P.S. 287 Bailey K. Ashford

This is the school's biggest gap. ELA proficiency is 36.1% against a district average of 53.1%, and math proficiency is just 10.8% — less than a quarter of the district's 45.9%. The overall quality score of 0.94 out of 4 is roughly half the district average of 1.98. The trend line is erratic: scores were stuck in the 9–14% range for ELA and 6–16% for math from 2016 through 2022, spiked dramatically in 2023 (56.8% ELA, 32.6% math), then fell back in 2024 and 2025. That spike-and-crash pattern suggests the 2023 number may have reflected a small cohort of test-takers rather than a sustained turnaround. Grade 4 math proficiency is only 5.9%, which is genuinely low.

The day-to-day feel here is notably warm. Parent satisfaction is 98%, parent-teacher trust is 99%, and parent-principal trust is 99% — all well above district averages and rare for a school with these scores. Teachers rate instruction quality at 92% (above the district's 87.6%) and feel safe at 95%. But teacher-principal trust is 84%, a noticeable gap below the parent trust levels, and teacher survey responses were only 15, so the staff voice is thin. Attendance is a real concern at 86.7% (district: 89.2%), and 41.4% of students are chronically absent — over four in ten kids miss significant school. Female students have notably higher chronic absenteeism (46.2%) than male students (36.2%). Discipline is essentially a non-issue: just one suspension in 2023-24, and zero in the two prior years.

The student body is 75% Black and 21% Hispanic, with a diversity index of 42% — meaning the school itself is less diverse than the citywide average. The surrounding neighborhood skews much wealthier and whiter than the school population, which is common for zoned schools in gentrifying areas. Economic need index is 85.2, meaning a large share of students come from low-income households. The school is tiny — 130 students total — which means every family likely knows every other family, and class size sits at 21.2, right at the district average.

Downtown Brooklyn-DUMBO-Boerum Hill is a high-income area: median household income is $150,272, 73.3% of adults have a bachelor's degree or higher, and the median home value is over $1.4 million. But it is also a neighborhood with relatively few children — just 15.1% of households have kids — and a 15.5% poverty rate, meaning both wealth and need sit side by side. Homeownership is low at 25.9%, reflecting the condo-and-rental character of the area.

The school is reachable by the F at York St (about an 8-minute walk), the R at Jay St-MetroTech (about 10 minutes), and the B, Q, and R at DeKalb Av (about 11 minutes). It's a reasonable commute for families coming from nearby parts of Brooklyn or Lower Manhattan.