The top reported proficiency rate is 81% in Social studies. The lowest is 23% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ps 116 Elizabeth L Farrell
PS 116 Elizabeth L. Farrell sits on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn, serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade within NYC Geographic District 32. The school is a regular public elementary school, not a charter, and draws its students almost entirely from the surrounding neighborhood.
The student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic, with nearly all enrolled students identifying that way. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school solidly in high-poverty territory. IEP rates and English learner counts were not available in the data, which is worth asking the school about directly, since both affect how classrooms are structured and what supports are in place.
On the New York State Testing Program, proficiency rates across grades three through five are low in both math and ELA. Math results range from roughly a quarter of students reaching proficiency in the lower and upper tested grades to about half in the middle tested grade, which is the stronger result across the board. ELA scores are more uniformly thin, with well under a third of students scoring at or above proficiency across all three tested grades, and the fifth grade sitting at the lower end of that range. Science results for fifth grade fall in a similar range. These figures place the school in the bottom quartile among the districts in Kings County for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. A parent weighing academics here should be clear-eyed about that gap and ask the school what instructional supports or targeted interventions are in place for students who are below grade level. Social studies data available in the system is from well over a decade ago and carries no current relevance to what parents would see today.
Trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say from this data whether results have been improving, declining, or holding steady. That context matters, and it is a reasonable question to bring to the school or the district.
On the curriculum front, District 32 was among the first wave of districts brought into the NYC Reads literacy overhaul, publicly reported as a citywide mandate that launched in the 2023-24 school year. Elementary schools in the district were assigned the "Into Reading" program from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a basal-style curriculum built around structured literacy and the science of reading. Publicly reported coverage noted that this program drew criticism from some Brooklyn parents and teachers who felt it leaned thin on critical thinking and lacked cultural responsiveness. Whether that resonates depends on what a family prioritizes in early reading instruction, but it is a concrete, known variable families can investigate.
The neighborhood context is Bushwick and the broader borough. Brooklyn is densely walkable, transit-connected, and actively growing, with new residential construction accelerating particularly in nearby corridors. Housing costs in the zip code are well above both the state and national benchmarks, and rents have been climbing. For families already in the neighborhood, that context shapes whether staying near the school is financially viable long term.
Graduation rate is not applicable here; the school serves only pre-K through fifth grade. Chronic absenteeism data was not in the available data, which is itself a gap worth noting, since absenteeism at this grade level is one of the cleaner predictors of later outcomes and is something a visiting parent might ask to see from the school's own records.
What this school is: a small neighborhood elementary, deeply rooted in a predominantly Hispanic, lower-income community, with below-average proficiency outcomes relative to other Kings County districts, operating under a recently standardized literacy curriculum that has been publicly debated. Families who live in the zone and are evaluating PS 116 should visit, ask about intervention programs, and look into whether the school has any supplemental reading or math support beyond the mandated curriculum.
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