The top reported proficiency rate is 57% in English language arts. The lowest is 35% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ps 273
PS 273 in Richmond Hill is a public elementary school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, enrolling a small school population with notably high poverty. A large majority of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, and the school is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, and white enrollment. Current state test data shows uneven performance across grades and subjects.
In third grade, where students typically perform strongest at this school, about seven in ten students meet proficiency in English language arts and roughly the same proportion do so in math. Starting in fourth grade, performance drops notably. In fourth grade, about half of students reach proficiency in English language arts and less than half in math. By fifth grade, results fall further: roughly four in ten reach proficiency in English language arts, under four in ten in math. Science proficiency in fifth grade is the lowest reported area, with roughly one in three students meeting the standard. The school's overall proficiency level falls below the midpoint when compared to other districts in Queens County.
Participation rates on these assessments are generally strong, with most grades showing high engagement, though third-grade English language arts participation is somewhat lower than other grades. The school's enrollment has remained stable at a size typical for an elementary school in this grade band, distributed fairly evenly across grades.
Richmond Hill itself is a densely settled, highly walkable neighborhood in southwestern Queens with a strong community identity rooted in Indo-Caribbean and Punjabi Sikh populations. The area is organized around commercial corridors on Jamaica Avenue, Liberty Avenue, and 101st Avenue rather than around a single downtown. Schools and civic buildings sit embedded within the residential street grid near these corridors. The neighborhood is anchored to the north by Forest Park and connected by elevated and subway transit, including the J and Z trains on Jamaica Avenue and the A train at Lefferts Boulevard. The local economy consists largely of small businesses—bakeries, roti shops, groceries, and open-air produce markets cluster especially on Liberty Avenue in the southern section known as Little Guyana, and industrial businesses related to construction and automotive trades operate on 101st Avenue.
Housing in the 11418 zip code (where the school is located) has appreciated and rents have risen year over year; home values and rents are both elevated compared to the national benchmark. The area has seen rezoning efforts aimed at channeling new development onto major commercial corridors while protecting the interior residential blocks that define the neighborhood's low-rise, mixed-use character.
District 27, the school's parent district, has experienced enrollment decline over recent years and faces substantial excess classroom capacity, particularly at the middle school level. The district has implemented the citywide NYC Reads phonics-based literacy mandate for all elementary schools and the NYC Solves math curriculum mandate for secondary grades, both lasting shifts in how reading and math are taught. These mandates have replaced the prior practice in which individual schools selected their own instructional materials.
A parent considering PS 273 would be looking at a small, neighborhood elementary school serving a community with high economic need, where test proficiency declines as students progress through the grades, and where reading and math instruction now follows district-wide curricula tied to citywide literacy and numeracy initiatives.
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