The top reported proficiency rate is 79% in Science. The lowest is 35% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Riley Avenue School
Riley Avenue School is a small elementary school serving kindergarten through fourth grade in Calverton, a rural-to-suburban hamlet on Long Island's North Fork. The school enrolls a student body of about five hundred spread across all five grade levels, with roughly a third of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The student population is fairly divided between Hispanic and white families, with smaller numbers of Black students, Asian students, and students of two or more races. Calverton itself sits within the larger Riverhead Central School District, a sprawling system covering eighty-one square miles across multiple hamlets, so Riley Avenue functions as one campus within that dispersed network rather than as the hub of a walkable neighborhood.
The school's academic performance on New York State testing shows a clear pattern: third grade performs better than fourth grade, and mathematics outperforms English language arts. In third-grade math, about half of tested students reached proficiency. In fourth-grade math, that drops noticeably to about forty percent. In ELA, the picture is weaker: roughly thirty-nine percent of third graders and thirty percent of fourth graders showed proficiency. These results place Riley Avenue below the midpoint of overall proficiency when compared against other schools in Suffolk County. Science data from an earlier year showed substantially stronger performance at the fourth-grade level, though more recent science results were not available. A parent looking at these numbers may want to explore with the school what approaches are being used to support growth in math and reading at both grade levels, particularly as students transition from third to fourth grade.
The school sits within a district facing genuine budget pressure. Riverhead Central eliminated more than fifty full-time positions in 2024-25 as temporary federal COVID relief funding expired, with substantial cuts falling on elementary schools: the district removed academic intervention teachers, guidance counselors, psychologists, and classroom assistants. These staffing reductions represent a lasting decrease in academic support available to students. The district's dual-language program, once expanded across all four elementary schools, was consolidated and then only partially restored for continuing kindergarten cohorts, leaving families unsure of the program's future. Property taxes have risen at the legal maximum two years in a row, with declining voter support—budgets that passed with roughly sixty percent approval in 2024 dropped to fifty-six percent approval in 2025.
On the brighter side, Riley Avenue and Phillips Avenue Elementary recently received approved funding for kitchen and cafeteria renovations, reflecting some investment in school facilities despite the broader constraints. The school draws from a housing market where median sale prices are moderate relative to regional benchmarks, though prices have risen steadily. The area around Calverton is low-density and car-dependent; families rely on individual transportation rather than public transit, which is limited to a couple of county bus routes.
For a family considering Riley Avenue, the practical picture is mixed. The school is small and accessible, serves a genuinely mixed community, and sits in an area with reasonable housing values. But test scores are below comparable schools in the county, the district is managing real cuts to staffing and support services, and property taxes are climbing while voter approval for school budgets softens. A parent interested in this school would benefit from directly asking about the school's approach to reading and math intervention, how the staffing reductions have affected classroom support, and what academic programs are stable versus at risk in the current budget cycle.
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