By Gus Saltonstall
Last month, countless people heard the “abhorrent” remarks made by an adult as an Upper West Side student was speaking at a local schools meeting, which was first reported on by West Side Rag.
In the subsequent coverage and public response to that moment, nearly all the focus was on the adult, Hunter College professor Allyson Friedman, who has been placed on leave while Hunter investigates.
Lost somewhat in the fallout was the message of the student who was interrupted by Friedman’s now-viral remarks. The student, an eighth-grader at the Community Action School [CAS] on West 93rd Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus, was making a plea: Don’t close my school.
“When I arrived at CAS it was filled with welcoming people and I felt that now I was at a safe place to learn,” the student told parents and school officials at the February meeting. CAS, she said, is “a warm and welcoming sanctuary” where she feels supported and included. “We might not be able to have these safe places anymore, and we should be able to keep our school open.”
That plea has now been heard.
On Monday, New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels sent a note to the Community Action School, shared with the Rag, saying that the DOE would no longer go through with its proposal to phase out and close the Upper West Side middle school beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
“After thoughtful reflection and a conversation with Community Action School students Monday morning, Chancellor Samuels has decided not to post the proposal to phase out the Community Action School,” a city education department spokesperson confirmed to the Rag via email on Tuesday. “As the community continues to process the harm caused by recent racist comments at a Community Education Council meeting, our focus must be on healing, stability, and ensuring students feel safe and supported.”
Community Action School was one of four Upper West Side middle schools, along with the Manhattan School for Children, the Riverside School for Makers and Artists, and the Center School, which the New York City Department of Education had identified as candidates for either possible closure or relocation in DOE’s effort to alleviate overcrowding within school buildings and make sure that schools are in compliance with a law setting new class size caps by 2028.
In the case of the Community Action School, the DOE cited low enrollment numbers and academic performance concerns as reasons to phase out the school.
Community Action School serves 175 students from grades six through eight, and around 40 percent of that student population has some sort of learning disability. The school, which is part of the Joan of Arc Educational Campus at 154 West 93rd Street, is 65 percent Latino, 29 percent Black, and 5 percent White, according to the latest data.
“I am relieved and grateful that the phase-out proposal for Community Action School will not move forward,” Nicki Holtzman, a parent of a sixth grader at the school, told the Rag. “The CAS community has been navigating both instability and harm, and this decision acknowledges the need for support over disruption.”
Multiple CAS parents whom the Rag interviewed spoke to the importance of the school in their children’s lives.
“CAS deals with the whole child,” Marchelle Dorville, the Parent Association President at CAS, told the Rag. “The socio-emotional learning piece is key. Healthy children learn better. Healthy children thrive. They grow. They make better friends. Better classmates. The school’s principal and that entire team is focused on the overall well-being of the entire child.”
In his Monday note to the CAS leadership, Chancellor Samuels explained his decision to keep the school intact:
“First, the CAS community is continuing to process and recover from the racist and unacceptable remarks directed toward a CAS student at a CEC meeting in February. And second, members of the school community shared a strong desire for stability as they move forward.” Given those circumstances, said Samuels, “[W]hat the CAS community needs right now is meaningful and comprehensive support—and that would be difficult to provide authentically in the context of a phase-out proposal.”
In addition to cancelling the school’s closure, the education department said it will also expand Black Studies and Hidden Voices curriculum across the Upper West Side school district, along with providing restorative circles and social-emotional supports for Community Action School students.
While the DOE said that it is halting its plans to close the Community Action School, it did not provide any updates on the other three Upper West Side middle schools that are facing possible closure or relocation.
“This cannot be a one-school solution,” CAS parent Holtzman told the Rag. “The conditions cited – enrollment challenges, need for stability, community voice – are not unique to CAS. If stability and authentic support matter here, they must matter for Manhattan School for Children, Riverside School for Makers and Artists, and Center School as well.”
