Minutes after Zohran Mamdani’s victory, NYC parents started plotting their kids’ escape from public schools.NH
Zohran Mamdani’s victory has New Yorkers running for the hills — or at least private schools outside of the city.
Since the results of Tuesday’s election came in, school placement consultant Christopher Rim told The Post he’s had no less than 23 clients reach out to him. They’re looking to relocate — and they want his help getting their kids into elite private high schools and middle schools in other states
“Within the first 30 minutes of AP announcing Mamdani’s victory, I got three messages from families looking to move,” said Rim, the founder and CEO of Command Education.
Others sought his assistance months ago.
“Over the summer, I started hearing families say, ‘I don’t know what we are going to do if this guy wins,’” he said.
Feeling that a Mamdani victory was inevitable, six of his clients moved to Connecticut — Greenwich, Darien and Riverside — ahead of the school year.
“They were like, ‘He’s going to win, and there’s no reason [to wait],’” Rim said.
The parents who have reached out to him have kids enrolled at top-notch New York City schools, including Trinity, Riverdale, Horace Mann, Ramaz and Avenues. Their children range from 3rd grade through high school.
Many, he reports, are Jewish and are concerned about rising antisemitism in the city and Mamdani’s views on Israel.
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“They’re saying they’re worried about safety in their everyday life,” Rim said. “I don’t even think it’s a financial thing. I don’t think it’s the taxes or how much more money they would have to pay to live here.”
Meanwhile, Rabbi Marc Schneier of The Hampton Synagogue has announced plans to start the first Jewish Day School in the Hamptons.
“This is in anticipation of the thousands of Jewish Families that will flock to the Hamptons and greater Suffolk County to escape the antisemitic climate of Mamdani’s New York,” the Rabbi wrote in a Tuesday Night Facebook post.
A poll conducted by J.L. Partners right before the election found that 9% of New Yorkers would “definitely” leave upon a Mamdani victory, and another 25% were considering it.
Rim’s clients have been primarily interested in schools in Florida, including American Heritage in Plantation; Lehrman Day School in Miami Beach; Pine Crest in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton; Ransom Everglades in Miami and Miami Country Day School.
Saddle River Day School and Dwight Englewood in New Jersey and Greenwich Day School in Connecticut have also been popular placement requests. But parents are keeping an open mind just to get out of the Big Apple.
“They’re telling me, ‘We’d like to go to these schools, but if we don’t get into them, let us know what other schools we can get into,’” Rim said.
The expert consultant believes that families are going to have a real uphill battle getting into such selective private schools at the last minute.
“Even if you know someone at the school, you need to have a very strong application, you have to get all the recommendation letters together,” he said. “Students have not necessarily been preparing for all of this.”
Even though these families are coming from some of the top New York City schools, he says they’re up for a real challenge.
“It hasn’t been hard to get into some of these schools,” he said, referring to NYC’s Trinity and Brearley. “It is far, far, far more difficult to get into these Florida schools.”
On Wednesday morning, he also spoke with a family who decided to take NYU and Columbia off their college application list “because they don’t want their kid to live in New York City” with Mamdani as mayor.
“These are families who have been thinking of leaving, been wanting to leave,” Rim said. “This is just the final thing that pushed them to New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, or even further.”
