Ps 8 Luis Belliard, New York NY - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Ps 8 Luis Belliard

PS 8 Luis Belliard is a small early-childhood through fifth-grade school in upper Manhattan, serving just under four hundred students in an overwhelmingly Hispanic neighborhood with high rates of economic need. The school sits embedded in a dense, mixed-use urban setting on West 167th Street, in a part of the city characterized by block-by-block integration of residential and commercial life and a heavily transit-dependent population.

The enrollment is almost entirely Hispanic, with just under a hundred percent of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on special education and English learner enrollment was not available, so a parent should ask the school directly about services in those areas. The school serves all students together in a single cohort; it does not have a selective admissions process or specialized program track.

State test results from the most recent year show proficiency rates that run well below the midpoint among the county's school districts. In third-grade math, roughly two in five students reached proficiency; in fourth-grade math, that fell to roughly one in five. Fifth-grade math was similar to third. In English language arts, results were comparable: third grade around one in three students, fourth grade around one in five, fifth grade around two in five. Science proficiency in fifth grade sat around one in four. These numbers place the school in the bottom quartile when compared against the sixty-two districts in New York County, based on an overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades.

A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what academic support is in place for students who are not yet proficient, what literacy instruction looks like given the city's recent curriculum mandate requiring phonics-based reading programs, and how the school works with families on at-home learning. The school's small size, all-grades-together structure, and position in a neighborhood with significant economic stress all shape what families should expect.

The wider district, NYC Geographic District 6, has been contracting in enrollment over recent years as fewer resident families choose district schools and as charter enrollment grows. This affects school stability and building arrangements across the district. The district recently implemented NYC Reads, a citywide shift to three approved phonics-based curricula designed to replace balanced-literacy approaches; every elementary school in the district now uses one of these programs with daily explicit phonics instruction, a lasting change to how early reading is taught.

The neighborhood itself is densely built, highly walkable, and served by subway access. Housing values in the zip code are modest relative to the broader city. The local economy is anchored by jobs in service, retail, building maintenance, and social services, with major tech and finance employment concentrated elsewhere in Manhattan.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 343%

School 43% · District 53% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 419%

School 19% · District 53% · ▼ 34 pts below district

▼ 39 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Grade 542%

School 42% · District 53% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 47% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 419%

School 19% · District 48% · ▼ 28 pts below district

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 44 pts below county median

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 54% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Science

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 41% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 566%

School 66% · district not reported

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

This schoolNEW YORK CITY GEOGRAPHIC DISTRICT # 6, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income33%Higher-income67%34 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income38%Higher-income67%29 pp gap