Frederick Douglass Academy VIII Middle School

ELA proficiency of 42.3% sits below the district average of 48.9%, while math at 26% is dramatically below the district's 48.2% — students here are catching up, not leading. ELA has drifted modestly upward over the past decade (38.6% in 2016 to 42.3% in 2025), though with sharp year-to-year swings including a dip to 36.8% in 2024. Math is essentially flat-to-declining over the same span and remains the school's clearest weak spot. The grade-level breakdown is telling: 6th graders arrive furthest behind (29% ELA, 25% math), 7th graders peak in math (36%), and 8th-grade math collapses to 19% — suggesting students struggle as the work accelerates toward Regents-level material.

The day-to-day feel is one of unusually tight family-school ties — 98% parent satisfaction, 96% parent-teacher trust, and 98% parent-principal trust all clear the district average by 6-10 points, and 95% of families completed the survey, a remarkable response rate. Teachers share that trust in leadership (97%) and rate instruction quality at 94%. The shadow on this picture is chronic absenteeism at 62% — nearly two-thirds of students miss 10% or more of school days — and a suspension rate of 6%, about four times the district average, which has ticked up from 9 incidents in 2022-23 to 12 in 2023-24.

The student body is 72% Black and 21% Hispanic, with small Asian, White, and multiracial shares — broadly mirroring the surrounding Spring Creek-Starrett City population, which is largely low-income (median household income $41,167, 22.6% poverty rate) and majority-renter. Twenty-five percent of students have IEPs and the economic need index sits at 75, signaling significant household disadvantage. Notably, only 4.8% of neighborhood households include children, meaning this small 221-student school likely draws from well beyond the immediate census tract.

Spring Creek-Starrett City is a large planned community in East Brooklyn with a notably low share of households with kids under 18 — just 4.8% — alongside a 22.6% poverty rate and median household income of about $41,000. Homeownership is uncommon (10%) and the bachelor's-degree-or-higher rate is 24%, so the neighborhood leans older and more settled than the typical NYC family enclave. Most students likely arrive by school bus or car rather than on foot from surrounding blocks.

The nearest subway is the East 105 Street L stop, about a 20-minute walk away, so most families will rely on buses or school transportation rather than the train.