At a Glance
A small Mott Haven elementary where parents deeply trust the staff — and the 2025 scores are finally catching up
Best suited for
Families in Mott Haven and the surrounding South Bronx who want a small, no-suspensions school where they'll be known by name — and who can prioritize getting their child to class every day.
Overall Rating
Rating = average of NY State ELA + math proficiency, grades 3–8
Bands are Motley's thresholds on a 0–100 scale, not New York State performance levels.
How this is scored→What stands out
- Zero suspensions three years in a row — a rare non-pushout discipline climate in a high-needs neighborhood
- Near-perfect family-school trust: 97% of parents trust their child's teacher, 94% trust the principal, and 100% report strong relationships
- A real 2025 academic surge, with math proficiency crossing the district average for the first time in the data shown
- Small enrollment of 326 students, which lets staff know families by name
- Brook Av on the 6 train is a 3-minute walk — about as easy a commute as a South Bronx family can get
Things to consider
- Chronic absenteeism at 74.8% — even with strong survey numbers, most students aren't in their seats often enough for instruction to compound
- Grade 4 ELA proficiency is only 30% — a clear weak point that drags down the school's overall picture
- Teachers rate both instruction quality (82%) and their own safety (76%) below the district averages, suggesting the staff may be stretched thin
- The PTA raised just $100 last year, so the school has almost no parent-funded enrichment dollars to work with
- District 7 is dominated by highly rated charters; this is a traditional, unscreened public option sitting just below the district average
Based on 2024-25 data
School SummaryDistrict 7
P.S. 043's overall score of 1.95/4 sits just below the district 7 average of 2.01, but the neighborhood's highest-scoring peers are all charters rated in the 90s out of 100. As an unscreened traditional public school with no admissions bar, it competes for enrollment against those stronger-scoring options while serving a much higher-need population.
Academics
Math proficiency at 50.4% now sits just above the district 7 average of 49%, while ELA at 47.1% trails the district's 51.3% — a meaningful gap. The 2025 jump is dramatic — ELA gained nearly 20 points and math 13 points over 2024 — but the eight-year track record is volatile, with ELA swinging between 22% and 47%, so this year's strength will need to hold to be considered real progress. Grade 3 students are doing well (63% ELA, 56% math), but Grade 4 ELA at just 30% is the clearest weak spot in the building.
Culture
The snapshot attendance rate of 92.5% is above the district average, but chronic absenteeism has climbed to 74.8% — a striking figure that means roughly three of every four students miss enough school to be flagged. Parents feel heard here: satisfaction, teacher trust, and principal trust all run above the district average, and 100% of surveyed families say there are strong school relationships. Teachers are more measured — they rate instruction quality at 82% and their own sense of safety at 76%, both below district averages — and the school has issued zero suspensions for three straight years.
Community
The student body is 74% Hispanic and 22% Black, with a diversity index of 41% — more racially concentrated than the city overall but still a genuinely mixed school. The economic need index of 94.6% means nearly every family qualifies for free lunch, and 19% of students have IEPs. These numbers track closely with the surrounding Mott Haven-Port Morris neighborhood, where the poverty rate is 40% and median income sits just above $29,000.
Neighborhood
Mott Haven-Port Morris is a densely populated, working-class South Bronx neighborhood where just 6% of residents own their homes and most families rent. About 12% of adults hold a bachelor's degree, 40% of households live below the poverty line, and only 12% of households include children — meaning a lot of the residential fabric is adult renters rather than young families. The school sits centrally within this dense residential area, easy to reach from several directions.
Brook Av (6 train) is about a 3-minute walk, with 3 Av-138 St (6) about 8 minutes and Cypress Av (6) about 9 minutes away — three stops on the same line.
Academic Performance
ELA Proficiency
Students scoring proficient or above on the NY State ELA exam.
NYC DOE InfoHub · 2022-23
Math Proficiency
Students scoring proficient or above on the NY State Math exam.
NYC DOE InfoHub · 2022-23
Historical Trends
The dashed line marks 2023, when New York changed its grades 3–8 state tests. Scores before and after it aren’t directly comparable.
2020–2021 data unavailable due to COVID-19
Source: NYC DOE School Quality Reports
Survey Results
NYC School Survey (2025) · 84 families responded (25% rate)
Racial & Ethnic Diversity
NYC DOE InfoHub · 2022-23
PTA Fundraising
Source: DOE Local Law 171 disclosure
Discipline
NYSED Student & Educator Database (2023-24)
Economic Need & Special Populations
How to get in, step by step
Pre-K
P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck also has Pre-K classes. They're a separate application from kindergarten, made on MySchools.
Pre-K application
Applications typically open in the winter and close in the spring, with offers in late spring; the city announces exact dates each year.
Kindergarten
District 7 is a school-choice district, so it has no elementary zones: no address guarantees a seat at P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck. Families across the district apply on MySchools, and seats go to priority groups first (siblings, then families in the school's area — District 7 is split into a north and a south area), then by random lottery.
Kindergarten application
- Opens
- Wed, Dec 9
- Closes
- Fri, Jan 22
- Offers
- Tue, Mar 30
The DOE’s published dates.
- 1Apply on MySchools during the kindergarten application.
- 2Rank every school you'd accept, in true preference order — with no zoned seat to fall back on, a longer list matters.
Open houses and tours
We haven’t seen open-house dates for this school yet.
From the MySchools admissions calendar, checked weekly.
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck a good school?
- On Motley, P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck earns an overall rating of 49/100 — the average of the school's New York State ELA and math proficiency, grades 3–8, shown out of 100. Its state test results run in line with the District 7 average.
- What grades does P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck serve?
- P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck serves grades Pre-K to 5.
- How do students get into P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck?
- P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck admits by application through a random lottery, with no academic screen.
- Is P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck public, charter, or private?
- P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck is a public school in NYC Community School District 7.
- What neighborhood is P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck in?
- P.S. 043 Jonas Bronck is in Mott Haven-Port Morris, Bronx.