Pine Grove Middle School, East Syracuse NY

Original Research by School Decision on Pine Grove Middle School

Pine Grove Middle School is a public middle school in East Syracuse serving grades six through eight within the East Syracuse Minoa Central School District. The school sits on Spartan Way on a suburban campus, separate from the village's downtown core, and enrolls a student body of roughly mid-sized breadth for its grade band.

The recent test data from spring 2025 shows a mixed profile across subjects and grades. In English Language Arts, the school reached about half proficiency across grades six and eight, with grade seven running slightly below that mark. Mathematics performance is uneven: sixth grade hovers near half proficiency, seventh grade reaches the mid-fifties, but eighth grade mathematics sits substantially lower in the mid-to-high thirties. Science at grade eight, the only grade tested, posts the school's strongest result at just above sixty percent proficiency. The school's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the county's districts, a meaningful position that reflects modest strength even as individual grade and subject results vary. Test participation rates range from half to mid-eighties across subjects and grades, which is a point a parent may want to look into further with the school.

The enrollment is diverse in composition. The majority of students identify as white, with smaller shares of Asian, Black, and Hispanic students represented. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, indicating moderate economic need within the building. The school does not report counts or rates for students with individualized education programs or English learners, so details about those populations' sizes are unavailable from the data provided.

East Syracuse itself is a small incorporated village immediately east of Syracuse, built up historically as a railroad community and retaining older, pre-World War II housing stock. The village center sits along Route 290 and the Manlius Street commercial strip, though recent reporting describes heavy vehicle traffic but limited foot traffic and some vacancies, prompting a state-funded facade improvement effort on local businesses. The broader region is entering a major growth phase driven by Micron's planned semiconductor plant in nearby Clay, expected to bring substantial job creation and fuel housing demand across Central New York over the next several years. Direct large housing projects within East Syracuse itself were not confirmed, though the region overall anticipates significant development and new residential construction.

The district recently completed the first phase of its "Building Our Spartan Future" capital project, approved by voters in January 2023 with no school tax increase. That work included substantial renovations to Central High School and the transportation center and is now substantially complete as of fall 2025. In December 2025, the district brought a second capital project to ballot, proposing classroom and infrastructure upgrades across all seven schools including Pine Grove, with renovations to career and technical education areas, auditorium work, and additional improvements, again with no anticipated tax impact. These ongoing investments signal the district's commitment to facility maintenance and program infrastructure, relevant to families weighing stability and campus condition.

Housing in the zip code area is moderately valued and rents are moderate relative to regional benchmarks. The local market shows a mix of inventory: active listings and pending listings are present, and the supply score sits in the mid-range for the county. Affordability indicators place the monthly mortgage estimate at a moderate level relative to regional income, and rent-to-income burden sits at around a quarter of income.

Pine Grove serves a traditional middle school pathway with state-tested content in ELA, math, and science. Specific program offerings, course-level detail, staffing, attendance data, and chronic absenteeism information were not available in the school's data, so a parent may want to reach out directly to the school to learn about enrichment, arts, athletics, and support structures. What the data does show is a school with performance near the county average, a moderately economically diverse student body, and a district actively investing in facility upgrades and infrastructure across its schools.

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Academic performance

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

New York Regents Exams

2 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
Science	64	100.0%
Math	63	100.0%

Math

Grade 649%

School 49% · District 49% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 756%

School 56% · District 56%

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

Grade 837%

School 37% · District 35% · ▲ 2 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 652%

School 52% · District 52% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 751%

School 51% · District 51%

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

Grade 853%

School 53% · District 51% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Science

Grade 862%

School 62% · District 61% · ▲ 2 pts above district

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

Social studies

Grade 889%

School 89% · district not reported

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

This schoolEAST SYRACUSE MINOA CENTRAL 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 6Lower-income41%Higher-income61%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income38%Higher-income59%21 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income34%Higher-income64%30 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income34%Higher-income62%28 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income43%Higher-income65%22 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income22%Higher-income51%29 pp gap