Academy for New Americans

Test scores trail the district badly on paper — ELA proficiency at 10% is far below the district average of roughly 61%, and math at 44.2% sits about 18 points under the district's 62.2% — and the overall quality score of 1.08 out of 4 is less than half the district's 2.46. But the trend line is the real story: math proficiency jumped from 14.8% last year to 44.2% this year, and ELA has climbed from effectively zero in the late 2010s into the low double digits. For a school serving students who often arrive with interrupted formal schooling, that kind of growth in a single year is genuinely striking, even if the absolute levels remain low.

Families here are deeply engaged — a 99% parent satisfaction rate (district average 93%) and 100% parent-teacher trust stand out, with 87% of families responding to the survey. Discipline is clean: zero suspensions in 2023–24, down from two in each of the prior two years. Teachers rate instructional quality at 100% but give somewhat lower marks to principal-trust (86%) and collegial trust (83%), suggesting a staff that believes in the work but is still building internal cohesion. The big asterisk is chronic absenteeism at 67% — more than two-thirds of students miss enough school to be flagged, which can undercut even strong instructional effort.

The student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (84%), with most students classified as English Language Learners and an unusually high 80% receiving special education services — a profile that points to a school serving many newcomers, including students with interrupted formal schooling. The neighborhood around it tells a different story: central Astoria is a solidly middle-income, well-educated pocket of Queens, so the school draws families from a wider catchment than its immediate blocks. With just 118 students total, this is one of the smallest middle schools in the borough, and that scale is part of its character.

Central Astoria is a middle-class, well-educated neighborhood with a median household income around $104,000, a poverty rate under 11%, and a bachelor's-degree-or-higher rate above 60%. Only about 12% of households include children, which helps explain why a small school like this draws from a broader area than its immediate blocks. The area skews heavily toward renters, with most residents commuting by transit — a setup that pairs naturally with a school whose families arrive from across the borough.

The 30 Av (N, W) stop is about a two-minute walk from the building, with Broadway (N, W) and Astoria Blvd (N, W) each roughly eight minutes away — three easy N/W options for families coming from anywhere along the Astoria corridor or transferring from the East Side.