The Urban Assembly Unison School

Proficiency is well below district averages — 40% ELA versus 53% district-wide, and just 20% math versus 46%. But the trend line is genuinely striking: ELA has climbed from a 2017 low of 14% to 40% in 2025, and math has risen from 6% to roughly 20%. Seventh-graders post the strongest results (49% ELA, 25% math), outpacing both 6th and 8th graders, which is unusual. The overall school quality score of 1.2 out of 4 places it well below the district average of roughly 2.0, but momentum matters here.

This is where the picture gets complicated. Parents give the school 93% satisfaction and 99% trust in teachers — both strong signals of a community that feels heard. Teachers report high collegial trust (95%) and solid instruction quality (89%, just above the district average). But 50% of students are chronically absent, and the suspension rate of 4% is nearly triple the district average of 1.4%, though it has come down from a 2022-23 peak of nine suspensions. Day-to-day, the school feels warm and trusting among adults — the chronic absence is the larger unresolved issue pulling at academic results.

The student body is 70% Black and 17% Hispanic, with an economic need index of 82 — among the higher-need middle schools in the district. That population looks very different from the surrounding Clinton Hill census tract, where median household income tops $118,000 and only about 14% of households include children under 18. Thirty-five percent of students have IEPs, well above the typical middle school share, and the school draws families from well beyond the immediate neighborhood.

Clinton Hill is one of Brooklyn's more affluent brownstone neighborhoods, with a median home value north of $1.1 million and roughly 71% of adults holding a bachelor's degree. Most of the neighbors on the blocks immediately around the school are college-educated adults without children at home — fewer than 14% of households here include kids under 18. The school therefore draws from a much wider catchment than the census tract suggests. Three subway options put the school within a 6- to 7-minute walk.

The G train at Classon Avenue is about a 7-minute walk, and the C line stops at both Franklin Avenue and Clinton-Washington Avenues within about 6 minutes on foot.