At a Glance
A small, community-trusted neighborhood school where families stay deeply connected to staff, even as test scores lag well behind the district.
Best suited for
Families who prioritize a safe, tight-knit community school with strong parent-staff relationships and small enrollment — and who are prepared to be actively involved in pushing academic outcomes forward.
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 for three consecutive years — a rare finding that points to a genuinely calm, well-managed building.
- Parent-school trust is exceptionally high (99% parent-teacher, 98% parent-principal), suggesting families feel genuinely heard.
- Small enrollment of 271 students means teachers can know kids and families by name across grade levels.
- Unusually high Native American representation (4%) for a New York City public school, contributing to a genuinely multicultural student body.
- 100% of teachers describe the school as safe — the strongest possible climate signal.
Things to consider
- ELA and math proficiency sit roughly 30 percentage points below the district average — the academic gap is significant and not improving.
- Chronic absenteeism at 39.5% is high, with certain demographic groups (Asian and Black students) missing school at even higher rates.
- Teacher-principal trust (74%) and collegial trust (69%) are the soft spots in an otherwise strong climate picture — staff cohesion is worth asking about.
- No subway within a 20-minute walk makes this school car- or bus-dependent for most families.
- The grade-4 to grade-5 drop in proficiency (e.g., math falling from 43.9% to 11.4%) suggests the upper-elementary transition could use closer attention.
Based on 2024-25 data
School SummaryDistrict 27
Within District 27, P.S. 045 sits well below the average overall score of 2.27/4 and trails peer schools like Success Academy South Jamaica, Peninsula Prep, and P.S. 066 by a wide margin. It's one of the lower-performing zoned schools in a district that includes several strong charter and traditional options.
Academics
Only about a quarter of students are proficient in ELA and roughly a fifth in math — well below the district averages of 56% and 57% respectively. Math has been on a downward slide since peaking at 36.2% in 2019; ELA has been more uneven but is also lower than its 2019 high. The grade-by-grade breakdown is striking: fourth-graders score dramatically higher than third- or fifth-graders (41% ELA, 43.9% math in grade 4 versus the low teens elsewhere), which suggests instruction or test-readiness varies sharply by cohort rather than building cleanly year over year.
Culture
The day-to-day climate here is genuinely warm — 100% of teachers report a safe environment, zero suspensions have been recorded for three straight years, and parent-school trust sits in the high 90s. Parent satisfaction (93%) edges out the district average. The one real friction point is teacher-principal trust at 74% and teacher collegial trust at 69%, which suggests staff cohesion could be stronger. Attendance is a concern: 86.3% is below the district's 90%, and nearly 40% of students are chronically absent — with Asian (56.5%) and Black (51.6%) students missing school at especially high rates.
Community
Two-thirds of students are Black, with Hispanic (18%), Asian (9%), and a notably high 4% Native American population rounding out the body. The school draws from a working- and middle-class pocket of southeast Queens where median household income is about $83,500 and homeownership is strong at 63%, though the student body's economic need index of 68.7 reflects that many families here are stretching. The mix is more racially varied than the neighborhood itself might suggest, and the small enrollment means most families know each other.
Neighborhood
Baisley Park is a residential southeast Queens neighborhood anchored by homeowners — about 63% own their homes, with a median value near $550,000. Median household income sits in the mid-$80,000s and the poverty rate is 11%, lower than many parts of the borough. Only about 18% of households have children under 18, so this is more a neighborhood of established adults and empty-nesters than a young-family hub, though the school still draws a diverse student body from the surrounding blocks.
The school is beyond a 20-minute walk of any subway station, so most families will drive, get dropped off, or take a bus to get here.
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) · 72 families responded (19% rate)
Racial & Ethnic Diversity
NYC DOE InfoHub · 2022-23
Discipline
NYSED Student & Educator Database (2023-24)
Economic Need & Special Populations
How to get in, step by step
Pre-K
P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon 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
P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon has an attendance zone. At elementary level, in-zone students get a guaranteed seat. Every family still applies on MySchools: the application confirms the zoned seat, and ranking other schools doesn't cost you it.
Kindergarten application
- Opens
- Wed, Dec 9
- Closes
- Fri, Jan 22
- Offers
- Tue, Mar 30
The DOE’s published dates.
- 1Check that your address is inside the zone — zones change, so confirm it before you sign a lease.
- 2Apply during the kindergarten application, even with a zoned seat.
- 3Rank this school along with any others you'd take, in true preference order.
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. 045 Clarence Witherspoon a good school?
- On Motley, P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon earns an overall rating of 24/100 — 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 below the District 27 average.
- What grades does P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon serve?
- P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon serves grades Pre-K to 5.
- How do students get into P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon?
- P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon admits by zone — children who live in its attendance zone get a guaranteed seat.
- Is P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon public, charter, or private?
- P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon is a public school in NYC Community School District 27.
- What neighborhood is P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon in?
- P.S. 045 Clarence Witherspoon is in Baisley Park, Queens.