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Manhattan · Museum Mile (Upper East Side)

Guidepost Montessori at Museum Mile

This campus has closed. We keep the entry so families who find old listings know its current status.

Closed  No longer operating (2025)

Guidepost Montessori at Museum Mile closed amid the collapse of its parent company, Higher Ground Education, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2025. The campus originally opened as Polis World School (also listed as Polis Montessori World School) and was rebranded Guidepost by 2022 — city datasets still carry the old “POLIS” trade name, which is why this campus appears under two different names in some records. As of August 10, 2026 there is no active NYC Health Department child-care permit at 12 East 79th Street. Guidepost itself continues to operate — only these New York campuses closed; Williamsburg is still open.

At a glance

Snapshot

StatusClosed (2025)
Was12 East 79th St, Museum Mile / Upper East Side · est. 2018
TypeFor-profit Guidepost campus (formerly Polis World School) · ages 3–11 · optional Mandarin immersion
Why it closedParent company Higher Ground Education (Guidepost) Chapter 11 collapse
The neighborhood

Museum Mile / Upper East Side

Stylized illustration of the Upper East Side: limestone prewar co-ops and a Museum Mile building with a columned portico beside Central Park's green edge

The campus sat on East 79th near Fifth Avenue, in the Museum Mile stretch of the Upper East Side.

🖼️ Museum Mile🏛️ Limestone co-ops🌳 Central Park East🚇 6 · Q

What happened

Guidepost Montessori expanded rapidly nationwide under Higher Ground Education. When Higher Ground filed for Chapter 11 in 2025, its New York campuses — including Museum Mile — closed. If you're seeing this school in an older directory or search result, it is no longer enrolling.

Open Upper East Side alternatives

For families who were considering it, our still-operating UES options include The Caedmon School and Resurrection Episcopal Day School — or browse the full directory.

Sources: NYC DOHMH Child Care Connect live permit lookup — whole-street search, checked August 10, 2026: no permitted child-care programme at this address; Guidepost Montessori’s own website and sitemap, which carry no page for this campus (only Williamsburg remains in New York); NY Department of State corporate records; Higher Ground Education Chapter 11 coverage (Forbes, Bloomberg Law); polis.school offline since 2022 (last Internet Archive capture October 3, 2022). Independent profile, not affiliated with the school.
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Health & safety record

Violations heard and decided at the city’s administrative tribunal. We publish these in full, including when there are none.

No cases on record. No summons to this school appears in the city’s hearing records.

For comparison: across all 18,161 DOHMH child-care cases heard at OATH, 63.1% were sustained, 21.3% ended in default and 13.1% were dismissed. Most citations concern records, repairs and paperwork — staff immunisation files, premises upkeep, sink water temperature, background-check timing — rather than incidents involving a child.

Source: NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, case status data, checked 11 August 2026. These are adjudicated outcomes, not inspection allegations. The record gives the rule cited and the result, but never the inspector’s narrative — the charge text always reads “see attached NOV”. Outcomes can change on appeal. Something wrong? Tell us.

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