A New York City educator named founding principal of a Lower Manhattan high school that never got off the ground is still collecting a salary of $192,374 a year, even though the school was scrapped back in April and he reportedly won't say where he currently works. Caleb Haraguchi-Combs, 33, was tapped in January to serve as project director and eventual principal of Next Generation Technology High School, a selective FiDi campus meant to prepare students for careers in cybersecurity, computer science, robotics, and math.
The arrangement was first detailed by the New York Post, which reported that Haraguchi-Combs received a $50,000 raise to principal-level compensation when he took on the project director role, up from the $141,960 he earned yearly as an assistant principal at Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem. A Manhattan Center official confirmed to the paper that he no longer works there. Planned school project directors typically go on to become the new school's principal once it opens, according to the Post's reporting, but that never happened here — the school itself was never approved.
Next Generation Technology High School was designed to replace the small, girls-only Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women, according to Chalkbeat. Families in Manhattan's District 2 pushed back hard against the plan, Chalkbeat reported, raising objections over the proposed location, the admissions process, and what they described as inadequate community consultation. The New York Daily News reported in April that the school was expected to open that fall in Lower Manhattan, pending approval from the city's Panel for Educational Policy on April 29 — approval that never came.
Backlash Over AI in the Classroom
Opposition to the proposal went beyond logistics. Gothamist reported that parents and educators raised concerns ranging from plagiarism to data security, arguing the education department had been slow to establish clear rules for AI use in schools. Some advocates pushing for a moratorium on AI in city schools railed against the plan — which had been dubbed “the AI school” — over fears about the technology's impact on cognition, mental health, and the environment, per the same outlet.
Critics also flagged equity concerns tied to the school's merit-based admissions model, with Gothamist noting that screened schools in the city tend to be disproportionately white. Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels ultimately withdrew the Next Generation proposal in April along with three other school plans, including two middle school closures and a relocation, according to Chalkbeat's reporting. Samuels said at the time that all of the withdrawn plans might be revived, revised, or replaced depending on additional feedback, Gothamist reported. An NYC Public Schools listing for the proposal now marks its panel status simply as withdrawn.
No School, No Tenure, Six-Figure Pay
Because the school never opened, Haraguchi-Combs could not apply for principal tenure, since he never actually served in the role, the Post reported. A Department of Education source told the paper that principals without tenure are typically returned to assistant principal positions when their schools fail to open — raising the question, voiced by DOE insiders cited in the report, of why Haraguchi-Combs has not simply been reassigned to another school.
The city's Department of Education told the Post that Haraguchi-Combs is developing new school proposals and supporting other proposals still in progress. But when approached, he reportedly refused to disclose where he currently works, telling a reporter who visited his home, “You came to my house? Outrageous.” A DOE source described the situation to the Post as a huge waste of resources, while another source in the same report said officials should not have publicly named a principal before a school proposal was even approved.
Zilvinas Silenas, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, called Haraguchi-Combs' salary an insult to taxpayers, according to the Post's reporting. The situation surfaced amid broader scrutiny of Manhattan high school leadership: anonymous Manhattan high school principals sent a letter to DOE leadership last month urging an investigation into school official Gary Beidleman, raising concerns about organizational dysfunction, the hiring of unqualified candidates, and failures to meet class-size requirements. That letter also mentioned Haraguchi-Combs' unusual status, the Post reported.
A Double Life as a Rapper
Away from the DOE org chart, Haraguchi-Combs — who took his wife's last name and began his education career as an English teacher in Tokyo in 2015 — also goes by the alter ego Cal Combs, a hip-hop artist who has released two rap albums. He has described himself as “half hip-hop artist, half English teacher,” per the Post's reporting. His 2017 album, Carmel, was named after Carmel, Indiana, and included tracks about a drug deal that ended in gunfire as well as lyrics touching on cocaine use and excessive drinking in roundabouts, according to the same report.
