Storefront Academy Charter School

Both ELA (75.2%) and math (75.4%) proficiency land roughly 25 percentage points above the District 7 average — a meaningful gap in a district where most schools hover near 50%. The trajectory tells a remarkable recovery story: scores cratered during the pandemic years (ELA dropped to 27.3% in 2022) before climbing steadily to current levels. The strongest results sit in the younger tested grades — Grade 3 hits 90% in math and Grade 4 reaches nearly 95% in ELA — while Grade 5 proficiency dips into the low-to-mid 50s, a pattern worth asking about if you have an older child entering the school.

Parents are clearly bought in: satisfaction sits at 94% and trust in both teachers (92%) and the principal (94%) is strong, with a 48% family survey response rate suggesting families engage actively. Teacher-reported safety at 84% is above the district average, which is reassuring. However, two numbers give pause: chronic absenteeism is 53% — more than half of students miss enough school to qualify — and the overall attendance rate of 87.5% trails the district's 91.1%. Teacher-rated instruction quality at 76% also sits below the district average of 88%, though it was based on only 24 teacher responses, so the sample is thin.

The student body is 68% Hispanic and 26% Black, with a small Native American population (5%) that stands out. An economic need index of 90.9% tells you nearly every family qualifies as low-income, and 19% of students have IEPs. Class size averages about 20, consistent with the district, but the total enrollment of 280 means your child will know — and be known by — most of the building.

Melrose is a working-class South Bronx neighborhood where the median household income sits around $30,000 and over a third of residents live below the poverty line. Only about 16% of households include children, and just 14% of adults hold a bachelor's degree, so the area skews younger and less affluent than the city as a whole. The 2/5 trains at Jackson Avenue are about a three-minute walk, with the 6 line also within reach, so getting here from elsewhere in the Bronx or Manhattan isn't hard.

Jackson Avenue (2 and 5) is about a three-minute walk; the 6 train at East 149th Street is about seven minutes, with another 6 stop at East 143rd Street–St. Mary's Street roughly nine minutes away.