Original Research by School Decision on Equity Project Charter School (the)
# The Equity Project Charter School
The Equity Project is a charter school district in New York County that now spans kindergarten through eighth grade across three campuses in Washington Heights and Inwood. This is a substantial shift from its origins as a middle school. The school operates an early-childhood campus for kindergarten and first grade, an elementary campus for grades two through four, and a middle school campus for grades five through eight, allowing families to enroll children in kindergarten and keep them through eighth grade without changing schools.
Enrollment sits around a thousand students, distributed fairly evenly across grades. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller populations of Black, Asian, white, and multiracial students. Demographic data on free-and-reduced-price lunch rates and special-education enrollment were not available, so readers cannot see from the provided data how economically diverse the school is or what share of students receive special-education services. The school's admissions process uses a lottery with stated preferences for siblings of current students, students with disabilities, English language learners, and those receiving free or reduced lunch, though the strength of those preferences in practice would merit a direct conversation with the school.
The school's defining feature is its teacher compensation model. It was founded on the principle that excellent teaching requires expert, well-paid educators, and the school pays its teaching staff substantially above the national average, funded almost entirely through public charter dollars. Publicly reported information indicates the school recently raised starting teacher salaries for the first time in roughly a decade, bringing them to a figure well above typical New York City public school starting pay, with the possibility of annual bonuses. This staffing investment is central to the school's identity and strategy.
State testing data was not available in the provided information, so there is no snapshot of how students perform on state assessments. The school serves grades that are tested in New York State, so the absence reflects a data gap rather than an untested grade band.
Among New York County's districts, the school's chronic absenteeism rate sits in the top quartile, meaning it is meaningfully lower than most peers in the county. This suggests strong day-to-day engagement and school culture. Per-pupil spending falls in the middle range on the lower half, below the county median, despite the school's well-known salary model. This reflects the efficiency required when a school's primary expenditure is personnel and operates within charter-funding constraints.
A parent considering enrollment would want to seek out the school's current academic results, understand the specific logistics of its three-campus structure and how students transition between them, and get a clear sense of how the admissions preferences work in practice. The school's track record and teaching-quality mission are publicly known; what matters most to a family is whether the academic outcomes and day-to-day environment align with what they are looking for.
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