Read More:
- Racist Remarks Shock Participants at UWS Schools Meeting: ‘We Take These Matters Very Seriously’
- UWS Middle School Fights Against its Possible Elimination: ‘We Are Not Just Going to Roll Over’
- UWS Middle School Meets With DOE Reps to Discuss Possible Move: ‘We Want to be Heard’
- An UWS Middle School is Pushing Back Against Possible Relocation: ‘This School is Our Home
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This article is really an indictment of the entire NYC Public School System.
First there is the endless victim mentality. Is “the CAS community is continuing to process and recover from the racist and unacceptable remarks”. Really?
Second, what is this hodgepodge of schools? “Community Action School”, “Makers and Artists School”, “Center School”.
This student and families are talking about how great these schools are? Here is reality: The Makers and Artists School 17% of students scored at or above the proficient level for math, and 27% scored at or above that level for reading. At Community Action School, 37% of students scored at or above the proficient level for math, and 47% scored at or above that level for reading. This is pathetic.
These schools need to refocus on reading, math, the ability to think, and the ability to function in society. Leave the faux outrage to Al Sahrpton and his gang. There is far more discrimination based on being stupid than being a race, color or creed in the real world.
I’d encourage you to think more critically about the information and numbers.
Look at CAS’s impact metrics, not just raw performance. They take kids who come in even further behind, and do excellent work to catch them up, keep them in school, and get them to high schools that continue to support their improvement.
PS 191 took in hundreds of migrant students and despite BEGGING Kamar Samuels when he was superintendent, did not receive the required resources to serve those students or the students who were already there.
The DOE is NOT proposing moving those students to schools that will better support them; they just plan to spread them out all over the district or city so that their low performance is hidden by a higher performing average. They CANT’even move them to schools that can get them to grade level because there aren’t seats and resources. PS 191 isn’t asking to leave their school as is; it’s asking for the DOE to provide the mandated support that these students were supposed to get and which they will still need (but still not get) wherever the DOE sends them. This is about the DOE trying to hide its failures, not about it actually improving educational outcomes for these students.
The amount of BS is the most stigmatizing aspect. You’re correct.
As a 5 time elected school board member in a school system larger than the UWS I know that when a school is threatened with closure it is quite common for students to fight against closure. It is not uncommon for many students to have no idea that the educational program/academics is substandard
Keeping a second rate school open is the easy way out. Another sad comment on public schools in the Big Apple. As usual students will continue to play the price
What a nasty comment.
They need “restorative circles and social-emotional supports” to continue their long recovery journey.
Exactly. And the throwaway woke line of: ‘Our Focus Must be on Healing’ is pure cringe.
When I first listened to the recording, having heard it was racist, I heard some very racist remarks. After hearing her explanation about what she was saying, I listened to it again with that framework in mind and heard some other things I didn’t hear the first time I listened. For example, she had said “Martin Luther King had said that if you train a…” The first time I listened, all I heard was “If you train…” So I encourage others to listen to the recording again, with an open mind, and determine if you think she really was explaining to her kid what institutional racism is.
When did MLK say that?
He didn’t. According to another commenter here on the Rag, it actually in reference to a quote that the Superintendent had said earlier in the meeting by Carter Godwin Woodson. Therefore she misattributed it to MLK.
She called the children DUMB. Are you kidding???
Josh is clearly from the Professor’s PR Rehabilitation. No one is going to listen to the full recording. They’re reacting to the headline-grabbing sound bite. That’s all the public needs for proof of guilt, regardless of your interpretation of her intentions.
I am definitely not on her PR team or even know who she is.
But our problem as a society is just that – we react to headlines, and don’t even read the associated text, let alone listen to the recoding itself. So we see that she said “If you train a…” and we believe this was exactly what she said. And I fault the WSR here (something I rarely do) because it is very clear in the recording that she says “Martin Luther King had said that if you train…” and selectively quoting only part of what was clearly said takes it out of context and causes its meaning to be skewed. Again, I am not fully defending the woman who made the comments, but I cannot find RACISM in the actual recording, even though I had thought it was originally there.
