A proposal to close a Harlem high school could signal wider wave of enrollment-related closures
Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat’s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here and checking the box next to our name. New York City is considering closing a small Harlem high school, the first in what could be a growing number of school merger and closure proposals this school year as the nation’s largest school…
New York City is considering closing a small Harlem high school, potentially signaling a larger trend of school mergers and closures due to declining enrollments. The Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce in Harlem currently has only 112 students, a 39% decrease in enrollment over the past five years. The school's superintendent, Fred Walsh, proposed the closure in a letter to families and staff, citing significant programmatic and budgetary challenges.
If approved, the city will post official closure documents online, hold public hearings, and bring the proposal to the Panel for Educational Policy for a final vote. The proposal is not yet final. As the city faces a growing number of tiny schools, schools chancellor Kamar Samuels has prioritized addressing severely underenrolled schools, though he has not laid out a citywide plan.
The proposed closure of Global Commerce comes as K-12 enrollment in the city's public schools has fallen by roughly 170,000 over the past decade, with 224 schools now having 200 or fewer students. Principal Roony Vizcaino expressed concern about the school's prospects, describing the loss of students as causing "extra stress" for the school, akin to having a car used to function in a certain way and then having extra stress placed on it.
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