The School of Science and Applied Learning

ELA proficiency of 33.9% trails the District 12 average of roughly 44.6% by about 11 points, and 26% math proficiency trails by more than 17. The trend line tells a more encouraging story: scores climbed from 12.5% ELA in 2016 to a 2019 peak of 27.4%, dipped during the pandemic, and the 2025 jump to 33.9% — nearly double last year's 15.1% — is genuinely striking. Math has been bumpier, sliding slightly from 27.5% in 2024 to 26% this year. Grade-by-grade, fourth graders (43.4% ELA, 40.4% math) outperform third graders (19.6% ELA, 17.5% math) by wide margins, hinting that something shifts as students stay longer.

The 2025 NYC school survey reveals two very different schools at the same address. Parents give the school a 93% satisfaction rating, 97% trust teachers, and 98% trust the principal — figures that run above the district average. But only 79% of teachers rate instruction quality positively (vs. 88% district-wide), 68% feel safe at work (vs. about 85% district-wide), and 81% trust the principal. The chronic absenteeism rate of 52.4% — meaning more than half the students missed 10% or more of the school year — is the central climate concern, hitting Black students hardest at 61.7%. Zero suspensions across the past three school years is a genuine bright spot.

With 454 students and an overwhelmingly Hispanic (61%) and Black (36%) population, this is one of the more demographically concentrated schools in the borough — the diversity index sits at just 46%, with no White, Asian, or multiracial students enrolled. The economic need index of 93.3% tracks tightly with Tremont's neighborhood profile, where more than a third of households live below the poverty line. Twenty-eight percent of students have IEPs — well above city norms — and the school carries an SE designation, meaning it serves students with significant disabilities alongside general-education peers. This is a school serving, quite directly, the families of its surrounding blocks.

Tremont is a working-class, predominantly renter neighborhood of the central Bronx, where only 7.5% of households own their homes and the median home value sits at $442,724. Median household income of $32,208 is well below the citywide figure, and 36.2% of neighbors live below the poverty line. Just 13.1% of households include children, and only 15% of adults hold a bachelor's degree — signs of a neighborhood shaped by extended families and adult-only households more than by young nuclear families. Most residents are navigating tight economic margins.

The school is about an 11-minute walk from the West Farms Square–East Tremont Avenue station on the 2 and 5 lines; the 174th Street stop (2/5) is roughly 13 minutes away, and the East 180th Street stop (2/5) about 16 minutes on foot.