Pro-charter supporters march across the Brooklyn Bridge at a rally on Sept. 18. (Credit: Julie Lee)
Thousands of charter school students, staff and families in matching purple and yellow t-shirts filled Cadman Park in Brooklyn on Sept. 18 for a pro-charter rally and march. Leading up to the day, staff said they were told participation was “mandatory.”
“We didn’t really have an option,” said an electives teacher at the rally, who works at Success Academy, the largest charter school network in New York City.
The rally took place just weeks before a mayoral election in New York City. State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani — currently leading in the polls by more than 20 points — is the only candidate in the race who has publicly opposed charter expansion.
At the rally, a common refrain from supporters was “charter schools are public schools.”
Approximately one in six students in New York City attend charter schools, which are privately-run schools, often managed by nonprofits, that receive both public funding and private donations. Teachers unions have typically opposed charter schools, which they see as taking resources from New York City Department of Education (DOE) public schools.
Mamdani was endorsed by the United Federation of Teachers, the union for New York City teachers, in July.
The mayor does not have much influence over charter schools, which are typically state-managed, but can make decisions regarding their co-location with DOE schools. (More than 40% of charter schools are currently in buildings owned or leased by the DOE.)
Charter school teachers are, on average, younger adults, in line with Mamdani’s core base.
“[Mamdani] is a beacon of hope for young New Yorkers like myself. We need more people like him,” said the electives teacher. “Even if you disagree with his opinions on charter schools, don’t discourage him. Don’t make people come to a rally.”
During a press conference at the rally on Thursday, charter school leaders dodged suggestions that the event was directed at Mamdani. But interviews with more than a dozen current and former charter schools staff — along with internal emails, meeting recordings, and other documents reviewed by Columbia News Service — paint a picture of a targeted effort by charter school networks to leverage their workforce for a pressure campaign aimed at the incoming mayoral administration.
One of the first indications that charter schools were starting to be concerned about Mamdani was a July 28 training event for more than 500 new teachers from Success Academy.
According to multiple attendees, CEO and founder Eva Moskowitz talked about Mamdani’s “anti-charter” stance in her opening remarks. She also brought up an upcoming rally.
“[Mamdani] was the only person that she mentioned by name,” said Mackenzie Alderson, a former Success Academy elementary school teacher who attended the event.
At an Aug. 8 staff meeting about the upcoming rally, Moskowitz referenced the mayoral candidate again.
“We will have a new mayor potentially, and we’ve got to make sure that [the] new mayor understands that, you know, ZIP code is not destiny,” she was heard saying in a recording reviewed by Columbia News Service. She added, “We are going to be working all angles, from the media to the politicians.”
The rally had the slogans “Excellence is a Civil Right” and “Access is Equity.” (Credit: Julie Lee)
Despite feeling uncomfortable with the connection between the rally and the mayoral race, Success Academy staff said they didn’t feel like they could refuse to go.
“My principal said it’s mandatory numerous times,” said a middle-school teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Another teacher at an elementary school described a similar experience.
The rally took place during the day, with attendees arriving in the early morning and leaving Cadman Plaza to march across the Brooklyn Bridge just before noon. Classes were cancelled for the schools who attended. (Some schools, including at least one Success Academy high school, were not asked to attend.)
Ann Powell, a spokesperson for Success Academy, told Chalkbeat before the rally that they were “not canceling school,” but instead “moving it to the streets.”
Success Academy has a long history of organizing pro-charter rallies.
Liz Baker, a former spokesperson for Success Academy, was the media liaison for a 2019 rally in Queens. She described the event as part of a “pressure campaign” against then-mayor Bill de Blasio. (During his tenure from 2014 to 2021, de Blasio blocked the expansion and co-location of charter schools with public schools.)
Frank Marino, a former Success Academy teacher, recalled another rally aimed at de Blasio in 2014.
“Eva personally called my coworker to try to scare her into attending and scare us into attending,” he said.
In a leaked recording of a staff meeting on Sept. 16, two days before the rally, Moskowitz was heard making a direct analogy to the de Blasio administration. The same meeting was also referenced in Gothamist.
“This is not a theoretical worry,” said Moskowitz, at that meeting, about the “existential threat” facing charter schools. She added, “We lived through eight years of Bill de Blasio. The first thing he did when he became mayor is he threw out three of our schools.”
