J.H.S. 118 William W. Niles

Test scores at J.H.S. 118 sit at the district average for ELA (47.5% vs. 45%) but lag in math (38.1% vs. 43.5% district average), meaning students are performing on track in reading but catching up in mathematics. The school has improved substantially since 2016 — ELA rose nearly 10 percentage points — though progress has flattened recently with scores wavering between 47-48%. Eighth graders outperform their younger peers significantly (50.3% ELA vs. 45.6% in 6th grade), suggesting the school may be more effective at building academic skills over time than serving students in their first years.

Parent satisfaction is high at 93%, with families expressing strong trust in teachers (95%) and the principal (93%). However, only 64% of teachers trust the principal — a meaningful gap that suggests some tension between leadership and staff. Attendance is a concern: while the overall rate is 90.1%, a striking 65.8% of students are chronically absent, meaning they miss more than 10% of school days. Discipline has worsened — suspensions rose from 7 in 2021-22 to 22 in 2023-24 — even as the school maintains a 4% suspension rate that exceeds the district average of 0.28%. The day-to-day feel appears positive for families but may be more challenging for staff.

The student body is predominantly Hispanic (59%) with meaningful Black (18%) and Asian (17%) representation, giving the school a diverse makeup that reflects the neighborhood. With 91.5% economic need index — meaning nearly all students qualify for free or reduced lunch — this is a high-poverty school serving families with significant material challenges. The diversity index of 63% indicates meaningful exposure to students from different backgrounds, though the neighborhood itself has very few households with children (13.1%) and low educational attainment among adults (15% with BA+).

Tremont is a working-class Bronx neighborhood with significant challenges: the lowest safety score in the dataset (4.98 out of 100), high poverty (36.2%), and a median household income of just $32,208. There are few children in the area — only 13.1% of households have kids — but the family density score is high (81.23), suggesting the neighborhood may have more families with children than the low percentage indicates. Transit access is moderate (59.77), and homeownership is extremely low at 7.5%, meaning most families rent.

Families likely rely on public transit or busing to reach the school, as Tremont is a transit-accessible but car-dependent area. The low homeownership rate suggests many families may be commuting from nearby neighborhoods.