Ps 36 Saint Albans School, Saint Albans NY

Original Research by School Decision on Ps 36 Saint Albans School

PS 36 Saint Albans School serves a small, economically disadvantaged student body in a stable, majority-Black residential neighborhood of southeastern Queens. The school is a regular public elementary serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, with a total enrollment of roughly three hundred students. About four in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in a high-poverty setting. The student population is predominantly Black, with a meaningful share of Hispanic students and smaller numbers of Asian, Native American, and other students. The school's racial composition and economic profile reflect the neighborhood itself, a mid-twentieth-century area of single- and two-family homes with a long-established African-American community strengthened since the 1980s by waves of Caribbean-American residents.

State testing results show mixed proficiency across grades and subjects. In math, proficiency is higher in the lower grades and falls as students move up. Grade 3 math proficiency stands at a modest level, while grade 4 falls somewhat lower, and grade 5 is notably weak. English language arts shows a similar pattern: grade 3 is stronger, grade 4 drops sharply, and grade 5 recovers partially but remains below grade 3. Grade 5 science proficiency is low. The school's overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades falls below the midpoint among Queens County districts, meaning performance here is more limited than at a typical district school in the borough. The declines from fourth to fifth grade across subjects warrant attention; a parent may want to look into whether there are known transitions or staffing changes that affect those grades.

The school operates within New York City Geographic District 29. The broader district environment has undergone steady curricular standardization over the past two years. NYC Reads requires all elementary schools in the district to use one of three phonics-focused reading programs, moving away from the previously common balanced-literacy approach that emphasized guided discovery. This is a permanent shift in how reading is taught. The district's mathematics instruction remains less standardized at the elementary level, though the city-wide NYC Solves mandate is reshaping middle and high schools. The gifted and talented admissions system was also overhauled from test-based entry to teacher nomination, which has broadened access but also shifted the profile of students in accelerated programs.

Geographically, the school sits in a neighborhood without a pronounced downtown; civic life centers on boulevard corridors rather than a single hub. Roy Wilkins Park serves as a recreational and cultural anchor with a public pool, ice rink, and event space. The St. Albans LIRR station on the Montauk Branch provides rail access to Jamaica and onward to Penn Station, with accessibility upgrades completed recently. The neighborhood is described as walkable and relatively affordable for Queens. Housing values in the area have been climbing gradually as developer interest grows, though the community character remains low-rise and residential.

No data on the school's attendance, discipline, chronic absenteeism, staffing, course-specific offerings, or special-education and English-learner enrollment were available to assess those dimensions of school life. The school website was not supplied, so parent-facing information about programs, school culture, and community engagement could not be reviewed. A family considering this school would benefit from visits, conversations with staff about the grade-4-to-grade-5 declines in test results, and direct inquiry about reading instruction, classroom supports, and school community norms.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 361%

School 61% · District 64% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · District 58% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 54% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 367%

School 67% · District 54% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 55% · ▼ 20 pts below district

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

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 59% · ▼ 12 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 37% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 573%

School 73% · district not reported

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

This schoolNEW YORK CITY GEOGRAPHIC DISTRICT #29, 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-income44%Higher-income57%13 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income58%Higher-income20%37 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income31%Higher-income29%3 pp gap