BELL Academy

This is one of the stronger middle schools in District 25. ELA proficiency of 81.4% and math proficiency of 81.2% both run roughly 15-16 percentage points above district averages, and the overall quality score of 3.25/4 sits well above the district's 2.69/4. The trend line is encouraging too — ELA climbed from about 66% in 2016 to the low 80s today, and math has followed a similar arc. The one soft spot is that 8th-grade math (76.8%) trails 6th-grade math (84.2%) by about 7 points, suggesting some students don't sustain growth all the way through the middle school years.

The day-to-day feel here is unusually parent-driven. Family trust in teachers (97%) and in the principal (99%) is exceptional, and 96% of parents say they're satisfied with the school. The school has reported zero suspensions for three straight years, which is rare in any New York City middle school. Teachers describe strong collegial trust (98%) and decent instructional quality (90%, slightly above the district norm), though teacher-principal trust is notably lower at 80% — worth asking staff about directly. Attendance is healthy at 95.4%, but the chronic absenteeism figure of 86.4% is striking and something parents should investigate; that's a far cry from the daily attendance rate and reflects students missing 10% or more of the school year.

The 355 students reflect a genuinely mixed community: 41% Asian, 27% Hispanic, 25% White, and 4% Black, with a diversity index of 72%. That's noticeably more diverse than the surrounding neighborhood, where high homeownership and a $109,000 median income point to a fairly affluent, owner-occupied population. About 37.5% of students qualify for economic need, and 19% have IEPs — meaningful numbers that show the school isn't serving only neighborhood privilege.

Bay Terrace-Clearview is a quiet, residential, largely car-dependent part of eastern Queens. Most families own their homes (78.4%), only about 16% of households have kids under 18, and half of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Median household income is comfortably above $109,000 and the poverty rate is just 6.4% — this is a stable, middle-class and upper-middle-class enclave. The student body, by contrast, draws from further across the district and is more economically and racially mixed than the surrounding census tract.

There are no subway stations within a 20-minute walk of the school. Families living elsewhere in the city will need to drive, take a school bus, or arrange other transportation — this is not a transit-accessible campus.