Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts, described by its staff as a “hidden gem” in Harlem, has overcome two threats of closure — one in 2011, targeting Wadleigh’s middle school, and another in 2017. Today the revitalized school, which won a Team High School Award at the union’s Academic High School Awards on April 25, boasts a 100% graduation rate.

“Our love and passion for our kids and this community drive us,” said Mary Tsentides-Pieri, the school’s chapter leader.

Wadleigh, which became the first public school in New York City to enroll girls in 1897, is housed in a grand building in the middle of Harlem. Both threats of closure were driven by plans to reallocate the desirable building to Success Academy Charter Schools. To keep Wadleigh a public school, educators took a three-pronged approach in the 2017–18 school year: investing in academics, becoming an accredited arts school and organizing with the community.

“We instilled a pedagogy of love,” explained Ronald Jabradally, a 22-year veteran visual arts teacher at Wadleigh. This meant identifying students who were falling behind and offering interventions like tutoring during teachers’ prep periods. Tsentides-Pieri said the high school also offered more AP courses. In the 2016–17 school year, 75% of Wadleigh students graduated and 9% completed approved college or career preparatory courses and exams. By 2023–24, those metrics soared to 100% and 97%, respectively, according to Department of Education data.

Alongside academic improvements, Wadleigh bolstered the arts curriculum for which it was known. Theater teacher Erica Hill explained that in the 2018–19 school year, Wadleigh became an audition-based arts school. She said Wadleigh’s accessibility to students of different economic backgrounds sets the school apart.

“Unlike some other accredited art schools, you don’t need years of paid lessons to attend,” she said. “We’ll take you where you’re at and get you to the next level.”

Wadleigh’s educators say the school’s 128-year history is inseparable from its connection to the neighborhood’s art and culture.

“We’re in Harlem! There’s so much history here,” said Hill. As a Black theater teacher instructing students who are mostly Black and Latino, Hill said it’s important to teach culturally connected content. She partners with the Classical Theatre of Harlem each year and finds playwrights for her syllabuses from New York, Ghana and the Dominican Republic.

Members at Wadleigh doubt they would have been able to save their school without the union’s and the community’s support.

With the UFT’s backing, Wadleigh educators held demonstrations displaying signs with slogans like “Wadleigh is part of our history” and “Keep our doors open.”

“We made ourselves and our cause visible,” said Tsentides-Pieri.