Math, Engineering, and Science Academy Charter High School

Math, engineering, and science aren't electives here — they're the organizing principle of the school. Class sizes hover right at the district average of 20.8, so students aren't getting a meaningfully smaller-cohort experience from a staffing standpoint. School-specific proficiency figures aren't broken out in the available data, but the school operates within District 32, where ELA proficiency averages roughly 46% and math proficiency roughly 43% — both below citywide marks. The STEM framing gives students sustained exposure to quantitative and technical coursework that most comprehensive high schools spread thinner across departments.

The climate story is a mixed one. Parents who do respond to surveys are unusually happy — 94% report satisfaction and 100% say they trust both their child's teacher and the principal. But the family survey response rate is just 1% (only 7 respondents), so those glowing numbers come from a tiny slice of the school community. The more sobering signal comes from teachers: only 51% rate instruction quality positively, compared to a district average of 86%. That gap between very satisfied parent-respondents and lukewarm teacher feedback is the single most important thing for prospective families to ask about on a tour.

The student body is 84% Hispanic, 8% Black, 2% Asian, and 2% White, with a diversity index of 30% that reflects the heavy concentration in one demographic group. That composition lines up closely with East Bushwick, a neighborhood long anchored by Puerto Rican families and now home to growing Mexican and Central American populations, alongside longstanding Black residents. About 16% of students have IEPs, and the economic need index of 84.4 means the vast majority of families are navigating real financial pressure.

East Bushwick is a working-class, renter-heavy neighborhood with a median household income around $67,000 and a poverty rate near 24%. About 31% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 11.5% of households include children under 18. The housing stock skews toward rentals, with homeownership just over 20% and a median home value just under $950,000 — a figure that reflects how dramatically the area has been repriced rather than what most long-time residents paid. Latino families anchor the community, joined by Black households that have lived here for generations.

Three subway options sit within a roughly 7-minute walk: Myrtle-Wyckoff Avs on the M and L lines (about 6–7 minutes each) and Knickerbocker Av on the M line (about 7 minutes).