Selden Middle School, Centereach NY

Original Research by School Decision on Selden Middle School

Selden Middle School sits in Centereach, a car-dependent Long Island suburb built out mostly of single-family homes along a commercial corridor of big-box retail and shopping centers. The school serves the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades within the Middle Country Central School District.

The most recent state testing data shows academically struggling results. In sixth-grade math, about three out of ten students scored at proficiency. In seventh-grade math, that rose to roughly four in ten. Sixth-grade English language arts saw proficiency just above a third of students; seventh-grade ELA dropped to about one in four. Eighth-grade ELA was back to roughly a third. The school did not report testable groups in eighth-grade math or fifth-grade results (fifth grade is not housed here, and eighth-grade testing participation and data were not reported). When placed against all districts in Suffolk County, the school's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile among county schools. A parent may want to look further into what academic supports or interventions are currently in place and what recent trends in test performance have been, if prior-year data exists.

The enrollment is just over a thousand students, with roughly equal numbers across the three grade levels. About four in ten students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is racially and ethnically diverse: roughly a third are Hispanic, a bit more than four in ten are white, just over one in ten are Asian, and smaller shares are Black or identify as two or more races.

The district as a whole offers a free, universal Pre-K program to all four-year-olds, with a full-day option that is said to be among the largest on Long Island. The district's budgets have risen at a steady rate in recent years, staying within the state tax cap but still representing an annual property-tax increase that families moving in would factor as an ongoing cost.

Centereach itself is a settled suburban area with little local job center; most residents commute to work elsewhere. Housing values are in the mid-range for the region. The Middle Country Public Library in Centereach has been recognized as a national model for family-centered library services and includes modern spaces for study and community use. Civic life is organized around the Route 25 commercial corridor and the public library rather than a traditional town center, and transit is limited to county bus service along that same corridor. The area has grown incrementally in recent years with new residential construction and commercial redevelopment.

See more original research from School Decision →

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
Math	347	76.0%
Science	323	70.0%

Math

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 32% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 51 pts below state median · ▼ 49 pts below county median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 39% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 746%

School 46% · District 44% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 37 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 35% · ▼ 35 pts below district

▼ 54 pts below state median · ▼ 47 pts below county median

Grade 634%

School 34% · District 35%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 726%

School 26% · District 30% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 39% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Science

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 34% · ▼ 34 pts below district

▼ 42 pts below state median · ▼ 40 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 897%

School 97% · district not reported

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

This schoolMIDDLE COUNTRY 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 5Lower-income0%Higher-income0%0 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income24%Higher-income47%23 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income21%Higher-income32%11 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income29%Higher-income44%16 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income0%Higher-income0%0 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income24%Higher-income40%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income33%Higher-income61%28 pp gap