Original Research by School Decision on New American Academy Charter School (the)
New American Academy Charter School is a small, single-campus tuition-free public charter serving kindergarten through fifth grade in Brooklyn. The school's enrollment is modest, spread across six grade levels, and the student body is predominantly Black, with a smaller Hispanic population and very few students of other backgrounds.
The school received its third charter renewal from New York's Board of Regents in May 2023, a critical milestone for a charter school. That renewal secured the school's continued operation through a new charter term, making it a stable choice for families planning enrollment over multiple years. During the state's renewal site visit leading up to that approval, evaluators noted both the school's commitment to recovery following pandemic disruption and concrete academic progress.
In response to COVID-era learning loss, the school implemented a pedagogical reset centered on two lasting changes. It adopted Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a structured STEM curriculum that has become a defining feature of the school's academics. Alongside that, it introduced a multi-year looping model in which teachers remain with the same cohort of students across consecutive grade levels rather than students changing classrooms each year. The school assigned a director of teaching and learning to support this model through classroom observation, co-teaching, and feedback. These structural choices represent a deliberate instructional philosophy that families should understand as part of what the school offers.
The most concrete measure of the school's trajectory is its state test performance over the recent charter term. In both English language arts and math, the school moved from running below its district average to running above it by the 2023-2024 school year. On the most recent state assessment, the school's proficiency rates exceeded New York State averages in ELA, math, and science. That shift from below-average to above-average performance is a meaningful academic gain that occurred alongside the curriculum and looping changes.
Among the hundred-plus districts in Kings County, the school's chronic absenteeism rate sits above the midpoint, meaning attendance is better than average for the county. Per-pupil spending is in the middle range of county districts, in the upper half of that range.
State assessment data for the school's full grade band was not available in the profile data, so a complete academic picture across all tested subjects and grades cannot be drawn from the materials here. Families weighing the school may want to request detailed test results and curriculum documents directly from the school to understand academic scope and progression more fully. The school's website was not provided, so prospective families should seek out direct contact information for enrollment questions and visits.
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