DeWitt Clinton High School

Clinton offers AP coursework and STEM programming alongside its five themed academies, and the catalog of electives and pathways is genuinely broad. School-level proficiency data isn't included in this profile, so it's hard to say exactly how Clinton's ELA and math results stack up against the district's roughly 45% ELA / 44% math averages — though the presence of screened admissions and an honors early college program suggests at least some cohort is being pulled in at a higher academic bar. Worth asking the school directly for current proficiency numbers and graduation rate before applying.

Parents clearly feel respected here: 95% satisfaction and 96% trust in both the principal and teachers are well above district averages. The teacher side tells a more complicated story — only 79% rate instruction quality positively, compared with a district average around 91%, which is a notable gap and worth asking about on a school visit. Discipline is exceptionally light (6 total suspensions for a school of 1,020 students), so the climate isn't punitive. Day-to-day, expect a large-school feel where parent communication is a clear strength but teacher morale on instructional support may be uneven.

Clinton's students are 56% Hispanic, 28% Black, and 10% Asian, with 22% IEP and a high economic need index of 85.8 — closely tracking the Bedford Park neighborhood, which has a $44K median household income and a 25.6% poverty rate. The diversity index sits at 61%, putting the school in the "very diverse" range by NYC standards. The newcomers academy specifically serves recent immigrants, so ELL families and mixed-status households will find peers here. This is a school that draws almost entirely from its own neighborhood rather than commuting from elsewhere.

Bedford Park is a working-class, largely renter neighborhood in the northwest Bronx — only 7% of households own their homes, median income is in the mid-$40Ks, and just 14% of households have children under 18, so the school draws from a deep but not particularly kid-dense pool. About a quarter of residents live below the poverty line and only 17.5% have a bachelor's degree, which shapes both the school's demographics and the kind of enrichment families can layer on top of what the school provides. It's a transit-friendly area: the 4 train stops at Mosholu Parkway about five minutes away, and the B and D run along Bedford Park Boulevard a short walk further west.

Most families take the subway — the 4 at Mosholu Parkway is about a 5-minute walk, the 4 at Bedford Park Blvd–Lehman College about 10 minutes, and the B and D at Bedford Park Boulevard another 10-minute walk.