NEW YORK — New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels has pumped the breaks on a plan to close an Upper West Side middle school after a Black student fighting to save her school was interrupted by racist remarks in a controversial comment caught on a hot mic during an online meeting.

The proposal, if approved, would have phased out the Community Action School as each grade level aged out of the middle school, starting as soon as this fall. It was part of a broader plan to move, close or shorten, and expand several schools in the neighborhood, with the goal of addressing enrollment declines.

But the discussion of that plan sparked a controversy when Allyson Friedman, a parent at another impacted school, The Center School, was caught on hot mic during a Feb. 10 school board meeting, calling the students “too dumb to know they’re in a bad school.”

“Apparently Martin Luther King said it: If you train a Black person well enough, they’ll know to use the back. You don’t have to tell them anymore,” she said, distorting and misattributing a passage from the Black historian Carter G. Woodson shared by the superintendent earlier that meeting.

Samuels said the decision on Monday night came after he visited the Community Action School, or “CAS,” that morning and met with students and school leadership.

“From these conversations, two important themes emerged,” Samuels wrote. “First, the CAS community is continuing to process and recover from the racist and unacceptable remarks directed toward a CAS student at a CEC meeting in February. And second, members of the school community shared a strong desire for stability as they move forward.”

“What the CAS community needs right now is meaningful and comprehensive support — and that would be difficult to provide authentically in the context of a phase-out proposal.”

As the recording of the Feb. 10 meeting went viral, Friedman, a professor at Hunter College, was placed on leave, the Daily News first reported. The Center School PTA has condemned Friedman’s words, and Samuels has promised “restorative circles,” parent sessions, and an expanded use of a Black Studies curriculum in the district to start to repair the harm.

The school system is also working on broader plan to address what many Black families and elected officials said in the days after the meeting was anti-Black racism — which Friedman’s comments exposed, but goes beyond one example and one school district.

Friedman has said that her words were taken out of context but apologized for the pain that they caused.

Samuels, in his email, wrote that CAS enrollment “remains low,” but that he would work with the school community to come up with solutions. Because schools are largely funded on a per-pupil basis, schools with low enrollment may struggle to provide a full slate of programming and extracurriculars.

There were about 170 students enrolled in CAS this fall, according to preliminary data.

Students and their parents say CAS’ small size is part of what attracted them to the school, which they praised for a uniquely supportive environment.

The plan was first set in motion under Samuels, who served as superintendent of the local school district before he was elevated to chancellor in January.

The email to families was first reported by Chalkbeat.

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