Mount Kisco Elementary School, Mount Kisco NY

Original Research by School Decision on Mount Kisco Elementary School

Mount Kisco Elementary School serves grades pre-K through fifth grade in the village of Mount Kisco, which sits in the commercial heart of northern Westchester County. The school has an enrollment of roughly five hundred students, with the vast majority Hispanic and a substantial share qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic and demographic diversity of the village itself.

The school's academic performance presents a clear picture that warrants attention from prospective families. Across state testing in math and English language arts, proficiency rates fall below what families would typically encounter elsewhere in Westchester County. In third-grade math, about half of students meet proficiency; fourth grade performs slightly better at just above half; by fifth grade, the rate drops to around four in ten. English language arts results are lower still. Third-grade proficiency sits around one in three, fourth grade at roughly the same level, and fifth grade near one in three as well. A fifth-grade science test shows roughly one in four students at proficiency. These numbers place the school in the bottom quartile of Westchester County districts on an overall proficiency index. A parent may want to look into these results further with the school, particularly what supports the school has in place and what changes are underway.

That context matters: the Bedford Central School District, which serves Mount Kisco and five neighboring communities, fundamentally restructured its elementary reading instruction starting in the 2024-25 school year. The district moved away from the Lucy Calkins workshop model that had governed reading instruction and adopted a science-of-reading-aligned curriculum, including Bookworms for grades K-5, in response to literacy proficiency rates the district itself identified as too low. Mount Kisco Elementary is part of that transition, meaning families enrolling now are in a school actively shifting its reading approach. That is neither inherently positive nor negative, but it is the current reality: instruction is in flux, and outcomes from the new program will take time to emerge.

The district also completed a major facilities bond vote in May 2022 and is executing substantial infrastructure work across all seven schools through 2025, including new flooring, security vestibules, and athletic upgrades. The elementary school has benefited from these improvements, though the most extensive phase centers on the middle and high school campus in Bedford.

Mount Kisco itself is a small, walkable village of about three square miles, anchored by downtown retail, restaurants, and the Metro-North station. Leonard Park offers swimming pools, fields, playgrounds, and trails for residents. The village is pursuing transit-oriented, mixed-use development rather than sprawl; the Kirby Commons project, a mixed-use development with apartments and retail next to the Metro-North station, is in progress. Housing costs in the zip code are substantial, with median home values in the high six figures and monthly rents in the mid-range for the region. The job market remains steady, with healthcare and retail as the largest employment sectors.

The school sits within the village on West Hyatt Avenue, but students who advance to middle and high school attend the shared Fox Lane Middle and High School campus on South Bedford Road in the neighboring Town of Bedford, away from downtown. That geographic split is standard for the district, which serves multiple communities.

Families considering Mount Kisco Elementary should weigh that the school is currently in a transition period on reading instruction and is working to improve proficiency in foundational skills. The specifics of how the new curriculum is being implemented, what professional development staff have received, and what early data emerge would be questions worth asking directly of the school and district.

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Academic performance

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

Advanced Placement & IB

1 subject offered · 2023-24

Each card is one AP or IB subject. The headline number is the share of students scoring 3 or higher on the exam — the threshold for college credit at most universities. The bar below each rate shows the underlying distribution across performance levels.

Score:12· no credit345· extremely well qualified

World Languages and Cultures

Spanish Language and Culture

1 tested · HS

0.0%

scored 3 or higher

Math

Grade 350%

School 50% · District 65% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 458%

School 58% · District 75% · ▼ 17 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 69% · ▼ 28 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 58% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 442%

School 42% · District 66% · ▼ 24 pts below district

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

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 68% · ▼ 34 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 31 pts below county median

Science

Grade 523%

School 23% · District 56% · ▼ 33 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 592%

School 92% · district not reported

even with state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

This schoolBEDFORD 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 3Lower-income8%Higher-income71%64 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income36%Higher-income52%16 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income22%Higher-income56%34 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income31%Higher-income80%49 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income51%Higher-income69%18 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income36%Higher-income50%14 pp gap