At the rally, Moskowitz dismissed implications that staff were forced to attend.
“We at Success have a dual mission,” she said. “When you decide to work at Success Academy, you sign up to be an [education] warrior. And that is very clear in all of our material.”
A 2025-2026 Success Academy employee handbook, reviewed by Columbia News Service, mentions the dual mission, but not advocacy requirements.
Zeta Charter Schools — a network of 11 schools with about 4,000 students — also mandated staff presence at the rally. An internal document sent to staff prior to the event included phrases like “rally attendance is mandatory” and “100% attendance [is] expected from all Zeta families, students, and staff.”
While CEO Emily Kim did not respond to multiple requests for comment, a spokesperson for Zeta Charter Schools said in an email that “families ultimately make their own decisions about participation, and the vast majority of our families will rally together with us.”
Excerpt from an internal document from Zeta Charter Schools sent to all staff (highlight added).
Besides attending the rally, Success Academy employees were also asked to appeal to elected officials.
“I’ve had to send emails to Mayor Adams as ‘deliverables,’” said a non-instructional Success Academy employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. (This employee has since quit.)
Employees are “written up” if they miss a deliverable, explained a Success Academy teacher.
Documents reviewed by Columbia News Service from multiple sources showed that staff were asked to submit screenshots of these emails to their managers to confirm they had sent them.
When asked about the consequences of not complying, the former non-instructional former employee said, “I couldn’t even fathom opting out,” adding, “I’m too scared of my manager and senior leader.”
In the staff meeting on Sept. 16, Moskowitz expressed her displeasure over what she saw as low compliance with these advocacy actions.
“We are quite hierarchical. There is a chain of command,” she was heard saying in the leaked recording of the meeting. “When your boss asks you to do something, assuming it’s not unethical or a question of conscience, you do the task. Are we clear?”
Later in the meeting, Moskowitz told attendees “not doing this action is not okay” and asked them to do “five phone actions right now.”
Dozens of pro-charter supporters hold up signs at the rally on Sept. 18. (Credit: Julie Lee)
In all, an estimated 15,000 students, staff and families from 238 schools attended the rally at Cadman Plaza, according to Jon Reinish, a spokesperson from the coalition of charter schools that organized the event. Schools were bussed in from across the city in private coaches.
The schedule for the morning followed a packed itinerary, with speeches from several supporters, appearances from New York State Senator Kevin Parker and State Assemblymember Brian Cunningham, several solo and choral vocal performances, multiple student dance routines, a DJ, and a finale concert from the rapper Common.
According to Moskowitz, the rally cost approximately $750,000 – a figure she said was “privately raised.”
After the scheduled performances, charter school leaders held a press conference, where they were no longer shy about referencing the mayoral race, but still insisted the rally was not about Mamdani.
“A word to all of our mayoral candidates,” said Bishop Raymond Rivera, founder of the Family Life Academy charter school network. “You cannot be for the affordability agenda, affordable housing, universal daycare, subsidized food markets and not be for charter schools,” he added.
Rivera later said his clergy network had met with Mamdani on Saturday and clarified that “we don’t want to single him out.” He added, “Our message is to the whole legislature. Our message is to the governor and to all the candidates for mayor.”
As weeks remain in the mayoral race, the latest polls ranked, in order, Zohran Mamdani, former governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, and incumbent Eric Adams. Cuomo and Adams have had donations from Moskowitz in past electoral races, and Sliwa posted on X that he attended the rally on Sept. 18.
In 2014, Cuomo was called a ‘friend’ by Moskowitz for his pro-charter stance, and between 2011 and 2018, a now-inactive political action committee, linked to Moskowitz and her husband Eric Grannis, raised more than $100,000 for then-Governor Cuomo. Meanwhile, both Moskowitz and Grannis donated $650 to Adams during his 2021 mayoral race. As mayor, Adams disappointed charter school supporters in 2023 when he scrapped a plan to expand charter schools, but clarified a month later that he supports charter schools.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with new information that a non-instructional employee quit.
About the author(s)
Julie Lee is a Stabile investigative fellow and previously covered issues such as surveillance technologies, artificial intelligence and the criminal legal system.