City Once Again Proposes Moving Upper West Side School

*The inside of the Center School’s current building on the Upper West Side. Courtesy photo.*

By Gus Saltonstall

The city is once again proposing a plan to relocate a popular Upper West Side middle school.

The new plan would see The Center School, which serves students in the fifth through eighth grades at 100 West 84th Street, on the corner of Columbus Avenue, relocated to the P.S. 165 Robert E. Simon School at 234 West 109th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam, for the start of the 2027-28 school year.

On December 3, the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), which is the governing body that votes on school closures and relocations, will meet about the new proposal. The panel is then expected to vote on the matter on December 16.

“I am writing to share that the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) is proposing to re-site M.S. 243 Center School (Center School, 03M243) from building M009 to building M165 and to co-locate it with P.S. 165 Robert E. Simon (P.S. 165, 03M165), in M165, in the 2027-2028 school year,” reads a letter from Upper West Side District 3 Superintendent Reginald Higgins to Center School families on October 30. “As the school will now be co-located with P.S. 165, Center School and P.S. 165 will share common spaces in M165, such as the auditorium, library, and cafeteria.”

This relocation vote on the fate of The Center School comes less than one year after intense backlash to a different New York City Department of Education plan to move The Center School into the P.S./I.S. 191 building at 300 West 61st Street, which would have also resulted in the permanent closure of the Riverside School for Makers and Artists Middle School.

That plan, along with the truncation and closure of two other middle schools — The Community Action School and the Manhattan School for Children — within the Joan of Arc Education Complex at 154 West 93rd Street, was scrapped last spring to allow more time to “understand the complexity of all the issues” connected to these possible closures and relocations, Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels said at the time.

Seven months later, the Department of Education is back with this new plan to relocate The Center School to a different building.

If this new relocation plan were to go through, The Center School would share the building on West 109th Street with the elementary school P.S. 165, as well as a pre-K program at the site.

“Officials plan to upgrade the theater space at the new campus (109th Street), though they acknowledged the stage is smaller and shallower,” according to Chalkbeat, which first reported on the new relocation proposal for The Center School.

The Center School shares its current building at 100 West 84th Street with the coveted elementary school P.S. 9, which would then take over sole occupancy of the address. The city argues that moving The Center School out of its current building will allow the middle school, as well as P.S. 9, to shrink its class sizes.

Again, the PEP meeting for The Center School relocation proposal will take place Thursday, December 3, within the proposed new school building at 234 West 109th Street. People who want to speak at the beginning will be given an opportunity to sign up to do so 30 minutes before the meeting.

You can email Caitlin Whittemore at D03Proposals@schools.nyc.gov for more information on the meeting.

The vote on the school relocation plan will then take place during a meeting on December 16.

The Center School is the only Upper West Side school on the agenda of the December 16 Panel for Education Policy meeting, regarding a possible closure or relocation.

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