UNIS was founded in 1947. It was previously located in a former school building at 1311 First Avenue, on East 70th Street, in
Lenox Hill,
Manhattan. In 1964, the
Ford Foundation offered a conditional donation of $7 million for a new school building at the headquarters of the United Nations, near an existing playground; Sweden and Libya also contributed funds. UNIS had acquired a site at York Avenue and 89th Street in
Yorkville, but sold it in 1965. Two years later, another alternate site south of the UN headquarters was proposed for UNIS. Under the headship of the Irishman Desmond Cole, UNIS moved around 1970 into two premises on 51st (the Junior School headed by Lea Rangel-Ribeiro) and the middle school 54th streets. The site on 51st Street previously housed
Public School 135; the site at 418 East 54th Street previously had been used as showrooms and office space for furniture companies. The high school was housed on East 11th Street. in the background The main building on 25th Street opened in January 1973, marking the first permanent location for UNIS in its history. It was designed by the architecture firm of
Harrison & Abramovitz. The building was constructed on a platform that had been previously built for the planned school with a $1-million grant from the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The city had first proposed that the school be constructed on a platform at the site in August 1965. The location was formally occupied by Pier 73, to which was docked the
SS John W. Brown, a former
Liberty ship that was being used as an annex for the Food and Maritimes Vocational High School. To make way for construction of the platform, the ship was moved in January 1966 to Pier 42 on the
Hudson River. On May 5, 1969, the deck of the future school site was used as the landing field for a
Hawker Siddeley Harrier vertical take-off and landing jet operated by the
Royal Air Force in the
Daily Mail Trans-Atlantic Air Race.
Salaries and compensation Compensation constitutes the largest component of expenditures at the United Nations International School (UNIS), reflecting the central role of personnel in delivering its academic programs. According to recent IRS Form 990 filings, as compiled by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, the school reported total expenses of approximately $72.5 million, of which about $53.9 million was allocated to salaries and employee benefits. This indicates that well over two-thirds of the school’s operating budget is devoted to compensation, a proportion consistent with other large nonprofit educational institutions. UNIS employs several hundred staff across instructional, administrative, and support roles. While individual salaries for most employees—particularly classroom teachers—are not publicly itemized in Form 990 filings, the aggregate payroll figure suggests a wide distribution of compensation levels. These range from support staff to highly compensated senior administrators, reflecting the scale and complexity of operating an international school offering multilingual instruction and extensive academic programming. Form 990 disclosures provide detailed information on compensation for the institution’s highest-paid employees. In the most recent reporting period, the Executive Director received total compensation of approximately $757,758, including salary and benefits, making this the highest reported individual compensation at the school. Other senior administrators were compensated at lower but still substantial levels. The Chief Financial Officer earned roughly $352,747 in total compensation, while divisional principals overseeing the high school, middle school, and junior school each received between approximately $280,000 and $300,000. Additional senior staff, including directors of academic programs and student services, typically earned between about $190,000 and $260,000. These compensation levels reflect both the size of the institution and the complexity of its operations. As an international school serving a diverse student body, UNIS requires leadership with expertise in global education standards, administration, and finance. Compensation for top administrators is therefore broadly comparable to that at other large private and international schools, where salaries often scale with institutional budget and enrollment. At the governance level, UNIS follows standard nonprofit practices: members of its board of trustees receive no compensation for their service. This distinction reflects the separation between paid executive management and unpaid oversight typical of tax-exempt organizations in the United States. Over time, spending on salaries and benefits has grown alongside overall revenues and institutional expansion. Rising enrollment, increased program offerings, and competitive labor markets—particularly in New York City—have contributed to upward pressure on compensation. As a result, payroll has remained the dominant expenditure category, underscoring the labor-intensive nature of private education. ==Notable alumni==