City Weighs Closing Small Harlem High School Over Enrollment

A small Harlem high school is on the chopping block, and it may be the first of several this school year. According to Chalkbeat, New York City is considering closing the Urban Assembly School for Global Commerce as the nation’s largest school system deals with falling enrollment.

Superintendent Fred Walsh, who oversees high schools supported by the nonprofit Urban Assembly, laid out the proposal in a Tuesday letter to families and staff, a copy of which Chalkbeat obtained. “As of today, there are only 112 students enrolled at Global Commerce, a 39% decrease in enrollment over the last five years,” Walsh wrote. “This presents significant programmatic and budgetary challenges that directly impact students.”

Nothing is final yet, officials told Chalkbeat. An Education Department spokesperson said the agency is still meeting with the school community to decide whether to formally propose the closure. If it does, the department will post official closure documents online, hold public hearings, and send the plan to the Panel for Educational Policy for a final vote. To get on the panel’s December agenda, plans must be posted by Oct. 30, according to the spokesperson.

Global Commerce opened 13 years ago, part of the wave of small, themed public high schools launched under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Now the city is sitting on a growing pile of tiny schools. K-12 enrollment has fallen by roughly 170,000 over the past decade to about 790,000 students. The city has 224 schools with 200 or fewer students, up from 165 in 2016, per enrollment data cited by Chalkbeat.

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has called severely underenrolled schools a top priority, noting they tend to enroll a disproportionate share of the most vulnerable students and struggle to offer a range of courses and activities. But he has not rolled out a citywide closure or merger plan, saying local district superintendents should build those with families and educators. City officials did not say whether other proposals are being readied for the December panel meeting.

“Like school districts across the country facing enrollment declines, we have a responsibility to respond in ways that support the long-term sustainability of our schools,” Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said. She added that in some cases that means “difficult but necessary decisions,” including mergers, aimed at maximizing programs and strengthening school communities.

The students at stake are among the city’s most vulnerable. More than 90% of Global Commerce students are Black and Latino, and more than 90% live in poverty. Last year, a third had a learning disability and a third were homeless at some point during the school year. In 2025, 74% graduated within four years, compared with 81% citywide.

The school’s shrinking is not new. Principal Roony Vizcaino told the New York Daily News in 2022 that he worried the school might eventually have to shut down, likening the strain of lost enrollment to a car being pushed past what it was built for. He declined to comment on the proposed closure.

Staff and students have been rattled. Gilbert Schuerch, a physical education teacher who runs a Substack about his after-school weightlifting program, wrote Wednesday that students and staff were distraught. “The amount of students I’ve held in my arms today and the number of tears shed, from me and the kids, has only reaffirmed how special this place has become to me and the kids,” he wrote.

This story draws on reporting by Chalkbeat New York’s Michael Elsen-Rooney, originally published by Chalkbeat.