Westminster Community Charter School, Buffalo NY

Original Research by School Decision on Westminster Community Charter School

Westminster Community Charter School is a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade charter serving Buffalo's East Side, with a student body that is predominantly Black and Asian, and where a substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school has operated under considerable institutional pressure: it survived a 2021 closure attempt by the Buffalo Board of Education through litigation, and in 2024 received a four-year charter renewal that came with a corrective action plan tied to measurable improvement in reading, math, and science.

The academic picture is the core story here. Across New York State testing data from the most recent school year, proficiency rates in math and English Language Arts sit below the midpoint for Erie County districts when averaged across tested grades and subjects. Fourth-grade math shows the school's strongest performance, while fifth-grade math and seventh-grade English Language Arts are notably low. Science results are similarly uneven: eighth-grade science performance is around the county's middle ground, but fifth-grade science falls well below that. The pattern suggests some students are making progress while others are not, and the gap widens as students move into the upper grades. Test participation rates are consistently in the high 90s, so these figures reflect actual student performance rather than test-day absences.

The school's enrollment is relatively stable at around four hundred students spread across nine grades. Classes are small enough that each grade typically numbers between four and six dozen students, which can allow for more individual attention but also means less scale for specialized programs. The school draws almost entirely from families experiencing economic hardship, and that enrollment composition has been consistent.

On the charter front, stability is uncertain beyond the current four-year agreement, which runs to 2028. The school's survival has hinged on legal action twice, and while it currently holds a charter, meeting the proficiency targets now required will determine whether renewal comes easily or becomes contested again. The corrective action plan is not a scarlet letter, but it signals that the state and the district are watching closely.

For a family considering Westminster, the key questions are these: What is the school doing to address the proficiency gap, particularly in upper grades and science? What teaching methods and interventions are in place for struggling readers and mathematicians? And what is the school's track record of communication with families about progress against those benchmarks? A parent may want to visit, observe classrooms, and ask directly how the school is working through the corrective action mandate. The school's charter status means it has some autonomy in how it operates, but that autonomy is now conditional on demonstrated academic gains.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

New York Regents Exams

1 course reported · 2024-25

End-of-course exams required for a New York Regents diploma. Each row shows the cohort size and the share of students scoring at the proficient level or higher.

Course	Students tested	% proficient
Math	10	60.0%

Math

Grade 344%

School 44% · district not reported

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 458%

School 58% · district not reported

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 528%

School 28% · district not reported

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

Grade 632%

School 32% · district not reported

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 739%

School 39% · district not reported

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 847%

School 47% · district not reported

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 342%

School 42% · district not reported

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 439%

School 39% · district not reported

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 539%

School 39% · district not reported

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 634%

School 34% · district not reported

▼ 11 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 728%

School 28% · district not reported

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 831%

School 31% · district not reported

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Science

Grade 521%

School 21% · district not reported

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 846%

School 46% · district not reported

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 588%

School 88% · district not reported

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

Grade 878%

School 78% · district not reported

even with state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

This schoolDistrict average, 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 3Lower-income41%Higher-income43%2 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income27%Higher-income33%6 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income41%Higher-income57%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income38%Higher-income50%13 pp gap