Brooklyn Urban Garden Charter School

BUGS has pulled off one of the more striking academic turnarounds in District 15. In 2016, only about 37% of students were proficient in ELA and 30% in math; by 2024, those numbers had risen to 79% and 68%. Current scores — 74.5% ELA and 64% math — are well above the district averages of 65.5% and 63.3% respectively. The overall Quality Review score of 2.77 out of 4 also sits above the district's 2.58. The clearest signal of trouble is in 8th grade math, where proficiency drops to about 51%, suggesting the school does a stronger job launching middle schoolers than shepherding them out the door. ELA performance is more even across grades.

The day-to-day feel here is a bit of a split. Parents report very high trust in teachers (95%) and the principal (93%), with 92% overall satisfaction — close to the district average of 93%. Teachers rate the quality of instruction at 98%, well above the district's 89%, and they report strong collegial trust at 85%. But teacher trust in the principal sits at just 56%, a notable gap that suggests leadership and staff aren't fully aligned. Attendance is healthy at 94% (above the district's 93.5%), but the chronic absenteeism rate of 85.8% is very high — most students are missing 10% or more of the school year, consistent with post-COVID patterns citywide. No suspension rate was reported for the school.

The student body is roughly 48% white, 32% Hispanic, 9% Black, 9% multiracial, and 3% Asian, with a diversity index of 69%. The economic need index of 27.2 is on the low side, meaning the school serves a relatively well-off population compared with NYC as a whole. About 21% of students have IEPs. The neighborhood around the school skews even whiter and more affluent than the student body — the surrounding census tract has a median household income over $138,000, a poverty rate under 7%, and a 73% college-educated rate — so the school is drawing some families from outside its immediate blocks.

BUGS sits in Windsor Terrace-South Slope, a family-dense pocket of Brooklyn where about 26% of households have kids, median household income is roughly $138,000, and home values are well over $1.2 million. The neighborhood is solidly college-educated and skews toward homeowners as well as renters, with a homeownership rate near 40%. It's the kind of block where strollers outnumber late-night crowds, and the school draws families from across this stretch of District 15.

The school is a roughly 7-minute walk from the 15 St-Prospect Park F/G stop, about 11 minutes from Fort Hamilton Pkwy on the F/G, and around 15 minutes from 7 Av on the F/G.