At a Glance
A tiny Crown Heights elementary where families trust the school deeply and scores have climbed sharply
Best suited for
Families zoned for the area who want a small, tight-knit school with strong family-school relationships and are comfortable navigating the attendance conversation themselves.
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
- ELA proficiency more than doubled between 2022 and 2025, a dramatic three-year climb.
- Parent-teacher trust at 97% and parent satisfaction at 92% both outpace district averages.
- Zero suspensions in each of the last three reporting years — an unusually calm disciplinary environment.
- With 175 students and an average class size of 22, this is an unusually small zoned elementary.
- Teacher-reported safety and instruction quality both scored a perfect 100% in the 2025 survey.
Things to consider
- Chronic absenteeism at nearly 55% is high and worth asking the school directly about — half of enrolled students miss enough days to be flagged.
- Math proficiency at 48% trails the district average by roughly 9 points, even as ELA surges ahead.
- Female chronic absenteeism (61%) is notably higher than male (49%) — a gender gap in attendance that's unusual to see so sharply.
- The student body is racially homogeneous, which matters for families looking for a more mixed peer environment.
- Only 12 teachers responded to the climate survey, so the perfect 100% scores should be read as directional rather than statistically robust.
Based on 2024-25 data
School SummaryDistrict 17
Within a district that includes standout charters like Success Academy Prospect Heights and Crown Heights, this small zoned school sits in the middle of the pack on the overall 2.24/4 score — not a flagship, but clearly pulling ahead of where it was a few years ago.
Academics
ELA proficiency at 63.6% is now slightly above the district average of 60.5%, which is a remarkable turnaround from 25.7% just three years earlier and from the high 30s where the school sat for most of the last decade. Math proficiency at 48.2% trails the district average of 57.3% and remains the weaker subject, though the trajectory is upward (44.6% in 2024). The overall 2.24/4 score sits a touch below the district's 2.36, but the recent momentum is the story here.
Culture
The day-to-day feel reads warm and trusting: 100% of teachers say there are strong relationships, 100% rate their instruction quality positively, and 100% feel safe — every one of those numbers tops the district average. There have been zero suspensions in each of the last three years, which is genuinely rare. The asterisk is attendance: 88.7% is below the district's 91%, and chronic absenteeism runs at 54.8%, driven heavily by the school's Black student population. Families report being very happy despite the attendance gap, suggesting the issue is structural rather than cultural.
Community
The student body is 86% Black, with another 9% Hispanic and just 3% Asian — a racial diversity index of 30% reflects a fairly homogeneous community. With an economic need index of 79.5 (high) and 21% of students with IEPs, this is a school serving a predominantly low-income Black population that mirrors the surrounding Crown Heights census profile. About a fifth of neighbors live below the poverty line.
Neighborhood
Southern Crown Heights has a median household income around $70,300 and a 36% college-educated rate — middle-income Brooklyn by most measures, with a 20% poverty rate sitting alongside some of the borough's highest home values. Just 14% of households here own their homes, and only 13.9% have children under 18, which helps explain why the area's elementary schools tend to be small. The neighborhood is solidly working- and middle-class Black Brooklyn, with longstanding cultural roots and the kind of block-level familiarity that small zoned schools tend to reflect.
Most families walk or take the bus; the closest subway is Crown Hts-Utica Av on the 3 and 4 lines, about an 8-minute walk, with Kingston Av (3) roughly 11 minutes and Sutter Av-Rutland Rd (3) around 14 minutes on foot.
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) · 86 families responded (59% 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. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture 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. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture 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. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture a good school?
- On Motley, P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture earns an overall rating of 56/100 — 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 17 average.
- What grades does P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture serve?
- P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture serves grades Pre-K to 5.
- How do students get into P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture?
- P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture admits by zone — children who live in its attendance zone get a guaranteed seat.
- Is P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture public, charter, or private?
- P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture is a public school in NYC Community School District 17.
- What neighborhood is P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture in?
- P.S. 221 Toussaint L'Ouverture is in Crown Heights (South), Brooklyn.