At a Glance
A small Canarsie zoned school where ELA scores quadrupled in a decade and parent trust hit 100%.
Best suited for
Families zoned for the area who want a small, relationship-driven elementary where academics have proven they can compete with any school in the borough — and who are ready to partner on getting kids to school every day.
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
- An academic turnaround that's hard to overstate — ELA proficiency rose from 16.8% to 82.9% in nine years.
- Three consecutive years with zero suspensions, against a district average of 1.55%.
- Perfect parent satisfaction across every dimension measured, including 100% trust in the principal.
- A genuinely small school of 155 students, where adult-to-student relationships can run deep.
- Grade 4 performance is exceptional — 92% ELA, 84.6% math — pulling the schoolwide numbers up.
Things to consider
- Chronic absenteeism at 52% is high — many students miss large amounts of school, and parents should ask how the school is tackling it.
- Fifth-grade math proficiency drops to 50% while fourth grade hits 84.6%, an unevenness between grades worth probing.
- ELA scores jumped 37 points from 2024 to 2025; ask about cohort composition and what's driving the volatility.
- Economic need index of 91.8% means the school is operating with very high-need families and limited PTA resources ($19 per student).
- Small enrollment of 155 means fewer classmates per grade and a thinner menu of extracurriculars.
Based on 2024-25 data
School SummaryDistrict 19
District 19's average overall score is 1.94 out of 4; Fresh Creek sits at 3.01 — meaningfully above its peer group, including P.S. 190 Sheffield and P.S. 149 Danny Kaye. Among the strongest zoned elementary options in the district.
Academics
Test scores at Fresh Creek tell one of the more striking turnaround stories in District 19. ELA proficiency climbed from 16.8% in 2016 to 82.9% in 2025, while math rose from 13.4% to 67.5% — both well above district averages of 48.9% and 48.2%. The climb wasn't perfectly smooth: ELA dipped to 45.5% in 2024 before jumping 37 points the following year, suggesting cohort effects matter here. Fourth grade is the engine (92% ELA, 84.6% math), while fifth-grade math lags at 50% — an unevenness worth asking about.
Culture
The survey numbers here are almost suspiciously clean: 100% parent satisfaction, 100% parent-teacher trust, 100% parent-principal trust, and 93% of teachers rate instruction quality highly. Three straight years with zero suspensions — against a district average of 1.55% — suggests a school that's figured out how to handle behavior without pushing kids out. The asterisk is chronic absenteeism at 52%, even though average daily attendance is 88.9%; many students are missing large chunks of school, which makes the test scores all the more remarkable.
Community
Fresh Creek serves a student body that is 67% Black and 30% Hispanic, with small shares of Asian, White, and Native American students — a moderate diversity index of 43% that reflects Canarsie's demographic makeup. The economic need index of 91.8% is among the highest you'll see, meaning nearly every student qualifies as economically disadvantaged, and 19% of students have IEPs. With only 155 students total, grade-level cohorts are small, so families should expect a tight-knit community but limited peer pools.
Neighborhood
Canarsie is a working- and middle-class pocket of eastern Brooklyn where about half of households own their homes and median household income sits around $82,000. Roughly 12.8% of residents live below the poverty line, and 14.6% of households have children under 18 — fewer families with kids than in many Brooklyn neighborhoods, but the ones here tend to be invested. The L line serves the area, with three stations within reasonable walking distance of the school.
East 105 St (L) is about an 8-minute walk, New Lots Av (L) is roughly 10 minutes, and Canarsie-Rockaway Pkwy (L) is about 13 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) · 162 families responded (89% rate)
Racial & Ethnic Diversity
NYC DOE InfoHub · 2022-23
PTA Fundraising
Source: DOE Local Law 171 disclosure
Discipline
NYSED Student & Educator Database (2023-24)
Economic Need & Special Populations
How to get in, step by step
Pre-K
The Fresh Creek School 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
The Fresh Creek School 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 The Fresh Creek School a good school?
- On Motley, The Fresh Creek School earns an overall rating of 75/100 — 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 above the District 19 average.
- What grades does The Fresh Creek School serve?
- The Fresh Creek School serves grades Pre-K to 5.
- How do students get into The Fresh Creek School?
- The Fresh Creek School admits by zone — children who live in its attendance zone get a guaranteed seat.
- Is The Fresh Creek School public, charter, or private?
- The Fresh Creek School is a public school in NYC Community School District 19.
- What neighborhood is The Fresh Creek School in?
- The Fresh Creek School is in Canarsie, Brooklyn.