Great Oaks Charter School, New York NY

Original Research by School Decision on Great Oaks Charter School

Great Oaks Charter School is a small 6-through-11 charter school in Lower Manhattan, serving a neighborhood that is dense, mixed-use, and highly walkable. The school recently completed an expansion from middle school into high school; the high school opened in 2022, and the school now grows by adding one grade level each year. It also took a new name, Great Oaks Kathleen Sherry Charter School, in 2023. In May 2025, its charter was renewed for three years with a revision to one Key Design Element, confirming continuity while signaling the state wants ongoing performance review.

The enrollment is modest—about three hundred students spread across six grades. A substantial majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is predominantly Hispanic and Black, with smaller numbers of Asian, American Indian, and white students. The school does not report data on special education or English learner populations.

On state assessments in math, English language arts, and science, Great Oaks sits above the midpoint among the county's districts in overall proficiency. In middle grades math, proficiency climbs from around mid-forty-percent range in sixth grade to the low-to-mid-fifty-percent range by eighth grade. In English language arts, seventh grade shows notably higher proficiency than sixth grade, with eighth grade holding close to seventh. Science testing is conducted only in eighth grade, where proficiency lands at around fifty percent. Participation rates across the tested grades are high, ranging from roughly ninety to nearly one hundred percent in math and ELA, and eighty-one percent in science. The school does not report graduation rates, since it has not yet had a full senior class graduate.

No data on chronic absenteeism, school discipline, course-access diversity, or staffing levels were available. Program offerings and pedagogy were not in the available data either, so a parent may want to look into the school's approach and curriculum focus directly with the admissions office.

The school sits in Lower Manhattan where it has access to the subway and bus networks and is part of a mixed-use urban neighborhood. Housing in the school's zip code is expensive, with values well above state and national benchmarks; rents have also climbed and continue to rise. This is a neighborhood where many families have high incomes, though the school's own enrollment skews toward students from lower-income families, suggesting the school may draw from across the city and borough rather than serving only its immediate location.

With its recent expansion to include high school, the school now offers families the option of staying through grade eleven at a single institution. The state's charter renewal signals stability, though the three-year rather than five-or-six-year term indicates the authorizer is watching closely. A parent considering this school should ask directly about the high school pathway, program focus, course depth, college counseling, and what support systems exist for the students it serves.

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Academic performance

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

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
Social Studies	77	66.0%
Ela	53	47.0%
Math	30	13.0%
Science	10	40.0%

Math

Grade 645%

School 45% · district not reported

even with state median · even with county median

Grade 748%

School 48% · district not reported

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

Grade 854%

School 54% · district not reported

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 54 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 648%

School 48% · district not reported

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 758%

School 58% · district not reported

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 855%

School 55% · district not reported

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Science

Grade 850%

School 50% · district not reported

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 42 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 8Lower-income57%Higher-income33%24 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 8Lower-income56%Higher-income33%23 pp gap