At a Glance
A East Harlem middle school where families are unusually invested and proficiency is climbing year over year.
Best suited for
Families who live in East Harlem, want their middle schooler in a neighborhood school with strong family engagement and rising academic expectations, and who value a wide menu of enrichment (coding, Saturday Academy, honors classes) over top-in-district test scores.
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
- Parent-teacher and parent-principal trust both top 93%, an unusually strong signal of family-school partnership for a high-needs middle school.
- Math proficiency has more than doubled since 2022 — one of the steeper improvement curves in the district.
- A perfect 100/100 program richness score, uncommon for a school in this economic bracket, includes coding, computer science, Saturday Academy, and service learning.
- Accelerated/Honors coursework and Algebra I available for middle schoolers, despite an unscreened admissions process.
- Suspensions cut by more than two-thirds year over year, from 14 to 4.
Things to consider
- Chronic absenteeism at 45.9% means nearly half of students miss 18+ days a year — this is the school's biggest unresolved issue and will show up in any family's daily life.
- Only 78% of teachers describe the school as safe, noticeably below the district average of 87% — worth asking the school directly how this manifests in hallways and classrooms.
- Proficiency gaps by grade are wide: sixth graders are at or above district averages, while eighth graders trail substantially, a pattern that often reflects the cumulative effect of chronic absence.
- The school is a 12-15 minute walk from any subway, so door-to-door commute is a real factor for non-driving families.
- 45% of students have IEPs, which means strong special education staffing but also classroom complexity worth inquiring about.
Based on 2024-25 data
School SummaryDistrict 4
Among its District 4 peers, P.S. 206 sits below the typical elementary-middle mix in overall rating (1.57 vs. a 1.90 district average), though it outperforms several of its named peers including Central Park East I and DREAM East Harlem on the progress metric. The rising test scores suggest it may be closing ground on schools like P.S. 171 Patrick Henry faster than the snapshot implies.
Academics
Both ELA (40.6%) and math (37.9%) proficiency are below the District 4 averages of about 50% and 45%, but the trend line is the more important story here. Math has rebounded sharply from 15.9% in 2022, and ELA has climbed from 26.7% in 2016 to its highest point yet in 2025. Science proficiency at 26.3% lags behind, and grade-level results are uneven — sixth graders outperform their peers across the district while eighth graders lag, suggesting the gains are still working their way up through the building.
Culture
Families are remarkably engaged: parent satisfaction is 94% (above the district's 91%) and parent-teacher trust hits 96%, with 269 families responding to the survey. Teachers also rate instruction quality at 90%, above average. The picture is less rosy on attendance — chronic absenteeism is 45.9%, well above typical levels — and only 78% of teachers describe the school as safe, below the district's 87%. Discipline, though, has clearly improved: suspensions dropped from 14 in 2022-23 to just 4 last year, and the 1% suspension rate is low overall.
Community
The student body is 73% Hispanic and 22% Black, with very high economic need (92.6 on the ENI, where 100 means the highest need) and 45% of students with IEPs — substantially above the citywide average. East Harlem's surrounding census shows what teachers already know: median household income around $36,700, a third of families below the poverty line, and only 8% homeownership. This is a school serving exactly the neighborhood it sits in, with both the strengths and pressures that come with it.
Neighborhood
East Harlem is a working-class, majority-Latino neighborhood where roughly a third of families live below the poverty line and most renters outnumber homeowners by a wide margin. Despite that, about 11% of households include children, and a solid share of adults hold a bachelor's degree. The community is dense, multigenerational, and tightly woven around its schools.
The school is beyond a quick walk from the subway — the 116 St (6) stop is about 12 minutes on foot, the 125 St (4 5 6) about 13 minutes, and the 110 St (6) about 15 minutes, so most families bus or drive.
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
Science Proficiency
Students scoring proficient or above on the NY State Science 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) · 269 families responded (74% rate)
Programs & Activities
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
Middle school (6th grade)
Middle school is one citywide application, made in 5th grade. P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa admits through one program, and each one has its own admissions method:
- Jose Celso Barbosa Academy for Social Justice (P.S./M.S. 206)Unscreened67 seats
Middle school application
- Opened
- Wed, Oct 14
- Closes
- Fri, Dec 11
- Offers
- Wed, Apr 7
The DOE’s published dates.
- 1Apply on MySchools during the middle school application, in 5th grade.
- 2Unscreened programs fill by random lottery among the families who rank them.
- 3Rank programs in true preference order — the match places your child in the highest-ranked one that offers a seat.
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. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa a good school?
- On Motley, P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa earns an overall rating of 39/100 — 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 4 average.
- What grades does P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa serve?
- P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa serves grades 3 to 8.
- How do students get into P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa?
- P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa admits by application through a random lottery, with no academic screen.
- Is P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa public, charter, or private?
- P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa is a public school in NYC Community School District 4.
- What neighborhood is P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa in?
- P.S. 206 Jose Celso Barbosa is in East Harlem (North), Manhattan.