That doesn’t explain “they’re too dumb to know they are in a bad school”. She wasn’t quoting anyone with that. It was her own thought. The thought of a college professor about 8th graders. Racist or not it was an inexcusable thing to say.
Agreed. But had she instead said: “they’re too YOUNG to know they are in a bad school”, this whole controversy disappears; and her statement is in fact correct.
Josh, Joe, why try to change or explain away what this professor chose to say? It’s not alleged or a rumor. She said it. “They (meaning Black students) are too dumb to know that they are in a bad school”. It is not bad to be reminded of what some people really think from time to time.
How exactly can you say that her meaning by the word “they” was “Black students?” You are not her therefore you cannot speak for her. I can’t say it wasn’t the meaning for the exact same reason.
That quote definitely is an issue. But taking that line on its own, it is not actually a racist comment. It is obviously not appropriate to say such a thing to a child, but that doesn’t make the comment racist. Additionally , there was something she said just before that which I couldn’t make out what it was. Being a hot mike, we don’t have the full context of what she was saying before the comment. That being said, what I was pointing out was that the part that came across as overtly racist does not actually appear to be a racist comment when taken in the full context.
Right. That’s why I said “racist or not”. She may think these kids are dumb because they are Black or she just thinks they are dumb. She should not be a college profrssor.
Just more hysterical overreaction…No one has learned anything.
What a suspicious name for a school. Jewish kids get no special curriculum to “support” their identities. That is for the parents to do at home.
Yeah, my kid’s M-Th afternoon projects are dance, music, soccer and Shabbat, so I wouldn’t be so confident there. Additional context: we’re not Jewish, he LOVES Shabbat, and we love it for him.
When my kids were in kindergarten ea h family had to come in one day and talk about a family tradition. We were not allowed to mention Christmas or Easter in doing so. But there was a discussion of Huannakka.
Bronx Science had a Holocaust Museum.
I’m not saying there is no antisemitism or anti-anything else. Just pointing out that there are public schooks were Jewish kids do get support in their identities.
Young Sheldon got a lot of support growing up in New Jersey!
Please investigate these same complaints made by educators in phase out schools and low enrollment schools. There’s a chunk of us missing and no one is asking questions (except the students).
The Upper West Side will not heal unless they get to walk a mile in the shoes of those who don’t have the privilege to be here and spend more than I spend on rent and spend a ton on Uber and Lyft. This will be a scab that is left to open up the next time there is an issue.
Hunter College professor Allyson Friedman, needs to loose her job. This hot mic moment displayed her racist believes. This is not who we want teaching our children. This is is as ugly as it gets and has nothing to do with reading or math scores. This is eugenic and .miscegenation race theory dating back to the 18th & 19th-century – racist, ideas frequently used to promote fear of racial interbreeding. What she said was not a “mistake” She was mistakenly heard, but what she said was a display of her deep rooted belief that African Americans are inferior
mother – teacher – artist – human
She had the nerves to call black students dumb! My question to Allyson Friedman is, “Who’s dumb now?” What a wild way to teach or explain systemic racism! And for the meeting organizer to say her comments are “hearable,” rather than horrible, or unacceptable, or racist, or deplorable, or any other word but HEARABLE….
What’s happening to all other schools? Is Center moving?
To be seen if the DOE can ram through its proposals despite all the procedural failures. But all those dishonest PS 9 people who kept yelling and gaslighting everyone else about how PS 9 “is not planning to expand enrollment” are at least now exposed for liars that they are – the DOE specifically cited expanding PS 9’s enrollment in the written proposals that it published. I hope everyone will remember that next time PS 9 sheds crocodile tears while claiming that others are spreading misinformation about their motives
The controversial comments are the best thing that ever happened to Community Action School. The DOE would look like monsters if they shut it down after this incident. I would merge it with Lafayette, which seems to be an up and coming school in the same building.
