Robert C Dodson School, Yonkers NY

Original Research by School Decision on Robert C Dodson School

Robert C. Dodson School sits on Avondale Road in Yonkers, a pre-K through eighth grade public school within the Yonkers City School District. It is a mid-to-large school for its grade band, serving a student body that is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller shares of Black, white, and Asian students. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic profile of the surrounding neighborhood. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in what was provided.

On the New York State Testing Program, the school's results are mixed across grades and subjects. In math, performance is relatively stronger in seventh grade, where roughly three in five students scored proficient or above, while fifth grade is a softer spot, with fewer than a third reaching proficiency. Third, fourth, sixth, and eighth grade math results sit in a moderate range, neither dramatically low nor particularly strong. In ELA, scores are fairly consistent across most grades, hovering in the mid-to-upper forties in proficiency, though fourth grade dips noticeably below that, and eighth grade also trails. Fifth grade science showed roughly a third of students at proficiency. Eighth grade science data reflects zero students tested, which may indicate a scheduling or assessment pathway issue; a parent would be worth asking the school about directly. Social studies testing data in the payload comes only from a much earlier year and is not current enough to describe.

Placed against districts in Westchester County, the school's overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile of that comparison set. Westchester County contains a wide range of districts, from some of the highest-performing in the state to urban districts serving high-need populations, so that positioning reflects the school's urban, high-poverty context as much as anything about instruction in isolation. The data does not include a graduation rate, which does not apply here since the school ends at eighth grade.

Chronic absenteeism data was not reported, so there is no way to characterize attendance patterns from what is available.

Yonkers itself is a large, dense city, the third-largest in New York State by population, with distinct neighborhoods ranging from a redeveloping waterfront downtown to quieter residential sections farther inland. The Avondale Road address places Dodson in a residential part of the city. Publicly reported accounts describe sustained private investment in downtown Yonkers, new residential towers, and an active film-studio complex, alongside ongoing concerns about affordability and displacement of longtime residents. The housing market in the school's zip code is well above state and national medians, with rents also running high relative to typical incomes, and values have continued to appreciate. Transit access across the city is solid, with Metro-North's Hudson Line stations and an extensive county bus network.

At the district level, Yonkers is in the middle of a long-term school construction and modernization effort. A first new building, the Justice Sonia Sotomayor Community School, opened in fall 2024 as a dual-language Pre-K through 8 community school, and a second new building was announced in 2025 for a site near Grant Park. The district also voted to close one low-enrollment elementary school at the end of the 2024-2025 school year, which will redirect some families to new placements. One structural fact worth knowing: Yonkers is governed by mayoral control rather than an elected school board, one of only two districts in New York State under that arrangement, which shapes how much formal voice parents have in district decisions.

Dodson is a neighborhood school with a diverse, predominantly Latino student body in a city undergoing real physical change. Its test results in the most recent year show some grade-level variation worth tracking, particularly the drop in fifth grade math and the softer ELA performance in fourth and eighth grade. A parent considering this school would do well to ask about support structures for those transition grades and about the eighth grade science testing picture specifically.

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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
Science	96	29.0%
Math	29	100.0%

Math

Grade 345%

School 45% · District 50% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 53% · ▼ 5 pts below district

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

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 43% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 45% · ▼ 5 pts below district

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

Grade 762%

School 62% · District 45% · ▲ 17 pts above district

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

Grade 842%

School 42% · District 38% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 348%

School 48% · District 49% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 46% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

Grade 547%

School 47% · District 50% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 646%

School 46% · District 45% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 745%

School 45% · District 47% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 45% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 35% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 17% · ▼ 17 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 578%

School 78% · district not reported

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

Grade 853%

School 53% · district not reported

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 36 pts below county median

This schoolYONKERS 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-income49%Higher-income44%5 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income36%Higher-income31%5 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income55%Higher-income27%28 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income44%Higher-income80%36 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income43%Higher-income67%24 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income41%Higher-income20%20 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income33%17 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income44%Higher-income65%22 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income32%Higher-income21%11 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income39%Higher-income50%11 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income64%Higher-income50%14 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income45%Higher-income21%24 pp gap