Albany Elementary School, Utica NY

Original Research by School Decision on Albany Elementary School

Albany Elementary School sits on Albany Street in Utica, New York, part of the Utica City School District. It serves kindergarten through sixth grade, making it a K-6 school rather than a traditional K-5 or K-8 building. The enrollment is substantial for an elementary school, spread fairly evenly across grade levels.

The student body reflects Utica's unusually diverse character. White students form a plurality but well under a majority; Hispanic, Black, and Asian students each make up meaningful shares, and a portion of students identify as two or more races. Utica has resettled refugees from more than forty countries over recent decades, publicly reported to have transformed neighborhoods across the city, and that history is visible in a school population that spans many backgrounds. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this among the higher-need schools on that measure. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in the data provided, so a parent with questions about those supports should ask the school directly.

On the New York State Testing Program, Albany Elementary's results from the most recent year show that roughly four in ten to just over half of students in tested grades scored at proficient or above across subjects and grade levels. Math proficiency rates are in a similar range in grades three, four, five, and six. ELA results follow a comparable pattern, with the sixth grade performing somewhat better than the lower grades. Science, tested at fifth grade, came in notably lower than ELA or math. These are the school's reported figures; the social studies data in the file dates back many years and is not a current read. Placed among districts in Oneida County, the school's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint of that comparison set. That said, the school's student population carries a high rate of economic disadvantage, and a parent may want to ask the school about what academic supports, intervention programs, and multilingual services are in place, since those details were not available in the data here.

Participation rates in testing are generally high across grades and subjects, with one exception: fifth-grade science and ELA participation were noticeably lower than other grades, which is worth keeping in mind when reading those figures.

No information on program offerings, AP or enrichment courses, staffing ratios, attendance, or discipline was present in the data, so those dimensions cannot be characterized here.

The surrounding context matters for families thinking about the neighborhood. The school sits in Utica, a Mohawk Valley city that experienced sharp population loss as manufacturing collapsed over past decades but has stabilized partly through refugee resettlement and is now seeing active downtown investment. A new major hospital opened downtown in 2023. State revitalization funds have flowed to both the downtown core and the Uptown commercial corridor, publicly reported as part of a longer redevelopment push. The housing market here is well below both the state and national median home value, and recent annual appreciation has been solid, making the area more accessible than most of New York. Estimated monthly ownership costs run meaningfully below what the same mortgage rate would cost statewide, and rent-to-income ratios are favorable by national standards.

Across the Utica City School District, voters approved a district-wide capital project in May 2025 to renovate and upgrade facilities at all schools, publicly reported to include major work continuing through at least 2027. The project passed with no increase to the tax levy, and the district's recent annual budgets have also carried no levy increase, which is a direct consideration for homeowners in the district.

Graduation rate data is not applicable here because Albany Elementary serves only elementary grades. Families whose children would eventually continue through the Utica City School District should look separately at middle and high school performance and programming as part of any decision.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 349%

School 49% · District 42% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 440%

School 40% · District 43% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 40% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 37% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 338%

School 38% · District 35% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 40% · ▲ 7 pts above district

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

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 42% · ▲ 6 pts above district

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

Grade 654%

School 54% · District 40% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Science

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 36% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 581%

School 81% · district not reported

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

This schoolUTICA 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 3Lower-income37%Higher-income42%5 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income75%35 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income44%Higher-income67%23 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income47%Higher-income79%31 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income44%Higher-income69%26 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income42%2 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income47%Higher-income54%7 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income41%Higher-income43%2 pp gap