The top reported proficiency rate is 98% in Social studies. The lowest is 79% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Center Street School
Center Street School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Williston Park, a small, nearly built-out incorporated village in Nassau County's Town of North Hempstead. The school is part of the Herricks Union Free School District, which spans multiple nearby communities; while Center Street anchors the elementary years in the village itself, the district's middle and high schools sit in Albertson and Searingtown.
The school enrolls a relatively small population for its grade band. The student body is substantially Asian, with smaller populations of white, Hispanic, Black, and Native Hawaiian students. About one in four students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on the count of students with IEPs or English learners was not available.
In state testing from the most recent year, Center Street shows uneven proficiency across grades. Third-grade proficiency in math and English language arts both sat in the mid-to-high seventies. Fourth grade performed stronger, with math proficiency reaching the mid-eighties and ELA in the low eighties. Fifth grade was the school's strongest tier, with both math and ELA proficiency in the low-to-mid nineties, and science proficiency around eighty percent. Across the tested grades and subjects, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to other schools in Nassau County districts.
The upward trajectory from third to fifth grade suggests some students need targeted support in the earlier grades; a parent might want to explore with the school how reading and math gaps are addressed in third and fourth, and what interventions or small-group instruction are available. That said, the school's strong performance by fifth grade and its positioning well above the county median indicates that students are reaching solid proficiency by the time they leave the building.
Herricks district has made several shifts relevant to families considering Center Street. The district overhauled its Gemini gifted and talented program, moving away from test-score-only selection to a multi-criteria model that includes parent input and now extends opportunities to middle schoolers, creating a more integrated enrichment pathway from elementary on. The district also adopted a "Portrait of a Graduate" framework built around six core competencies—collaboration, communication, confidence, compassion, creative innovation, and critical thinking—that now guides instruction across all grade levels. Center Street's curriculum explicitly incorporates Project Lead the Way STEM alongside these competencies.
The village itself is a tightly knit residential community dominated by single-family homes built between the early 1920s and late 1940s, with tree-lined streets and limited new development. The commercial core along Willis Avenue and Hillside Avenue is walkable and active, with local shops, professional offices, and small restaurants. The East Williston LIRR station on the village's edge provides access to New York City. Housing in the zip code is expensive; median home values are substantial, and the market is competitive with low inventory. Publicly reported data shows median home sale prices in the recent period around one million, with modest year-over-year growth. Rental availability is similarly tight. Growth is constrained by the village's small footprint and built-out character; prior to the recession, the district had been among Nassau County's fastest-growing, but residential expansion is now limited to small infill and multi-family product rather than large new subdivisions.
Center Street is a traditional public elementary school, not a charter or magnet. The school serves its immediate neighborhood as the foundational K-5 building in a district where middle and high school students travel to other communities. For families in Williston Park or the immediate area seeking a neighborhood elementary school with solid academic outcomes and access to gifted enrichment, the school offers that pathway. The grade-band-specific testing data, combined with positioning well above county medians, suggest a school where most students meet state benchmarks by the time they complete fifth grade, though parents should understand that supports for early literacy and numeracy in grades three and four exist within a school context where upper-grade performance is notably stronger.
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