Arcadia Middle School, Rochester NY

Original Research by School Decision on Arcadia Middle School

Arcadia Middle School sits at the edge of Rochester's school landscape, serving grades five through eight in a building on Island Cottage Road. The school has a modest footprint for the middle-school band in its district, with an enrollment drawn largely from the immediate residential area. About three-fifths of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, marking a school serving a population with substantial economic need. The student body is racially and ethnically mixed, with roughly equal shares of white and Black students and a notable Hispanic population; Asian and multiracial students make up smaller shares. Data on special-education students and English learners was not available, so a parent may want to inquire directly with the school about those cohorts if they matter for your family.

Testing results paint a picture of proficiency that sits below the midpoint when compared to other districts in Monroe County. In sixth grade, the school's math and English language arts proficiency rates both hover in the low-to-mid range. By seventh grade, the pattern holds steady in math, while ELA proficiency dips further. Eighth grade shows more pronounced challenges: math proficiency falls notably, and science proficiency also sits low, with participation rates themselves declining noticeably. The school did report state science testing results for grade eight, though not for the earlier grades—this reflects the state's own testing schedule, not a gap in school effort. A stark data point emerges in eighth-grade math participation: a portion of students either were not tested or did not participate, a measure you may want to understand further, as it could reflect scheduling, opt-outs, or other factors. On the one measure with older data available—eighth-grade social studies from more than a decade ago—proficiency was reported as very strong, though that result does not translate to the more recent math and science picture.

The school operates within Greece Central School District, which serves the towns of Greece and surrounding areas west of Rochester proper. In December 2024, the district's voters approved a major capital improvement plan called "Level Up," a project that will bring new classrooms and facility upgrades to every school across four summers, with no increase to school property taxes—a significant infrastructure boost that will reach Arcadia. Additionally, the district launched two new community schools in the 2025-26 school year, Autumn Lane and Odyssey, which focus on academic achievement, behavioral support, and work-based learning partnerships. These moves signal a district in active reinvestment and program expansion, though they do not directly address the proficiency patterns showing at Arcadia itself.

The housing market around Rochester, and by extension the Greece area, is in flux. Values in the zip code where Arcadia sits have risen modestly year over year, and rents have ticked up slightly as well. The market shows active inventory and has seen increased listing activity, suggesting moderate supply and interest. For families considering this school, the economic context includes both opportunity and constraint: unemployment in the region is moderate, healthcare and manufacturing anchor the local economy, and the city itself is undergoing downtown revitalization after decades of decline, though residential neighborhoods like those around Arcadia have been more stable fixtures.

The proficiency results at Arcadia warrant a direct conversation with school leadership. Understanding what academic supports exist, how the school works with students who are below grade-level, and what interventions or programming the school has deployed in response to these numbers will matter if you are considering enrollment. The school serves its community actively—the district context shows ongoing investment—but the achievement data suggests families should go in clear-eyed about where academic proficiency currently stands and what the school's plan is to move it forward.

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Academic performance

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

New York Regents Exams

1 course 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
Math	75	87.0%

Math

Grade 645%

School 45% · District 36% · ▲ 9 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 746%

School 46% · District 42% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 7 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 830%

School 30% · District 29%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 36% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 734%

School 34% · District 29% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 13 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 37% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Science

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 24% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 890%

School 90% · district not reported

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

This schoolGREECE 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-income35%Higher-income51%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income23%Higher-income48%25 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income32%Higher-income49%16 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income35%Higher-income60%26 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income35%Higher-income60%25 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income23%Higher-income40%17 pp gap