Lower Manhattan Arts Academy

The school's proficiency figures aren't shown in this profile, but the surrounding signals tell a fairly clear story. Average class size of 25.8 is essentially identical to the District 2 average (25.8), so students aren't getting unusually small sections. Twenty-nine percent of students have IEPs — a notably high share — and the school runs ELL support alongside its arts programming, suggesting it serves a wide range of learners under one roof. The 963 applicants competing for 70 seats — a 7.1% offer rate — is the most telling academic signal of all: families who've done their homework view LoMA as a desirable, selective option, even without test-score screening.

The discipline picture is unusually clean: zero suspensions against a District 2 average of about 0.3%. Teachers rate their own instructional quality at 96%, meaningfully above the district's 89.8%, which suggests strong classroom practice day-to-day. Parent-principal trust is high at 94% and parent-teacher trust sits at 90%, the kind of relationship-building smaller schools tend to support. The number that gives pause is overall parent satisfaction at 83% — well below the district's 92%. The family survey response rate was just 26%, so it represents a thin slice of the broader school community rather than a full census of opinion.

The student body is 58% Hispanic, 31% Black, 8% Asian, and 3% white, with a diversity index of 56% and an economic need index of 85.6 — meaning the vast majority of students come from low-income households. Twenty-nine percent of students have IEPs, which is high relative to typical city high schools. The Lower East Side immediately around the school has a median household income near $58,000, a poverty rate above 23%, and only 6.5% of households include children — meaning most neighbors are not families with school-age kids, and LoMA draws from a far wider geography than just the surrounding blocks.

The Lower East Side is one of Manhattan's most historically immigrant neighborhoods — diverse, dense, and renter-dominated. Median household income near $58,000 and a poverty rate above 23% reflect the working-class character of the area, while a BA+ rate around 44% shows there's a well-educated slice as well. Homeownership is just 23.3%, with a median home value above $833,000 — a reminder that the housing stock here is expensive even though residents' incomes are modest. Only about 6.5% of neighborhood households include children, so LoMA's families tend to commute in from across Lower Manhattan and beyond.

Getting here is easy by subway. Delancey St-Essex St — served by the F, M, J, and Z lines — is about a 3-minute walk, and East Broadway on the F is roughly 6 minutes on foot.