Lasalle Preparatory School, Niagara Falls NY

Original Research by School Decision on Lasalle Preparatory School

LaSalle Preparatory School is a public middle school serving seventh and eighth graders in Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Falls City School District. It sits on Buffalo Avenue, the same corridor where the district's LaSalle library branch operates, placing it in a residential section of the city rather than the downtown tourist core near the Falls.

The school enrolls several hundred students across its two grades, with a substantial share qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, which is consistent with the economic pressures present throughout Niagara Falls. The student body is racially and ethnically mixed, with white students making up roughly the largest single group, followed by Black students, students identifying as two or more races, Hispanic students, and smaller shares of other groups. Data on students with IEPs and English learners was not available in what was provided.

State assessment results from the most recent year tested paint a mixed picture. In seventh grade English language arts, fewer than a third of students reached the proficient or above threshold on the New York State Testing Program; in seventh grade math, the result was similar. Eighth grade ELA showed a more encouraging result, with roughly four in ten students reaching proficiency, which is a meaningfully better outcome than seventh grade. Eighth grade math, by contrast, was considerably lower, with only about one in nine students scoring proficient or above. Eighth grade science landed between those two extremes. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Niagara County, which is a pattern worth understanding more deeply. Parents may want to ask the school directly about the instructional supports in place, particularly in math across both grade levels. Participation rates also varied notably by grade and subject, which can affect how to read those figures; the eighth grade math participation rate in particular was quite low, and a parent would do well to ask about that gap.

The one program area the data captures is music. No information was available on other extracurricular or enrichment offerings; the school's own website would be the right place to look for the full picture.

The broader district context matters here. Voters approved a major capital referendum in early 2023, funding district-wide facility work that the district publicly reported would be reimbursed by New York State at a high rate with no resulting increase to school taxes, a genuine long-term infrastructure commitment. Separately, the district launched Say Yes Niagara Falls beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, modeled on the established Say Yes Buffalo program. It brings community schools programming, mentoring, and youth apprenticeship to district students, with a Promise Scholarship covering remaining tuition costs after federal and state aid for two-year, four-year, and certificate programs set to begin in 2026-2027. For a family thinking about the full K-12 arc and college affordability, that scholarship commitment is worth weighing carefully.

Niagara Falls itself is an affordable housing market, with home values well below both state and national benchmarks, and rents that leave a reasonable share of income available. Publicly reported data shows the housing market appreciating at a moderate pace year over year. The city's economic base is tourism, healthcare, manufacturing, and power generation, with large employers including the Seneca Niagara Casino, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, the New York Power Authority, and a major air reserve station. The long-term population trajectory is slow decline, though downtown reinvestment has been active, with hotel development, state-backed historic rehabilitation projects along Niagara Street and the Buffalo Avenue Heritage District, and a pending university-anchored North Main Street project. Walkability is genuinely neighborhood-dependent: older central areas can be quite walkable, while outlying areas require a car for most daily needs.

For a family already in the Niagara Falls district, LaSalle is the natural middle school pathway in that part of the city. The academic results, especially in math, are an area to follow closely and probe with the school.

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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	133	93.0%
Science	91	90.0%

Math

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 28% · ▼ 28 pts below district

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

Grade 729%

School 29% · District 27% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

Grade 811%

School 11% · District 8% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 60%

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

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 39 pts below county median

Grade 728%

School 28% · District 27% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 840%

School 40% · District 31% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Science

Grade 837%

School 37% · District 25% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 872%

School 72% · district not reported

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

This schoolNIAGARA FALLS CITY 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 7Lower-income21%Higher-income52%31 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income32%Higher-income66%33 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 7Lower-income24%Higher-income47%23 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income10%Higher-income29%19 pp gap