Original Research by School Decision on Success Academy Charter School - Bergen Beach
Success Academy Charter School - Bergen Beach is a tuition-free public charter network serving kindergarten through eighth grade in Brooklyn. The school operates as a district-level entity within Kings County, meaning it functions as its own educational system rather than as a single school within a larger district.
The student body is predominantly Black, with meaningful smaller shares of Hispanic, Asian, White, and multiracial students. The overall enrollment spans about a thousand students across the grade band, with enrollment fairly distributed from kindergarten through the middle grades, though grades four through six carry slightly heavier representation. Data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility and students with disabilities or learning English was not available, so a parent should ask the school directly about supports and services if that context matters to their family.
Academically, state proficiency data for this school was not reported in available sources, so a parent cannot see how students perform on New York's standardized assessments relative to other schools. A parent interested in academic outcomes should request this information from the school itself or search for recent school performance reports from the state or the charter network.
One substantive change is the school's structural expansion. The network began as a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school at the original East 68th Street location in Bergen Beach, but has now grown into a full K-8 program. Students in grades five through eight now attend a separate middle school campus in East Flatbush on Newkirk Avenue rather than remaining at the elementary site. For families enrolling a young child, this means continuity through eighth grade within the network without needing to reapply, but it also means the middle-grade years involve a transition to a different campus and neighborhood, a logistical reality worth considering in family planning.
Enrollment is also opening wider. The school is now accepting applications for kindergarten through sixth grade for the upcoming school year, meaning families with older elementary students can enter through the standard charter lottery rather than only at the kindergarten entry point. All admission is by lottery, and the school remains tuition-free.
On attendance, the school's chronic absenteeism rate places it in the top quartile among Kings County's districts, meaning students are attending more consistently than the majority of comparable school systems in the county. Per-pupil spending is in the lower range compared to other county districts, reflecting the funding structure typical of many charter schools, which often operate with leaner budgets than traditional public school districts.
A parent considering this school should understand it as a growing charter network offering free K-8 enrollment with a Black-majority, economically diverse student body and a structure that involves a campus transition in the middle grades. Academic performance data should be requested directly from the school to inform any enrollment decision.
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