By Gus Saltonstall
Students, alumni, parents, and teachers are pushing back against the possible relocation of an Upper West Side middle school.
The Center School, comprised of around 250 students in the fifth to eighth grades, is currently located at 100 West 84th Street. While the New York City Department of Education has announced no formal plan to move the school to a new building for the start of the next school year, rumblings of an upcoming relocation have gone on for months, according to parents, teachers, and a petition created earlier in January that has been signed by more than 2,000 people, titled “Protect Center School.”
The possibility of the move was confirmed in recent days by Center School Principal John O’Reilly, who wrote in an email to the community, shared with West Side Rag, about a meeting on Thursday at the school with representatives from New York City School District 3. “The meeting…is focused on the possible move of Center School out of P.S. 9,” the email read.
The possible move would see the Center School relocated from the building it shares with the P.S. 9 elementary school to the P.S./I.S. 191 building at 300 West 61st Street, according to several members of the middle school’s community.
When asked by West Side Rag if the Department of Education planned to move The Center School to the West 61st Street building for the start of next school year, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said that “no formal proposal has been issued at this time.”
The department’s email statement continued: “Authentic community engagement is a cornerstone of any thriving school system, and we strive to provide all schools with facilities that best meet their needs.” According to the statement, the department convened working groups throughout District 3 beginning last school year, to identify those needs and look for ways to meet them.
“While we have begun early conversations with families and school leaders about how best to support long-term planning, no formal proposal has been issued at this time. We will continue to consult closely with families, educators, and local partners,” the statement said.
Nor will a formal proposal to relocate the Center School be presented at the Thursday meeting with education department officials, according to sources familiar with the situation.
“Any decision to disrupt a school in such good working order is a bizarre decision,” wrote Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi, parent of a seventh-grade Center School student, in an email to the Rag. “At the very least, it deserves full community input, and a timeline that respects the needs of working families whose children are in a unique generation.” Siddiqi said many of Center’s middle school students had found stability in its academically-centered community. “To radically disrupt this, without a community-driven plan, is wrong.”
Olivia Greer, a parent of a Center School sixth grader, told the Rag, “Parents advocating are asking for the same thing: more time. Time to understand the factors that are driving these proposed changes; time to thoughtfully consider the right outcomes.”
Multiple Center School parents mentioned similar concerns about the possible move to the West 61st Street building, including the loss of a separate gymnasium and auditorium space, the loss of its current large outdoor recess yard, proximity to Central Park, and the effect the move would have on a group of students who already experienced the school disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.
The Center School, which was founded in 1982, has been in its current home since 2009, when it moved from the P.S. 199 building at 270 West 70th Street. The Center School runs from fifth to eighth grade, instead of the more typical middle school range of sixth to eighth grade, and it puts students from all four grade levels into the same classes. There are also two theater shows during the year in which every student in the school participates.
“Hearing that we were getting moved again, after 16 years in our new home in the PS 9 building, brings about a lot of sadness, uncertainty, and concern,” Michael Veve, who has taught at Center School since 2003, wrote to WSR. “We’ve made a home of this place as a school, and our access to Central Park, The American Museum of Natural History, The New York Historical, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art has enhanced and enriched the educational outcomes for our students. We use New York City as a classroom. It feels terrible to contemplate losing those resources as we face being forced to move again.”
The current Center School students have been told about the possible move and have begun to pen letters to the Department of Education.
Other students weighed in with pleas to keep the school where it is, with its auditorium, recess yard, and other resources. “This school is our home,” wrote one student. “If we move schools, there won’t be the magic of the school that we have today.”
The Rag will cover Thursday’s meeting at the Center School.
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Please keep this school here.
What is the problem they are trying to address? It seems like they are creating a problem with this (unproposed) proposal.
I believe that PS 9 needs more space in order ot meet the class size reduction mandates.
Nobody can accuse the Center School of not having an engaged community.
Keep it where it is.
As a center school parent I am amazed that the DOE would want to disrupt and downgrade the facilities of this great school when also trying to keep parents from leaving the school system. If the 191 move happens it would force parents to look at options outside of the city and outside of public schools. Would be a shame.