On December 16th, 2025, student journalists from New York City Public Schools attended Mayor Eric Adams press conference at City Hall.
Student journalists were invited by the Office of the Chancellor to observe Mayor Adam’s final press conference of his term. Thomas A. Edison CTE High School, Bronx River High School, Townsend Harris High School, Forest Hills High School, Eagle Academy for Young Men of Harlem, Urban Assembly School for Applied Math, PS/IS 667Q and Science and Edward R. Murrow High School student journalists, along with their advisors, attended the conference.
The press conference summed up the accomplishments of Adams’ mayoral administration over the last four years. One special detail stood out; students from nine NYCPS attended. The press conference, which detailed the mayoral administration’s achievements over the last four years, including his indictment, which he dismissed by bringing up his accomplishments rather than focus on his administration’s controversies.
“A bend in the road isn’t the end of the road,” Adams said.
This conference also included one unique detail, the creation of a time capsule composed of items symbolizing the successes of Adams’ Administration and personal conference this week for a personal conversation with the mayor and chancellor. Adams contributed a record to represent all of the records set by his administration.
“I left everything I had on the ice,” Adams said at a news conference unveiling the steel case “I’m looking forward to the next step of my journey, and I’m leaving a proud record for all of us New Yorkers.”
Some of these records include strong job numbers, growth in small businesses, expanded affordable housing, declines in shootings, increased M/WBE contracts, investments in mental health and homelessness services, zoning changes such as “City of Yes,” medical debt relief efforts, and infrastructure and rat mitigation initiatives.
“You become a prop master like me,” Adams said “So, I don’t know if they use records anymore, but to these young people who are sitting in front, this is a record. We used to play music on this.”
We were able to continue our conservation as student journalists with an exclusive conference from Mayor Adams and Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos after the press conference and some students had the chance to ask them questions.
When speaking with the Mayor, Adams brought up some of his achievements he did for NYCPS mentioning about the new students’ OMNY cards, which have been made available on weekends and 24 hours a day at the beginning of their school year. Students asked Adams about his successor Zohran Mandani’s plans to make NYC buses free.
“So, we’re going to have to raise taxes to try to fix that, and I don’t know what the government is going to do,” Adams said. “Right now, if you get free metro cards, you know they’re for your service system, and you’re also allowed to use them on weekends as well. You know who did that for you? The Mayor.”
Adams shared more of his administration’s success in his exclusive conference with the student journalists. Adams dropped out of the mayor’s race due to the scandal created by his five-count indictment for conspiracy, wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting illegal campaign contributions in September of 2024, which was later dismissed in April of 2025.
“I had people that didn’t look like me and didn’t live my life, define my life…and we change the lives of people,” Adams said.
