Zeta Charter Schools to expand to Upper Manhattan with new high school

Yet another charter school is opening its doors to students in Manhattan.

Zeta Charter Schools has signed a two-year lease at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Washington Heights. The 35,000-square-foot site will serve as the interim campus for Zeta’s first high school, serving students from its existing campuses.

The location will be Zeta’s 11th school and its first expansion into Manhattan, with previous campuses in Inwood, the Bronx and Queens. Zeta currently serves over 4,000 students in grades Pre-K through eighth grade, and will welcome its first ninth-grade class at the Upper Manhattan location. The property will undergo significant upgrades before its first cohort of students arrives in the fall.

Zeta was represented in the transaction with the landlord, the Archdiocese of New York, by OPEN Impact Real Estate, a woman-owned commercial real estate brokerage and services company that specializes in nonprofit and impact real estate. Zeta has worked with OPEN since 2018.

In September, Zeta opened two new schools in Queens serving elementary school students in Jamaica and Elmhurst.

“Creating Zeta High School seats for our Upper Manhattan and South Bronx communities has long been a part of our plan,” Zeta’s founder and CEO Emily Kim said. “When students and families arrive at the start of school this August, they will walk into a beautiful building designed in every detail to prepare students for powerful college, career, and life trajectories that enable them to fulfil their highest potential.”

Founded in 2017, Zeta uses a “ social-emotional, mindfulness approach ” in the classroom. Speciality programs including chess, taekwondo, dance breaks and meditation exist alongside academic studies. The school is dedicated to the idea that “excellent education is a right of every child,” according to their online mission statement .

“We repudiate the status quo of decades of educational failure that have plagued our nation,” the statement reads. “We don’t accept that only those with means can have access to cutting-edge, innovative, self-actualizing, and evolving education that prepares kids for access and leadership in a modern world.”

Charter schools like Zeta are publicly funded but independently operated institutions, with no cost to apply or attend. According to the Charter School Center, more than 15% of the city’s public school students attend charter schools as of 2025-26, or about 155,000 students in all five boroughs.

There has been a notable surge in popularity for charter school education across the country. Public charter school enrollment more than doubled from 2010 to 2021 to 3.7 million students nationwide, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, reports show that NYC public schools experienced a significant decline in student enrollment in 2025.

Within the city, charter schools have gained attention for test scores that outperform NYC public schools . Last year, the New York City Charter School Center launched an online directory to help families navigate the city’s 281 charter schools.