Townsend Harris High School, Flushing NY

Original Research by School Decision on Townsend Harris High School

Townsend Harris High School is a regular public high school in Flushing, Queens, serving grades nine through twelve as part of New York City Geographic District 25. It enrolls a student body of roughly thirteen hundred, with a makeup that is predominantly Asian, reflecting the neighborhood's large East and South Asian immigrant populations. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing economic need as a defining feature of the school's context.

The school sits in one of New York City's densest and fastest-growing neighborhoods. Flushing's downtown, centered on Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, is the city's fourth-largest central business district, a heavily multilingual commercial mosaic of mid-rise and high-rise buildings housing restaurants, offices, and retail. Just blocks away, tree-lined residential streets of Flushing Heights and Murray Hill hold single-family homes on large lots. NewYork-Presbyterian Queens, a major teaching hospital, is located on Main Street and serves as a significant employer. The Flushing-Main Street subway station, the eastern terminus of the 7 line, connects to Grand Central and the Long Island Rail Road, making it one of the busiest transit hubs outside Manhattan. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, an expansive public green space home to the Queens Museum, Queens Zoo, and the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, anchors the neighborhood's civic and recreational life. The area is experiencing rapid growth driven by large mixed-use development projects reshaping the skyline, and the waterfront rezoning approved in 2020 promises significant new residential and commercial construction over coming years.

Housing values in the immediate area are high relative to national benchmarks, though rents have shown modest movement. The neighborhood's combination of dense urban core and quieter residential enclaves offers different housing and lifestyle choices depending on proximity to Main Street.

State assessment data for Townsend Harris was not available, so the school's proficiency levels across tested subjects and grades could not be characterized. The school's four-year graduation rate was not reported. No chronic absenteeism data was reported. Without these metrics, a parent seeking to understand the school's academic standing relative to other Queens schools would need to contact the school directly or consult additional sources. The school also lacks reported data on students with individual education plans and English learners, gaps that are typical in some school reporting systems but that a prospective family may wish to clarify with the school itself, particularly given the high proportion of students from immigrant backgrounds in the neighborhood.

District 25 has undergone several changes relevant to families' decisions. Beginning in September 2023, all elementary schools in the district adopted the Into Reading curriculum under the city's literacy mandate, shifting to phonics-based reading instruction across all buildings. Middle school admissions screening, which had been suspended during the pandemic in favor of a citywide lottery, returned to district-level control starting in the 2023-2024 cycle, allowing academic screening again. The gifted and talented program was overhauled citywide: teacher nomination and a lottery have replaced a standardized test for kindergarten entry, and every district, including District 25, now offers a local G&T option, broadening the pool of students deemed eligible.

Without state test results, graduation data, or chronic absenteeism measures, the school's academic performance profile remains incomplete in this record. A parent interested in Townsend Harris would benefit from seeking out school-reported data directly, visiting if possible, and asking about college placement and post-secondary outcomes, which are often tracked by high schools even when state data is not publicly available in this format.

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Academic performance

How students graduate and prepare for what comes next.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=99%Cohort of 292 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

1,253 schools plotted. 14 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Advanced Placement & IB

28 subjects offered · 2023-24

Each card is one AP or IB subject. The headline number is the share of students scoring 3 or higher on the exam — the threshold for college credit at most universities. The bar below each rate shows the underlying distribution across performance levels.

Score:12· no credit345· extremely well qualified

Math and Computer Science

Calculus AB

108 tested

72.2%

scored 3 or higher

Calculus BC

96 tested

91.7%

scored 3 or higher

Computer Science A

38 tested · Grade 10

47.4%

scored 3 or higher

Computer Science Principles

60 tested · Grade 10

71.7%

scored 3 or higher

Statistics

100 tested

59.0%

scored 3 or higher

Sciences

Biology

102 tested

80.4%

scored 3 or higher

Chemistry

20 tested

90.0%

scored 3 or higher

Environmental Science

30 tested

83.3%

scored 3 or higher

Physics 1

88 tested · Grade 10

78.4%

scored 3 or higher

Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism

35 tested

91.4%

scored 3 or higher

Physics C: Mechanics

37 tested

100.0%

scored 3 or higher

English

Research

33 tested

100.0%

scored 3 or higher

Seminar

53 tested · Grade 10

81.1%

scored 3 or higher

History and Social Sciences

Comparative Government and Politics

110 tested

78.2%

scored 3 or higher

Macroeconomics

206 tested

63.6%

scored 3 or higher

Microeconomics

3 tested

0.0%

scored 3 or higher

Psychology

138 tested · Grade 10

65.2%

scored 3 or higher

U.S. History

342 tested

78.7%

scored 3 or higher

World Languages and Cultures

Chinese Language and Culture

4 tested · Grade 10

0.0%

scored 3 or higher

French Language and Culture

1 tested

0.0%

scored 3 or higher

Japanese Language and Culture

9 tested

55.6%

scored 3 or higher

Latin: Vergil (archived)

29 tested

65.5%

scored 3 or higher

Spanish Language and Culture

30 tested

66.7%

scored 3 or higher

Spanish Literature and Culture

28 tested · Grade 10

57.1%

scored 3 or higher

Other

Language and Comp

153 tested

78.4%

scored 3 or higher

Literature and Comp

193 tested

82.4%

scored 3 or higher

U S Government and Politics

110 tested

78.2%

scored 3 or higher

World History

287 tested · Grade 10

53.7%

scored 3 or higher

New York Regents Exams

4 courses 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
Ela	611	98.0%
Social Studies	212	90.0%
Math	47	70.0%
Science	8	0.0%

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.