Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women

This is a school on a clear upward trajectory, even if it hasn't caught up yet. ELA proficiency climbed from 23.4% in 2016 to 46% in 2025 — nearly doubling — while math rose from 12% to 26.5% over the same stretch, more than doubling. Still, both numbers sit below the district average (ELA 53%, math 46%), and math proficiency dipped in 2025 after peaking at 34% in 2024. The grade-level breakdown is uneven: 6th and 7th graders post solid math results (37% and 41%), but 8th-grade math drops to 7.3% — a serious flag worth asking about. The school's overall quality score of 1.45 out of 4 trails the district average of 1.98.

The day-to-day feel here leans warm and connected, not punitive. There were zero suspensions last year, parent satisfaction is 95% (well above the district 91%), and parent-teacher trust hits 97%. Teachers rate instruction quality at 92%, also above the district average, and 92% say they trust each other professionally. The attendance rate is 91.2%, beating the district's 89.2%. The honest tension: chronic absenteeism stands at 72.9% — meaning roughly 7 in 10 students missed enough days to be flagged — even as average daily attendance looks healthy. That gap suggests a core group of students is showing up consistently while others are struggling to get there, with Black students (77.6%) over-represented in the chronic absenteeism figures.

The student body is 56% Black, 18% Hispanic, 12% White, 10% Asian, and 2% Native American, with an 82% economic need index and 18% of students with IEPs. As an all-girls school serving grades 6–12, the population looks very different from the surrounding Downtown Brooklyn-DUMBO-Boerum Hill census tract, which skews toward higher-income, college-educated households ($150K median income, 73% with a bachelor's degree). That mismatch isn't unusual for screened city schools, but it's worth knowing: most students are likely coming in from outside the immediate neighborhood.

Downtown Brooklyn-DUMBO-Boerum Hill is a fast-changing, high-income pocket of Brooklyn where the median household income tops $150,000 and nearly three-quarters of adults hold a bachelor's degree. Just 15% of households here have children, and only about a quarter of homes are owner-occupied — this is mostly a renter's neighborhood of professionals, with a 15.5% poverty rate that reflects the income spread in the area.

Three subway stations sit within a few minutes' walk: Borough Hall on the 2 and 3 lines (about 3 minutes), Borough Hall on the 4 and 5 lines (about 4 minutes), and Jay St-MetroTech on the A, C, and F lines (about 4 minutes). Hard to find a more transit-friendly address in Brooklyn.