Teachers College Community School

ELA proficiency of 62.5% lands well above the district 5 average of 53.9%, and math at 51.5% edges out the district's 50.7% — both real wins for an unscreened school. The story behind those numbers is striking: ELA went from 28.6% in 2017 to 62.5% in 2025, and math climbed from 25% to 51.5% over the same stretch. The school earned a 2.28 out of 4 overall, ahead of the district average of 2.09. One honest caveat: middle-school math is uneven — grade 6 sits at just 19% proficiency and grade 8 at 17.9%, while grade 5 hits 82.4% — suggesting the upper grades are where the work is still to be done.

Day-to-day, this school reads as a place where adults trust each other and families feel heard. Every surveyed teacher agreed there are strong relationships (100%), teacher-reported safety is 98%, and parent-teacher trust sits at 97% — all noticeably higher than the district average of around 88-90%. Parent satisfaction is 94% (district: 91%). Attendance at 89% is essentially average. Two things parents should know about: chronic absenteeism is high at 60.2%, meaning most students miss the federal threshold of 10% or more of school days, and suspensions have crept up from zero in 2021-22 to five in 2023-24, putting the suspension rate at 2% (district: 1.2%).

The student body is 46% Black, 36% Hispanic, 11% White, 4% multiracial, 3% Asian, and 1% Native American, with an economic-need index of 65.8 meaning most students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. This mirrors the surrounding neighborhood, where roughly a quarter of households are below the poverty line and median household income is around $44,556. Twenty percent of students have IEPs, and the school provides ELL support. PTA fundraising came in at about $68 per student last year — a touch below the district's $87 average — so this is a school where parents contribute in volunteer time more than dollars.

Manhattanville-West Harlem is a working-class, rent-heavy neighborhood where most residents are renters (95%), median household income hovers around $44,556, and the poverty rate is 26.5%. About 8.6% of households have children, and roughly a third of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The neighborhood is anchored by Columbia University to the north and stretches south toward 125th Street's commercial corridor.

Most families can reach the school in a short walk: the 125th Street station on the A, C, B, and D lines is about 3 minutes away, the 125th Street 1 train is about 7 minutes, and the 116th Street C and B stop is about 11 minutes on foot.