East Side Community School

ELA proficiency of 51.7% lands essentially at the district average (51.7%), while math proficiency of 52.3% runs modestly above the district's 47.4% — so on the state tests, this is an average-to-slightly-above school, not a test-score leader. The grade-by-grade breakdown is uneven in a useful way: 7th graders post strong results (61% ELA, 75% math), while 6th graders are still adjusting (44% ELA, 30% math), which reads more like a transition effect than chronic weakness. The longer trend has been bumpy — proficiency climbed steadily from 2016 through 2019, math cratered to 30% in 2022 during the pandemic, and the school has been clawing back since, with both subjects jumping meaningfully between 2024 and 2025.

The day-to-day climate reads as unusually strong by District 1 standards. Parent satisfaction sits at 94% — well above the district average of 88% — and teacher trust in the principal hits 99%, with 97% of teachers rating instruction quality positively. Zero suspensions across the school is a real signal that this is a restorative-culture school, not a traditional-discipline one. The headline concern is chronic absenteeism: 73.8% of students missed 10% or more of the school year, even though the overall attendance rate of 92.7% actually beats the district average of 88.9%. That gap — high engagement from the families who show up, but a wide tail of students who aren't — is worth pressing the school on directly.

The student body is majority Hispanic (54%) with significant White (21%), Black (15%), and Asian (8%) populations, and an economic need index of 65 — meaning most students come from households that qualify for free lunch or are living in higher-poverty ZIP codes. That looks quite different from the East Village right outside the door, where 59.5% of adults hold bachelor's degrees and median household income is $87,728. In other words, the school pulls a working-class, immigrant-rich student body into a young-professional, college-educated neighborhood — a real point of contrast to keep in mind.

The East Village around the school is dense and highly educated — nearly 60% of adults have a bachelor's degree and median household income is $87,728 — but a quarter of residents still live below the poverty line, and only 6.6% of nearby households include children, which tells you most of the immediate blocks are young professionals, not families. That mismatch between neighborhood and student body is part of what makes the school distinctive: this is a neighborhood the school's families commute into, not necessarily one they live in. The school itself is one of the better-connected middle schools in the district by subway.

The 1 Av L stop is about a 3-minute walk from the building, the 3 Av L stop is roughly 7 minutes on foot, and Astor Pl on the 6 line is about 10 minutes away — three lines within easy reach.