By Olivia Scheck
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The Harlem School of the Arts, one of the most renowned cultural institutions in the city, may be forced to close for good due to lack of money, several news outlets reported.
In an e-mail sent to parents on Thursday, John Corwin, the nonprofit's interim executive director, announced that the school would be closed and payments to teachers and staff would be suspended until April 10 while the school's board tries to scrape together the cash to keep things running through the end of the semester, the New York Times reported.
“We are virtually out of money, with no clear sources ahead of us,” Corwin wrote, according to the paper.
The school needs $500,000 to stay afloat through June, the paper reported.
Teachers said the school routinely paid them late and added that the board scared off potential students with a 25 percent tuition hike a few years back, the Times said.
“When you look at the management of the school, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that it’s pure mismanagement,” Keith Lewis, a dance teacher at HSA for 13 years and a former student, told the Times.
For more than four decades, the Harlem School for the Arts has offered classes in dance, music, theater and the visual arts, "enrich[ing] the lives of youth and their families in the Harlem community and beyond through training in, and exposure to, the arts," according to the institution's Web site.
James Barlow, the father of 10-year-old Jada, who takes drama and modern dance at HSA, was shocked at the school's closing.
"It’s one of the pillars of the community,” he told the Times.
HSA, which says it serves 3,000 students annually, had a $3.6 million budget this year, $800,000 less than the year before, the Daily News reported.
Funds are culled from private donations, government funding and tuition — starting at $610 for 28 weeks of beginner classes.
Corwin blamed the woes on a decline in donations.
"Donors have cut back," he told the News.
