Harold O. Levy School

ELA proficiency of 29.6% and math proficiency of 20.7% both sit well below the district averages of roughly 47% and 52%. The overall score of 1.01 out of 4 is about half the district average of 1.98, placing the school in the lower tier. But the year-over-year direction is genuinely upward: ELA has climbed from 19.6% in 2016 and math has nearly doubled from 11.5% in the same window. Grade-level results are notably uneven — 7th-grade math at 39% and 8th-grade ELA at 35.7% show what's possible here, while 6th-grade math (13.3%) and 8th-grade math (10%) show where the work is hardest.

The day-to-day climate is one of this school's clearest strengths. Parent satisfaction (95%), parent-teacher trust (96%), and parent-principal trust (98%) all sit at or above district averages, and teachers rate their own instruction quality at 94% — well above the district's 90.4%. The discipline story is striking: after 9 suspensions in 2021-22 and 6 in 2022-23, the school reported zero suspensions in 2023-24. The persistent concern is attendance — the rate of 87.1% lags the district's 91.1%, and chronic absenteeism at 55.2% means more than half of students miss significant school time. The adults here are aligned; getting kids in the door consistently is the open question.

The student body is 92% Hispanic, with 7% Black and 1% Asian and White, and a diversity index of just 19% — a population that closely mirrors the Inwood community around the school. Thirty-one percent of students have IEPs, which is meaningfully higher than typical, and an ELL Support program serves multilingual learners. Total enrollment of 193 is genuinely small, which generally translates to teachers knowing students by name and parents knowing each other. This is a community-anchored school, not a destination school drawing from across the borough.

Inwood sits at the northern tip of Manhattan, with a working- and middle-income population — median household income is $63,123 and about 15% of households include children. Homeownership is low at 9.2%, signaling a primarily renter community, and median home value is $508,338. Forty percent of neighborhood adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Three subway lines converge within a short walk of the school, giving families real flexibility in how they get here.

Three subway options sit within easy reach: the Dyckman St A train is about a 2-minute walk, while the Dyckman St 1 and the Inwood-207 St A stop are each about a 7-minute walk.