The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in Science. The lowest is 35% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Grew Elementary School
Grew Elementary School serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in Hyde Park, Boston’s southernmost neighborhood. The school is a regular public school within the Boston Public Schools system, and it is not a charter or magnet school. The student body is racially diverse, with no single demographic group forming an outright majority. Hispanic and Black students each make up a substantial share of the enrollment, while white students and students identifying as two or more races together account for a smaller but still meaningful portion. The school is small in total enrollment for a PK-6 building, and its grade-level cohorts range from modest to small across the elementary and early middle school years. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not available, and information on students with disabilities and English learners was also not reported in the data provided.
Academically, Grew Elementary’s performance on the NextGen MCAS state assessments presents a mixed picture that a parent will want to examine closely. In the most recent testing year, English language arts proficiency was above the low point the school has seen in recent years and roughly in line with where it stood several years earlier. Math proficiency in the same year was higher than in recent cycles, representing a meaningful improvement from recent lows. Science proficiency, which is tested at the grade levels where the state administers the exam, was visibly stronger than both ELA and math, with a majority of tested students reaching the proficiency threshold. Across all tested subjects and grades combined, the school’s overall proficiency index placed it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Suffolk County, a comparison that is based on county membership rather than school-level boundaries. That top-quartile position is worth attention because it sets Grew apart from many other schools in the county, though the index itself is a composite that blurs the variation between stronger science results and weaker math performance. Looking at a longer arc, math and ELA proficiency have both moved around substantially from year to year. In the years before the pandemic, math proficiency was at a similar level to the most recent result, dipped lower during and just after the pandemic, and has since recovered. ELA proficiency has been more variable, with the most recent result representing a rebound from a recent low but still within the range the school has historically occupied. The pattern does not show a clear upward or downward trend but rather fluctuation, which a parent may want to discuss with the school to understand what drives the year-to-year shifts.
The neighborhood of Hyde Park shapes the context families would experience day to day. It is a predominantly residential neighborhood with commercial nodes at Cleary and Logan Squares, where small shops and restaurants line the main avenues. The built environment is a traditional New England main-street layout that gives way to quieter streets of single-family homes, and the neighborhood has its own commuter rail stations providing connections to downtown Boston. Stony Brook Reservation and the Neponset River offer walking trails and open space. Hyde Park has a relatively high rate of homeownership for a Boston neighborhood and is considered one of the city’s more affordable areas, though housing values have increased over time and the typical mortgage payment is high relative to median incomes. Rents are also substantial, and the cost of both buying and renting in the zip code covering the school is above national benchmarks.
The school itself is a neighborhood elementary school, so the peer environment is shaped by the children who live in the surrounding area. There were no data available on disciplinary incidents, chronic absenteeism, or staffing ratios, so a parent would need to seek that information directly from the school or the district to build a fuller picture of the day-to-day school climate. Because Grew does not serve grades beyond sixth, there is no graduation rate to report, and the school has no advanced course offerings that would apply at this grade band. The Boston Public Schools district brief showed no recent district-level changes that would directly affect the school’s operations, though families moving into the area may want to follow the city’s planning initiatives in the neighborhood, which aim to address corridor revitalization and maintain affordability.
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