After shelving a plan to shutter an Upper West Side middle school in the wake of a racially-charged hot-mic controversy, Chancellor Kamar Samuels is moving ahead with a broader plan to close or relocate three nearby schools — as miffed parents question why they weren’t also afforded a second chance.
Education officials say the moves are necessary amid enrollment and space issues for the long-term sustainability of local schools.
But parents believe the master plan is misguided, and their schools deserve a closer look, just like Community Action School — affectionately, “CAS” — received after the controversy exploded.
“They’ve got exactly what they should have gotten from the beginning, which is attention, care and consideration,” said Tiffany Rodriguez, a mom of two kindergartners, a sixth grader, and a graduate of the Riverside School for Makers & Artists, one of the impacted schools.
“They got what they were owed, and what we should get.”
“I’m excited for CAS,” she added. “But it shouldn’t have come to a hot-mic moment. It should have been because you were considering the children to begin with.”
The proposals — which impact The Center School, Manhattan School for Children, and The Riverside School for Makers and Artists — are part of a complex plan to rethink the use of three school buildings, from 61st to 93rd Street, as the education system deals with enrollment and space challenges that impact its bottom line.
Community Action School, which shares a building with Manhattan Children School, was at risk of closure.
But the school was granted a reprieve after a Center School parent, Allyson Friedman, unmuted during a school board meeting while a Community Action School student was speaking, suggesting the children were “too dumb to know” they were “in a bad school” and misquoting a Black historian. (Friedman has said her words were taken out of context.)
“It was just met with so much relief,” said Nicki Holtzman, a mom of a sixth grader who attended the meeting. “They definitely were able to begin moving forward together.”
The Riverside School for Makers and Artists. (Google)
But with the other elements of the plan still on the table, a citywide education panel vote is scheduled to vote on the proposals next month.
“New York City Public Schools has a responsibility to thoughtfully plan for the long-term strength and sustainability of our schools to give students access to robust academic programs,” said Chyann Tull, a spokeswoman for the public schools.
“These proposals are intended to strengthen elementary programming in the district while ensuring our students are enrolled in well-rounded middle school options. They are the result of more than a year of conversations.”
“Our families care deeply about their schools, and we remain committed to an open dialogue as the proposals go through the formal public review process.”
The Manhattan School for Children. (Google)
Enrollment declines, class size law
The plan was put in motion when Samuels was serving as the local superintendent of District 3.
In his former role, the now-chancellor implemented similar reforms in Harlem, which earned him the praises of his colleagues for coming up with creative solutions to a citywide problem of enrollment declines, though generating pushback in the local community.
In total, middle schools across District 3 can fit up to 4,450 students, but fewer than 3,370 are currently registered, according to planning documents. Schools are largely funded on a per-pupil basis, meaning when a school loses enrollment, they may also face challenges to offer a full slate of programming.
The Mamdani administration has also faced pressure from fiscal watchdogs to find savings in education spending, as the mayor looks to close a multibillion-dollar budget gap.
While some schools are under-enrolled, though, others are bursting at the seams — an increasingly time-sensitive problem as the system faces a 2028 deadline to comply with a recent law to lower class sizes citywide. Under the law, classrooms must be limited between 20 and 25 students, depending on grade band, which will require more and better use of physical space.
Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, right, speaks at the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center in Manhattan on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025. (Barry Williams / New York Daily News)
If approved, the plan would give over the entire building to P.S. 9 Sarah Anderson, a nationally recognized elementary school, an overcrowded facility with a 106% utilization rate on 84th Street and Columbus Ave., In turn, The Center School, a small but well-regarded middle school, would be moved out of the P.S. 9 building.
The Center School would then be moved into a new building on 61st Street and West End Ave., which currently belongs to the Riverside School for Makers & Artists, a K-8 school that would retain its elementary grades, but shutter its middle school amid declining enrollment.
Written plans said moving the Center School would bring a “proven, high-quality middle school option to the southern portion of the district.” Officials are trying to frame the loss of RMSA’s middle school as good for their school too, saying it would enable it “to focus exclusively on building a quality elementary school.”
Enrollment at RMSA’s middle school has declined 28% since the pandemic to 128 students, with just half of fifth graders staying for sixth grade, according to the documents. Fewer than 1 in 5 students are considered proficient readers or mathematicians, compared to a district average of roughly two-thirds — statistics that parents blame squarely on the district.
“The students are not failing because they’re dumb,” said Rodriguez, the RMSA parent. “They’re not failing because they can’t learn or the teachers can’t teach. They’re failing because the district has failed us, and now we’re being kicked out for P.S. 9.”
Farther north, on 93rd Street and Columbus Ave., Community Action School is no longer facing closure. But the proposal to phase out the middle school at the Manhattan School for Children — a K-8 school known for its progressive values and services for children with disabilities — in the same building remains under consideration.
The Center School. (Google)
MSC has struggled to retain students from elementary to middle school: Enrollment in the older grades has declined by 17% since the pandemic to 160 students, and between 9 and 14 fifth graders remain for sixth grade each year, according to the proposal. But parents say they have a new principal who is improving the retention rate.
“We are in a moment of really significant growth,” said Olivia Greer, a mom of two incoming kindergarteners and a fourth grader at MSC, “and what I would describe as rebirth for the middle school — just at the moment where the district is trying to pull the rug out.”
“It’s a done deal”
“P.S. 9 is the whitest and wealthiest school in the district and has tremendous resources,” said Green, who also has a sixth grader at Center School. “The request from P.S. 9 is that Center School must be out at the end of this year — with no explanation for what the urgency is.”
Meanwhile, the vast majority of Riverside School for Makers & Artists students, 91%, are from families of high economic need. After an influx of immigrant students during the migrant wave that started in 2022, 2 in 5 students are learning English for the first time, according to planning documents.
Rodriguez, the RMSA parent, said she found out the middle school was at risk of being closed when Center School was touring their building. While officials told parents it remains a proposal, they already announced the school would no longer offer a popular summer program, sending a different message to families.
“They’re pretty much saying it’s a done deal,” Rodriguez said.
Parents, including some at the Community Action School no longer facing closure, have promised to push back against the plan, before a final vote by the city’s Panel for Educational Policy on April 29.
“One’s off the chopping block today. Three more schools to go,” Greer said.
“I think we’re all still in this together, and that’s something that we really want the district to understand, is that we view all of these children as our children. They’re all District 3’s children, and we’re responsible for all of them.”