Cornerstone Academy for Social Action Middle School (CASA)

Students here are scoring roughly 26 points below the district average in reading and about 36 points below in math — the gap in math is particularly wide. The math trend is bumpy: scores have swung from a low of 10% to a high of 43% across the past eight years, which suggests inconsistent results rather than steady improvement. ELA has been steadier, hovering in the 28–41% range over the same period. One bright spot is grade 8 ELA at 44.6%, a notable jump from the 19–23% range in grades 6 and 7, which hints that students who reach 8th grade here are landing on their feet academically even when the overall picture is tough.

The day-to-day climate here looks calm on paper: zero suspensions in 2022-23 and 2023-24, after just three the year before that, and parent trust in the principal is essentially unanimous at 100%. Parent-teacher trust is also very high at 96%. The worry sign is attendance — only 88% of students attend regularly, and 56.4% are chronically absent (missing 10% or more of the school year), which is far above what you typically want to see and likely drags down classroom learning. Teacher-rated instruction quality is 81%, below the district's 92%, though only 13 teachers responded, so that number should be read with some caution.

CASA serves a student body that is 61% Black, 35% Hispanic, with small percentages of Asian, Native American, White, and multiracial students — a community that closely mirrors the surrounding Eastchester-Edenwald-Baychester neighborhood, which has a median household income around $70,700 and a 17.8% poverty rate. The school's economic need index of 81 means most students come from low-income households, and 28% have IEPs, which is meaningfully higher than a typical middle school. ELL support is offered for English learners. Class size averages 23.8 students, right at the district norm.

Eastchester-Edenwald-Baychester is a working- and middle-class section of the eastern Bronx with a 41.8% homeownership rate and a median home value over half a million dollars — unusually high for the borough — and about 26.6% of adults hold a bachelor's degree. About 16% of households have children under 18, so families with school-age kids are a meaningful but not dominant slice of the area. The neighborhood has a suburban feel compared to much of the Bronx, with single-family homes and small apartment buildings.

The school is about an 8-minute walk from the Eastchester-Dyre Av 5 train station and about 11 minutes from the Baychester Av 5 train station.