about what happens after the deportation campaign arrives at ELLIS’ doorstep and the difficult choices facing Bridget and the school as they try to make it through the Trump administration.

www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

‘They’ve given her a lot of hope’: A NYC school fights to educate an undocumented teen under Trump For Bridget and Marta, ELLIS Prep often felt like the only public institution with its arms open in a city and country that seemed not to want them.

“It’s not going to be my fault that her dream dies." @MichaelElsenRoo spent months with an undocumented NYC student and the school fighting to keep her education hopes alive www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Thanks so much, @alexfreidus.bsky.social. And now that I'm coming up for air, really looking forward to diving into your book and the event next month!

Uh oh what have we waded into...That history is fascinating though. What's the right label for the neighborhood?

If you read one thing today, read this 👇

Here is your must edu-read of the day; terrific embedded reporting on the fear and stress our immigrant neighbors and their children are experiencing and the heroes trying to steer them through it

And Part 2 will be out tomorrow!

I’m deeply grateful to the courageous Bridget, Marta and ELLIS staff who let me into their school and lives. And to my wonderful Chalkbeat editors + colleagues for giving me the space + support to do this work.

For all the fear + hardship in these stories, there’s also hope, love + perseverance.

A Bronx high schooler showed up for a routine immigration court date. ICE was waiting. A NYC public school student’s arrest was part of a nationwide blitz of immigration authorities detaining migrants in courthouses in an effort to speed up deportations.

Several months into my time at ELLIS, one of their students - a friend of Bridget’s - was detained by ICE (www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...)

Part 2 looks at how ELLIS + Bridget picked up the pieces - + how they’re adapting to survive the Trump administration.

‘They’ve given her a lot of hope’: A NYC school fights to educate an undocumented teen under Trump For Bridget and Marta, ELLIS Prep often felt like the only public institution with its arms open in a city and country that seemed not to want them.

For 6 months, I’ve followed ELLIS, a Bronx HS for newcomers, to understand what it means to educate immigrant students in Trump’s second term.

Proud to share the 1st of 2 stories about ELLIS, Bridget, an undocumented teen, & the fight to keep her education alive.

www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

@alexzimmerman.bsky.social flexes a deep knowledge of the complicated dynamics of the SHSAT, but in particular his answer at the very end of the show is probably the clearest thing I’ve ever seen in the media about the limits of test prep on a 100% norm referenced test 1/

Forged signatures found on Mayor Adams’ petitions to run as an independent The Adams campaign said it is conducting a review after Gothamist found signatures that were fraudulently obtained or outright forged.

NEW: Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election campaign submitted faked and fraudulently obtained petition signatures in his effort to secure a spot on the November ballot as an independent candidate, a Gothamist investigation has found.
gothamist.com/news/forged-...

Enraging story from @alexzimmerman.bsky.social. NYC hasn’t paid its ~1,000 Teaching Fellows the entire 7 weeks they’ve been working this summer, forcing some to go into debt to cover rent and food. This at a time the city is trying to hire in historic numbers: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...

Nicolle Orozco Forero had a gift for working with children with disabilities. Then she and her seriously ill son were taken into ICE custody. After a child care worker is detained, a community is left reeling

After a child care worker is detained, a community is left reeling

‘It’s a Miracle’: Queens High Schooler Detained for Weeks in Louisiana After ICE Courthouse Arrest Reunites with Family Joselyn Chipantiza-Sisalema, 20, arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal early Wednesday morning after a federal judge ordered her release from ICE custody.

“We had to beg the people working there that they gave us something to eat, they didn’t even give us water. Sometimes a few cookies they’d throw in there. They had us in there like animals.” — via @gwynnefitz.bsky.social
www.thecity.nyc/2025/07/16/q...

Queens student detained by ICE to be released after month in Texas facility After more than a month in ICE detention, Derlis Snaider Chusin Toaquiza, a student from Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, was to be released on bond.

A Queens 11th-grader detained by ICE last month is set to be released from the Texas detention center he’s been for a month following a judge’s order today: www.chalkbeat.org/newyork/2025...