The top reported proficiency rate is 90% in Social studies. The lowest is 39% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Farragut Middle School
Farragut Middle School is a regular public middle school serving grades five through eight in Hastings-on-Hudson, a small Hudson River village in Westchester County. The school enrolls roughly five hundred students and reflects the village's character: predominantly white and affluent, with smaller populations of Hispanic, multiracial, Asian, and Black students. The school is located at the heart of the village on Farragut Avenue, within walking distance of the downtown and embedded in a community that prizes walkability, local character, and civic life over sprawling, car-dependent geography.
Academically, Farragut's performance across tested subjects is strong. In English Language Arts, proficiency rates range from the high seventy percent range in grades six and eight to the mid-eighties in grades five and seven. Math performance shows more variation: grade five students achieve proficiency in the mid-seventies, grade six dips to the mid-sixties, but grades seven and eight rebound to the mid- to high eighties. Science proficiency in grade five reaches the upper seventies; grade eight science assessment data was not available. These results position the school above the midpoint among districts across Westchester County in overall proficiency. The school achieved strong participation rates in testing, generally above ninety percent except in grade eight, where participation dipped to seventy-eight percent; a parent may want to look into the reason for that decline with the school directly.
The middle grades dip in math proficiency, particularly in grade six, invites attention. This is not unusual in middle school progression, but it is worth asking the school what instructional supports exist for students moving through that transition and whether there are targeted interventions for struggling learners.
Hastings-on-Hudson is an artsy, eclectic village of roughly two square miles with a compact downtown free of chain stores and a concentration of artists, designers, and media workers. The community is characterized by steep residential hills, winding tree-lined roads, and strong pedestrian culture anchored by locally owned shops, restaurants, and year-round events. Civic life is woven into the village fabric: the school district is headquartered where Farragut sits, and the library, community center, parks, and the Old Croton Aqueduct trail system are all within or near downtown. The village owns extensive green space, including riverfront parks and trails.
Housing is expensive. Median home values in the village's zip code are well above one million dollars, and median rents are in the low thousands. Median days on market are roughly one month, reflecting a moderately active real estate market in which supply has increased and demand has softened compared to a year prior. The affordability picture is tight: monthly mortgage costs exceed five thousand dollars on a typical property, and rent-to-income ratios suggest housing consumes a substantial share of household income even for families at the area's income levels.
The broader Westchester County real estate market shows modest recent cooling. Active listings have grown, new listings are down year-over-year, and pending sales have declined sharply, signaling that the pace of transactions has slowed considerably.
The village is poised on a major transition. The forty-two-acre waterfront, abandoned since the mid-1970s after decades of heavy industrial use, is undergoing remediation and planned redevelopment into mixed-use residential, retail, and public space. This cleanup and reuse is expected to unfold over years and will reshape the village's riverside character. The village adopted an updated Comprehensive Plan in May 2025 and is developing a Local Waterfront Revitalization Program to address smart growth and climate resilience.
The district itself has just secured voter approval for a substantial capital bond. In June 2025, voters approved more than thirty million dollars in school construction and upgrades, with the centerpiece being a major addition and expanded instructional space at Farragut Middle School. The middle school is currently smaller than the high school despite serving roughly the same enrollment, a space constraint the bond addresses directly. This multi-year facilities investment will reshape the building and reduce future capital pressure, though it carries a long-term cost to taxpayers, partly offset by state building aid. The district has also faced budget volatility: voters rejected a budget proposal in May 2022, but subsequent budgets have passed comfortably, including the 2025-26 budget approved by a solid margin.
Hastings-on-Hudson offers the peer environment of a small, affluent, artistically minded village where most families are long-term residents or drawn to the community's specific character. Students at Farragut encounter classmates from stable, educated households in a place where local civic participation is the norm. The school itself serves the village and parts of the adjacent Town of Greenburgh. The housing market and community composition mean that the student body is largely white and affluent, a characteristic any prospective family should understand clearly. The compact geography and pedestrian village life mean that the school is integrated into neighborhood routines in a way that schools in car-dependent suburbs are not.
State assessment data was not available for eighth-grade science, and participation rates in eighth-grade testing were lower than in earlier grades; context for these gaps was not provided in the school's data, so a parent or resident might ask the district about them. Beyond testing results, the school provides no publicly reported information about program offerings, special services, staffing, attendance, or disciplinary patterns in this dataset. The 2025 bond approval will bring new classroom and instructional space, which should expand the school's capacity to offer electives and specialized instruction, but details of those planned offerings were not available.
See more original research from School Decision →