The first exit: Deputy chancellor for family engagement to depart Education Department

""The most important thing you can do is stay engaged in your schools and keep building your child's confidence day by day, conversation by conversation, and moment by moment," she wrote. "That steady belief you offer your child becomes their strength.""

"Meléndez assumed her role as deputy chancellor more than a year ago, after serving as the executive director of the Education Department's Office of Family and Community Empowerment, known as FACE, which among other things, oversees the Community Education Council elections. The elections have had notoriously low turnout, with roughly 18,000 households, or just 2% of eligible families, casting ballots in 2025. A 2023 Chalkbeat investigation highlighted numerous concerns in how FACE conducted the election process, uncovering how the office was gripped internally by turmoil and factions, potentially affecting the election process. A New York City comptroller report called on the Education Department to implement a series of changes in the voting process, but the participation rate remained unchanged."

""We look forward to sharing more soon," Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said in a statement commending Meléndez for her service."

Cristina Meléndez, deputy chancellor of family, community, and student empowerment, will leave her post on Feb. 27. She emailed parent leaders to thank them and urged continued engagement and daily confidence-building with children. Officials did not disclose her next role or name a replacement. A department spokesperson commended her service and said more information would be shared soon. Meléndez had served more than a year after leading the Office of Family and Community Empowerment (FACE), which oversees Community Education Council elections. Those elections drew roughly 18,000 households (about 2% of eligible families) in 2025 despite prior investigations and a comptroller report calling for voting process changes.

Read at Chalkbeat