Queens Explorers Elementary School

Queens Explorers runs well ahead of District 27 averages on both ELA (79.3% vs. 56.1%) and math (76.6% vs. 57.3%), earning an overall quality score of 3.12 out of 4 versus the district's 2.27. The trajectory is the story here — scores dipped during the 2022 disruption (ELA 48.6%, math 47.2%) and have climbed sharply since, with 2025 marking the school's strongest year on record. Third-graders are the standout, hitting 86% ELA proficiency and 93% math. Fourth grade dips a bit (69.6% ELA, 60.9% math) before fifth grade rebounds, suggesting some year-to-year variation that's still well above district norms.

The climate here is the headline, frankly. Almost every survey metric sits in the 92–100% range: parent-teacher trust at 97%, teacher instruction quality at 99%, teacher-reported safety at 98%, and strong family-school relationships at a perfect 100%. The discipline data backs this up — just one suspension across the 2023–24 school year, and the three-year trend (1, 0, 1) shows this is the norm, not a fluke. Attendance is solid at 92.8%, beating the district average by nearly three points. The one notable flag is chronic absenteeism at 74.3%, which is high even by city standards and worth asking the school about during a visit — it's the main tension in an otherwise remarkably consistent picture.

With 431 students from PK through 5th grade, the school is majority Hispanic (50%) and Asian (32%), with smaller shares of White, Black, multiracial, and Native American students. The diversity index of 70% reflects a genuinely mixed population rather than a two-group split. About 14% of students have IEPs and the economic need index of 67.7% signals a largely working-class and immigrant-family population, which tracks closely with the Ozone Park (North) neighborhood around it. Class size at 23.4 matches the district average, so families shouldn't expect especially small rooms here.

Ozone Park (North) is a family-dense, mostly working-class to middle-income pocket of Queens where about 23% of households have kids and nearly half of residents own their homes. Median household income is $85,583 with a 13.3% poverty rate, and roughly a quarter of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher — solidly middle-class without being affluent. The median home value sits around $735,000, reflecting both the housing stock and proximity to Manhattan via the A train. It's a neighborhood where school choice decisions are made practically, not aspirationally.

The school is well-served by the A train — 88 St (A) is about a 5-minute walk, Rockaway Blvd (A) about 8 minutes, and 80 St (A) about 11 minutes — so families from across southern Queens and into Brooklyn can reach it on a single line