Brooklyn Studio Secondary School

ELA proficiency at 49% sits about 11 points below the district average of 60%, and math at 43% is roughly 20 points below the district's 63%. Those numbers look sobering, but the trend line tells a more interesting story: math proficiency jumped from 16.5% in 2022 to 43% in 2025, and ELA rebounded from a dip in 2024 back to its strongest result in five years. By grade, 8th-graders post the strongest ELA performance (60.2%) and 7th-graders lead in math (54.2%), suggesting the upper grades are carrying more of the academic load. The overall quality review score of 1.84 out of 4 confirms the school is still catching up to its district peers, but the direction is clearly upward.

The day-to-day feel here leans warm and stable. Zero suspensions is remarkable for a school of nearly 900 students and suggests a calm, well-managed environment rather than a strict one. Teacher-reported trust in the principal is 88% — solid but not the strongest — while teacher confidence in instruction quality hits 97%, well above the district average of 92.6%. Parents report 92% satisfaction and an unusually high 96% trust in the principal, so families clearly feel heard. Attendance at 93.6% beats the district average, but chronic absenteeism at 79% is a serious flag — students are showing up consistently, yet a large share are missing enough school to be flagged.

The student body is 42% White, 33% Hispanic, 21% Asian, and 3% Black — a mix that reflects Bensonhurst's layered identity, with a notably larger white share than many Brooklyn schools. The diversity index of 68% is healthy and the economic need index of 79.1% means most families qualify for economic support. Twenty percent of students have IEPs, and ELL supports are formally built in. The PTA raised just $4 per student last year versus the district average of nearly $79 — a striking gap that likely reflects how many working families send kids here rather than any disengagement, since parent satisfaction itself is high.

Bensonhurst is a dense, working- and middle-class Brooklyn neighborhood where the median household income sits around $65,000 and about 17% of residents live below the poverty line. Roughly one in five households has children at home, and a third of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Homeownership is low at 32% and home values are high — over a million dollars on paper — which is more a marker of housing costs than wealth. The neighborhood skews multigenerational and family-oriented, with a strong immigrant presence that shapes the local economy and schools.

Three D-line stops sit within walking distance — 20 Avenue about 4 minutes away, Bay Parkway about 5 minutes, and 18 Avenue about 9 minutes — making this one of the easier schools in the borough to reach by subway.