Kathleen Grimm

One of the few top education officials who have been in place since Mr. Bloomberg became mayor in 2002, Ms. Grimm has worked in government for most of her career. In her current role, she oversees aspects of the educational system that parents and students often experience most directly (e.g. the quality of school food and the upkeep of school buildings). Before the Department of Education, where she arrived in 2002 as deputy chancellor for finance and administration, Ms. Grimm spent nearly five years as a deputy state comptroller. Before that, she was deputy city finance commissioner — a job she left in 1995, when Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani dismissed many employees who had worked for his predecessor, David N. Dinkins. She is a trustee of New York Law School, where she taught a course on municipal finance for years and from which she graduated in 1980. She has a bachelor’s degree from Manhattanville College and a master of laws degree from New York University.