Uncommon Crown Heights Charter School NYC

Both ELA (62.4%) and math (62.5%) proficiency run well above district averages of roughly 52% and 51%. The trajectory since 2016 is the real headline — ELA has climbed from 37.7% to 62.4%, a gain of nearly 25 points in nine years — while math has hovered in the 53–65% range with a peak of 75.1% in 2023. Grade-by-grade, the picture fractures sharply: Grade 3 math hits 97.5% proficiency and Grade 6 ELA 74.1%, but Grade 8 math drops to 26.9% and Grade 7 ELA to 45.1%. The school is clearly getting results in the early elementary years; sustaining that into adolescence is the unfinished work.

Day-to-day, parents feel heard here — parent-principal trust is 99% and parent-teacher trust is 98%, both well above district norms. Teacher-reported instruction quality (93%) and teacher-principal trust (91%) are also strong. But chronic absenteeism is at 54.7%, meaning more than half of students miss enough school to be flagged — high even by District 23 standards. Attendance rate (88.6%) sits right at the district average, so the typical student does show up, but a large group is meaningfully disengaged. The 9% family survey response rate (40 families out of roughly 419 enrolled) is worth keeping in mind when weighing those sky-high satisfaction numbers.

The student body is 85% Black and 11% Hispanic, with an economic need index of 75.2 — meaning roughly three out of four students are considered economically disadvantaged. The surrounding neighborhood, Ocean Hill, has a median household income of about $57,870 and a poverty rate above one in four households. Most neighbors rent (homeownership under 21%) and only about 11% of households include children, so the families actually sending kids to this school are a relatively small slice of the area. The school's demographics track its neighborhood closely.

Ocean Hill is a working-class pocket of Brooklyn where most households rent and median household income sits near $58,000. About a quarter of adult residents hold a bachelor's degree, and roughly one in four neighbors lives below the poverty line. Families who do live here tend to be renters rather than owners, in a neighborhood that skews slightly older than you might expect — only about 11.5% of households include children. Three subway stops serve the school directly, which makes car-free drop-offs realistic for most families.

Rockaway Av on the C is the closest, about a 4-minute walk, with Ralph Av (C) about 7 minutes and Chauncey St (J Z) about 9 minutes on foot.