Boys Preparatory Charter School of New York

The 2025 scores are the headline: 56.6% ELA proficiency and 57.5% Math proficiency, both meaningfully above the district averages of 51.3% and 49.0%. This is a sharp turnaround from 2022, when the school hit 38.5% ELA and 32.5% Math — so whatever changed in instruction or student supports over the last two years is showing up in the numbers. The overall quality score of 2.28 out of 4 also beats the district's 2.01. Grade 3 is the clear bright spot at 84.9% in both subjects, but the picture gets uneven as students get older: Grade 5 ELA sits at 44.3% and Grade 8 Math drops to 30.9%, suggesting that the middle-school years are where this school still has work to do.

The trust numbers here are genuinely unusual — 97% of parents say they trust their child's teacher, 95% trust the principal, and 100% report strong relationships with the school. That kind of near-total confidence from families is rare. The caveat is that only 47 families responded to the survey (a 9% response rate), so these are the views of a committed slice of the parent body rather than the whole community. Teacher-reported instruction quality is 68.6%, well below the district average of 88.4%, which suggests staff and families may not be seeing the same classroom experience. Attendance is 87.9% — about three percentage points below the district — and chronic absenteeism is high at 53.5%, meaning more than half of students are chronically absent. That number is the single biggest day-to-day flag for any parent considering this school.

With 860 students, Boys Preparatory is a sizable school, and its demographic mix almost exactly mirrors the surrounding Concourse neighborhood: roughly 47% Black and 49% Hispanic, with very small representation from other groups. The economic need index of 85.6 confirms what you'd expect — the vast majority of students come from low-income households. Twenty-four percent of students have IEPs, which is higher than the citywide average and worth knowing for any family navigating special education services. Average class size of 20.5 is right in line with the district.

Concourse-Concourse Village is a densely populated, working-class South Bronx neighborhood where the median household income sits around $40,000 and about a third of households live below the poverty line. Only 11% of homes are owner-occupied and just under 16% of adults hold a bachelor's degree, so this is a neighborhood of mostly renters and working families. Households with children make up about 14% of the area, which is relatively low — many families here live in adult-only households or with kids spread across the wider family network.

Getting here is easy. The 149 St-Grand Concourse station is about a 3-minute walk and serves the 2, 4, and 5 lines, so families coming from almost anywhere in the Bronx or Manhattan have a direct trip. The 138 St-Grand Concourse station on the 4 and 5 lines is also reachable, about 11 minutes on foot.