Lighthouse Elementary School

Proficiency levels remain well below district averages — 32.8% in ELA versus a district average around 56%, and 27.9% in math versus roughly 57% district-wide, and the school's overall quality score of 1.21 out of 4 trails the district average of 2.27. The bright spot is the 2025 results: ELA proficiency nearly doubled from 17.5% the prior year, and math rebounded from 16.7% to 27.9%, the strongest single-year gains in the school's recent history. Grade 5 ELA stood out at 47.6%, suggesting older students who have stayed through the program are starting to hit proficiency. The trajectory isn't smooth — math dipped as low as 6.8% in 2022 — but the direction over the past year is clearly upward.

The day-to-day feel is shaped by a striking contrast: a calm, low-discipline environment alongside meaningful attendance and safety concerns. The school has recorded zero suspensions for three straight years, and the 89% teacher rating on instructional quality is close to the district average of about 91%, suggesting classrooms are functioning well. But teacher-reported safety sits at 71% — more than 20 points below the district's 92.6% — and chronic absenteeism reaches 35.3%, meaning more than a third of students miss enough school to be flagged. Parent satisfaction at 81% is solid but trails the district's 92.6%, and only 18% of families returned the survey, so there's some uncertainty in that number. Teachers show strong collegial trust at 83%, which often correlates with a stable staff.

The student body is 64% Black and 28% Hispanic, with small slices of White (5%), Asian (1%), Multi-Racial (1%), and Native American (1%) students — a less diverse mix than the citywide average and reflected in the 52% diversity index. The economic need index of 92.7% is among the highest you will see, meaning nearly every student qualifies as economically disadvantaged. IEP students make up 28% of enrollment, well above typical elementary averages. The neighborhood around the school skews Black and Hispanic as well, with a 17.6% poverty rate and a median household income of $67,668 — families here are largely renters, with homeownership at just 29.1%.

Far Rockaway-Bayswater is a coastal Queens neighborhood with a working- and middle-income mix, where about 22% of households include children and 26.4% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Median home values sit around $625,822, but homeownership is rare at just 29.1%, so most families rent. The poverty rate of 17.6% is higher than the citywide figure, and median household income of $67,668 runs below the borough average.

Commuting is unusually easy for a Rockaways school — Beach 36 St on the A line is roughly a two-minute walk, with Beach 25 St about ten minutes and Beach 44 St about eleven minutes away on foot, all on the same A train