Wow Moment of My Weekend: The Harlem School of the Arts Closes

[MuthaWit]

Hola, Loved Ones!

I can't say I'm surprised about the Harlem School of the Arts closing but it's still sad. URB ALT has had a working relationship with this historic institution for 4 years. We've had a couple events there and more often than not the process was pleasant enough. It did, however, feel like they were always barely hanging on. There was a lot of turnover and many great teachers were released under a cloud of dubious circumstances over the years. Some with whom I remain very close. The Harlem School of the Arts has been an incredible positive force in the lives of many young people that I have come across in my time in New York City. Kids need access to schools outsiide of the political equation that have a mission of educating them with sensitivity in the arts. We were qued to work with them during the URB ALT Festival this summer. Apparently fundraising is still happening to try to keep The Harlem School of the Arts open. If not successfulI I wonder if there will be another organization to rise up and take its place? Trymaine Lee gets the gorey details of this great school teetering on the edge. Read below.

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For nearly 50 years, the Harlem School of the Arts has given generations of mostly black and Latino children entree into worlds often otherwise out of their reach. It put violins and other orchestral instruments in their hands, ballet slippers on their feet and Shakespeare on their tongues.

But on Friday, the school’s building was quiet, closed by the board of directors, which told parents in an e-mail message on Thursday that the school was being shuttered because of a lack of financing.

“We are virtually out of money, with no clear sources ahead of us,” John W. Corwin, the school’s interim executive director, wrote in the message.

Financing for the nonprofit school, which has operated mostly during after-school hours and on weekends, has been generated through tuition, private donors as well as city and state arts grants.

Mr. Corwin, who could not be reached for comment on Friday, wrote that the school would be closed until April 10, by which time the board will have determined if the school will be ended for good. He wrote that the board will “continue to tirelessly look for funds, in a much more public appeal than we have in the past.”

Christopher Paci, the board’s chairman, said the board simply could not drum up enough money over the last couple of years to cover the school’s operating costs. “As the economy turned and a number of our institutional donors cut back on their giving, our revenue from fund-raising shrank dramatically as our expenses remained the same,” Mr. Paci said.

He said he has been constantly searching for opportunities to keep the doors open. “If an angel or group of angels come to the doorstep immediately we’ll be able to save the school. If not, then the reality is bleak, and that’s what we’re up against.”

He said of the school, “I’ve seen with my own eyes the effect it has on the lives of the kids who go there.” At least $500,000 is needed to stay open through the end of the academic year.

Read the rest of the story here