Hugh R Jones Elementary School, Utica NY

Original Research by School Decision on Hugh R Jones Elementary School

Hugh R. Jones Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in Utica's South End, a mixed residential neighborhood where the school sits on Remington Road. The school enrolls roughly even grades of students overall, with a body that is diverse along racial and ethnic lines: roughly equal shares of white, Hispanic, and Black students, with smaller Asian and multiracial populations. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, signaling economic strain among the school's families.

On state math and English language arts tests, proficiency is modest and uneven across the grades. Third grade performs better than higher grades in both subjects, with about half proficient in third-grade math and about three out of five in third-grade reading. From there, proficiency drops. Fourth and fifth graders attain proficiency in math and reading at rates around four out of ten or lower. Sixth grade dips further, with only about three out of ten sixth graders proficient in reading. Science testing in fifth grade shows similar strain, with proficiency at one out of three. The data shows students are taking these assessments at high rates, so low proficiency does not reflect a participation problem but rather a genuine academic gap that widens as students move through upper elementary grades.

The school sits within the Utica City School District, a district that in May 2025 passed a capital referendum for facility improvements across all buildings. This multi-year investment includes major work at the high school running into 2027 and touches every elementary building. Importantly for families considering the neighborhood, the district has adopted this capital spending and its recent operating budgets with no increase to school property taxes, making it financially neutral for homeowners on that dimension.

Utica itself is a mid-sized Mohawk Valley city reshaped over the past four decades by refugee resettlement, with roughly one in four residents arriving as refugees from Vietnam, the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, and Southeast Asia. The city center and Genesee Street corridor offer walkable mixed-use neighborhoods and commercial life, though outer residential districts are more car-dependent. The downtown has undergone recent revival anchored by the opening of Wynn Hospital in 2023 and state-funded development awards. Housing is affordable relative to state and national benchmarks, with homeownership costs and rental rates below median. The local economy centers on health care and education as the strongest employers, with declining manufacturing offset partly by the regional casino.

A parent considering Jones would be looking at a school serving a lower-income, racially diverse population in a neighborhood with real academic challenges, especially in upper grades. The proficiency declines from grade to grade are meaningful and a parent may want to look into further with the school what classroom structures, interventions, or instructional approaches are in place to address them. The broader district's facility investment and tax-stable budgeting suggest the system is investing in its buildings and schools, though state-level assessment results do not yet reflect that improvement at this particular school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 351%

School 51% · District 42% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 8 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 440%

School 40% · District 43% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 40% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 37% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 359%

School 59% · District 35% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 40% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 42% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 630%

School 30% · District 40% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 36% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 588%

School 88% · district not reported

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 5 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-income43%Higher-income94%51 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income30%Higher-income69%39 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income37%Higher-income57%20 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income24%Higher-income55%31 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income41%Higher-income75%35 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income26%Higher-income77%51 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income28%Higher-income62%34 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income44%Higher-income73%29 pp gap