Or give the space to Center School since the Joan of Arc building has an auditorium and the Center School people say that is their sole reason for being, so that location should solve their problem.
SO THAT PS9 CAN EXPAND ENROLLMENT despite all you PS 9 parents insisting this wasn’t the case. Now that it’s in black and white from the DOE, will you apologize for the lies?
The PS9 families also need to heal from the comment made by a center school parent. The best way? Move center school out of ps9 so our children can grow free from oppression and racism.
And… the DOe’s proposals have shows PS 9 parents to be liars. I guess you’re ok with your kids being exposed to that. Anything to get what you want, at other families’ expense. That tracks.
And here you are again, ignoring that PS 191 exists and that those kids matter too. I get it, you only care about PS 9, no matter the cost to anyone else
PS 9 and PS 87 parents want their kids to grow free from seeing how the world outside of gentrified NYC works and want to teach them “racial justice” that is not actually racial justice but instead them learning how to carry on a legacy of bigotry through self righteousness and the soft bigotry of low expectations that Malcolm X warned us was a danger with white liberals!
Dr. Carter G. Woodson quotation was being put forward, by a parent who thought she was on mute.
And he was not being racist.
And she quoted him crudely but NOT from a of racist POV.
She did not quote Carter G. Woodson. She said, “Apparently MLK said it.” And, Woodson never said if you train a black person well enough.”
Look it up.
Amazing how little it takes to reverse a decision by the DOE
Certainly lots of issues around this one but the school was flagged for closure due to performance reasons? Are those issues being actively addressed so we graduate students capable of life and self sufficiency or will the BOE allow an underperforming school to continue along the path of status quo as reparations for what was said by this parent…whatever the reason?
My guess is nothing will change other than this parent will likely be shunned to the point where she loses her job. The metric will be if the student and the community felt supported. Teachers will still teach the same things.
It’s actually a wonderful school. DOE measures both performance and impact, and you’re hearing only about performance. But their kids come in behind and often hating school and graduate either caught up or significantly less behind and more likely to continue on to high school vs dropping out. The turnaround and support work they do is meaningful, and sending kids who are behind or need certain supports into “higher performing schools” where they will be lost does not serve them.
My goodness, some of you are absolutely exhausting. Get a hobby outside of crying entitlement tears.
The Board members should read this book (although I guarantee they won’t!)
https://www.amazon.com/Suicidal-Empathy-Dying-Be-Kind/dp/B0FZ6K9XRZ
I am still not sure why that incident would have anything to do with the decision that was being made about the schools – good or bad. Sounds to me like they are “using” that incident as an excuse to “cover” for what they realized was a bad decision to begin with.
The process that middle school families have been complaining about across the district has been shameful. The racist hot mic moment put a spotlight on the DOE and the complaints people have been lodging about their flawed process that completely contradicts the mayor’s stated commitments . The comments were racist, but the DOE was embarrassed that under scrutiny its clear that its proposals completely privilege the already privileged, at the expense of the most vulnerable. By saving Community Action, they get to (1) pretend that they are listening to families (they are not- only in response to national headlines) and (2) diminish some of the negative optics of the obviously racially disparate proposals
All I know is that UWSers won’t walk a mile in the shoes who don’t have the same privilege as them and when they do, they impose their values on us.
Friedman apologized for her ugly remark about these kids being dumb. That was awful. Outside of that it seems that this incident is overshadowing a larger systemic problem. These schools have unacceptable levels of proficiency in math and reading. Yet based on the last few paragraphs of this article, it appears the forces that be will use this unfortunate incident not to make sure these kids can do math and read, but to foist more non-academic garbage upon everyone. “Provide restorative circles” is Progressive nonsense speak for delivering performative gobbledygook in place of quality education to everyone.
It’s really a shame these are the people in charge. We spend more per capita per student than any public school system in the nation and we have among the worst results to show for it. These schools are a fine example of that.
The public system in NYC is a disaster. Bite the bullet and go to a voucher system.