[14] The education headquarters were moved from 110 Livingston Street in downtown Brooklyn to the Tweed Courthouse building adjacent to New York City Hall in Manhattan.

[20] The city has started several initiatives to reduce childhood obesity among students, including promoting exercise and improving nutrition in school cafeterias.

[21] The DOE cited the high sugar content of baked sale goods and that 40% of city students are obese.

However, vending machines in the schools operated by Frito Lay and Snapple continued to sell high processed empty calorie foods such as Doritos and juices.

[22] As part of the DOE's program to create healthy diets among students, Frito Lay was obligated to put Reduced Fat Doritos in machines.

[25] The New York State Assembly published a report that the NYCDOE failed to maintain or improve playgrounds, instead turning them into ad-hoc additional classroom space or parking lots.

[30] Beginning in 2000, the DOE instituted a number of innovative programs for teacher recruitment, including the New York City Teaching Fellows,[31] the TOP Scholars Program, and initiatives to bring foreign teachers (primarily from Eastern Europe) to teach in the city's schools.

[42] According to Beth Fertig, Community Education Councils are "supposed to provide an avenue for parent engagement.

"[42] According to Tim Kremer, head of the New York State School Boards Association, "although education councils don't have a lot of power they can play a vital role in vetting budgets and giving feedback on instructional policies.

"[42] According to Soni Sangha, the councils are mainly obscure and unknown to many parents, their forums are not well-attended, and they meet with the citywide schools chancellor.

[44] About 40% of students in the city's public school system live in households where a language other than English is spoken; one-third of all New Yorkers were born in another country.

The city's Department of Education translates report cards, registration forms, system-wide alerts, and documents on health and policy initiatives for parents into Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, and Haitian Creole.

[46] It was designed to enlarge the pool of African American and Hispanic candidates eligible for admission to the selective schools by giving them extra lessons and teaching test-taking skills.

Hispanic students are concentrated in Washington Heights and Corona and the greatest segregation existed in black neighborhoods.

According to the report, black and Hispanic students were more likely to attend nonselective schools with majority-black and Hispanic demographics and lower graduation rates, while white and Asian students were more likely to attend selective or zoned schools with higher graduation rates.

[50][51] While the universal high school choice policy in New York City sought to weaken the link between the conditions in students neighborhoods and their educational outcomes, a 2016 report by Measure of America found that on-time graduation rates still vary immensely by where students lived.

[62] Introduced in 2011 as a collaboration between NYCDOE and the New England Center for Children, the Horizon program is designed to meet the needs of autistic students who have average to below average intelligence, display mild to moderate language difficulties, and have mild to moderate delays in playing and interacting with other students.

Introduced in 2019, AIMS is a special education program in select District 75 schools that is designed to meet the needs of autistic students with moderate to severe delays in academic skills and have below average working memory, verbal and non-verbal reasoning abilities, speech and language and attention.

[63] A number of New York City public school students have gone on to become celebrities, and leaders in various industries including music, fashion, business, sports, and entertainment.

Some of the most notable New York City public school alumni include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Alicia Keys, Stanley Kubrick, Al Pacino, Colin Powell, Lloyd Blankfein, Neil deGrasse Tyson (K – 12), and Jay-Z.

The Board operated radio station WNYE beginning in 1938, from studios located within the campus of Brooklyn Technical High School.

Television station WNYE-TV went on the air in 1967, with its studios adjacent to George Westinghouse High School in Downtown Brooklyn.

[71] New York is one of ten major U.S. cities in which the educational system is under the control of the mayor rather than an elected school board.

Many people expressed shock and disappointment at the decision, claiming that co-location leads to congestion of school streets, overcrowded classrooms, strained resources, and a negative impact on children's education.

[75] In 2016 the City of New York agreed to pay $ 2.7 million settlement to the family of Avonte Oquendo in response to a wrongful death lawsuit brought against the Department of Education.

K077 in Brooklyn walked out of school, went missing for over an hour, and was later found inside an apartment building three blocks away.

[85][86][87] Mayor de Blasio retains control over the New York City Public Schools, due to state lawmakers granting two one year extensions, currently valid through the end of June 2022.

Lawmakers also agreed to give districts until the end of the year to negotiate details of new evaluation systems for teachers and principals.

[90][91] The basis of the suit claimed that the atmosphere inside New York City public schools was depriving students of their right to receive an education free of violence, bullying and harassment.

"[94] To give this context, City Journal reported that "a separate Brooklyn district would itself be the fourth-largest in the country.