Rushmore Avenue School, Carle Place NY

Original Research by School Decision on Rushmore Avenue School

Rushmore Avenue School serves grades three through six in Carle Place, a one-square-mile Long Island hamlet in Nassau County. The school is part of an exceptionally small district, one of the smallest in New York State, where three schools sit adjacent to each other on a single shared campus in a community anchored by the recently modernized Carle Place LIRR station and surrounded by family-oriented Levitt-era and midcentury homes mixed with Cape Cods and Colonials.

The school's enrollment is small, with roughly equal distribution across the four grade bands, and the student body is roughly evenly split between White, Hispanic, and Asian students, with a modest share of families qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. A substantial portion of the school's students live within walking distance of the campus, as the hamlet's compact footprint means most residents can reach the LIRR station on foot.

Mathematics performance is solid across the board. Fourth and fifth graders both show proficiency at rates well above the midpoint for the county's districts, with particularly strong results in fourth grade. Third and sixth grade math results are more moderate but still respectable. English language arts proficiency is generally in the high-middle range across grades, with the strongest showing in fifth grade. Fifth-grade science proficiency sits in the moderate range; social studies data from an earlier year showed very high proficiency, though that assessment is no longer administered at the elementary level in New York State. Overall, the school's proficiency index places it above the midpoint among Nassau County's districts.

The school feeds into Carle Place Middle/High School for grades seven through twelve. One recent district context for families involves facility investment: in October 2024, voters approved funding to replace aging HVAC systems at the middle/high school. At the same time, they rejected a bond measure that would have provided permanent dedicated space for the district's new Universal Pre-Kindergarten program, which launched in 2024-25 with free tuition but limited seats filled by lottery. The UPK program currently occupies temporary space and offers no transportation or before/after care, so families need to manage that logistics themselves.

The wider Carle Place community is a stable, built-out residential area with mixed commercial and retail activity along Old Country Road but no traditional downtown core. Housing values are in the mid-to-high range for Long Island, with the majority of homes in the midcentury vernacular. Population has held relatively steady, and recent development has centered on infrastructure (the 2021 LIRR modernization) and commercial repositioning rather than large new subdivisions. The hamlet's residents work largely in business, finance, management, and office roles, with many commuting to New York City or elsewhere in Nassau County. Parks, the public library, and the nearby regional Eisenhower Park round out community amenities.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 368%

School 68% · District 68%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 488%

School 88% · District 88%

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

Grade 587%

School 87% · District 87%

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 673%

School 73% · District 73%

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

English language arts

Grade 368%

School 68% · District 68%

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

Grade 463%

School 63% · District 63%

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

Grade 572%

School 72% · District 72%

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

Grade 673%

School 73% · District 73%

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

Science

Grade 565%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 598%

School 98% · district not reported

▲ 7 pts above state median · even with county median

This schoolCARLE PLACE UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT, 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-income56%Higher-income74%18 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income73%Higher-income60%13 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income57%Higher-income75%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income65%Higher-income76%11 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income56%Higher-income73%17 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income88%Higher-income88%0 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income93%Higher-income85%8 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income57%Higher-income79%22 pp gap