Cardinal Mccloskey Community Charter School, Bronx NY

Original Research by School Decision on Cardinal Mccloskey Community Charter School

Cardinal McCloskey Community Charter School is a small elementary school in the East Bronx serving kindergarten through fifth grade. The school's enrollment is split roughly evenly across grade levels, with a substantial majority of students from Hispanic backgrounds and a significant share from Black families; about a quarter of the student body is Black. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the high-poverty neighborhood the school serves.

The school operates a dual language Spanish-English program alongside a trauma-informed "Sanctuary Model" pedagogy and wraparound support services. This combination reflects an explicit commitment to bilingualism and to meeting the needs of students experiencing instability or trauma. The dual language approach is the school's signature pedagogical feature, so a family drawn to bilingual education would find this a deliberate match.

Recent state assessment results show a clear pattern: third grade performs substantially stronger than fourth and fifth grade across both reading and math. In third-grade math, a strong majority of students met proficiency; in reading, a large share did. By fourth grade, proficiency rates drop sharply in both subjects, and fifth grade shows no recovery. Fifth-grade science proficiency is particularly low. A parent may want to ask the school directly about this grade-level gap: whether it reflects cohort differences, curriculum shifts, or staffing changes, and what instructional adjustments the school is making in grades four and five.

The school's overall proficiency index, averaged across tested subjects and grades, places it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Bronx County. This is meaningful context: the school is outperforming the median district in the county even as individual grades show weakness. Still, the fourth and fifth-grade numbers warrant scrutiny before enrolling a child.

The school completed its planned expansion from a K-1 opening to a full K-5 elementary school in recent years, so families enrolling now can expect their child to remain in place through fifth grade rather than transferring out mid-elementary. The surrounding neighborhood in the East Bronx is mixed residential and commercial, walkable, and anchored by transit corridors; the area is experiencing significant affordable housing development.

For a family prioritizing bilingual education, trauma-informed teaching, and close community-based support, this school offers a distinctive pathway. For families focused on reading and math achievement across all elementary grades, the fourth and fifth-grade performance data suggests a conversation with school leadership is warranted before deciding.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 388%

School 88% · district not reported

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 30 pts above county median

Grade 460%

School 60% · district not reported

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 559%

School 59% · district not reported

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

English language arts

Grade 378%

School 78% · district not reported

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Grade 442%

School 42% · district not reported

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

Grade 547%

School 47% · district not reported

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

Science

Grade 530%

School 30% · district not reported

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below 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 4Lower-income38%Higher-income83%45 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income48%Higher-income40%7 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income60%Higher-income67%7 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income59%Higher-income60%1 pp gap