A parent at a meeting addressing the plans to close the school made a comment on a hot mic that was widely condemned as abhorrent and racist. It triggered a controversy that reverberated across the city. Now the DOE’s plan to shut down the school has been reversed.

04 Mar 2026 | 10:03

Chancellor Kamar Samuels has reversed course and says the Department of Education (DOE) is no longer planning to shut down a middle school on the Upper West Side that has been at the center of an explosive controversy over one parent’s racist remarks uttered unknowingly into a hot mic during an assembly....