Brownsville Ascend Charter School
- 1501 PITKIN AVENUE, Brooklyn
- Grades K-8
- Curtis Durham, Principal
- 718-240-9162
About
Brownsville Ascend Charter School, serving grades K-8, has an enrollment of 592 students, which is above the citywide median. The school's Economic Need Index is 90 percent and 94 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, both at the citywide 75th percentile. The student body is 78 percent Black and 16 percent Hispanic. English Language Learners constitute 3 percent of students, which is well below the citywide 25th percentile. For Grade 3-8 state tests, 61 percent of students achieved ELA proficiency and 57 percent achieved Math proficiency, both above the citywide median. The school's accelerated coursework rate is 1 percent, well below the citywide 25th percentile. The school describes itself as fostering critical thinking and a love of learning through the Science of Reading, inquiry-based learning, and the Responsive Classroom model, emphasizing educational equity. Parent and student survey results are not available for this school.
Sources (4)
Academics
State test proficiency rates and acceleration.
ELA proficiency
61%
Math proficiency
57%
Proficiency rates are from the Grade 3–8 NYS state test (school-level).
Attendance rate
82%
Avg class size (general ed)
—
Avg class size (ICT)
—
Community & climate
Demographics, attendance, school survey results, and DOE quality ratings.
Quality signals
NYC School Survey, 2025-26
Overall positive % is averaged across every Pos/Neg survey question per respondent group (school year 2025-2026). Survey topics are the DOE’s framework measures (each the average favorable response across its questions; expand a topic to see them and the citywide average); the dimension scores themselves are no longer in the public data file.[3]
Operational health
Attendance
82%
Chronic absenteeism
27%
Suspension rate
11%
Teachers[7]
Teachers with 4+ years' experience
39%
Students per teacher
18:1
Teaching out of certification
100%
Teacher experience and certification from the NYSED School Report Card (2024–25); students per teacher = enrollment ÷ reported teachers. Fewer than 4 years counts as inexperienced.
Student body
Race / ethnicity[4]
- Asian 1%
- Black 78%
- Hispanic 16%
- White 2%
- Multiracial 1%
School-level totals; may not sum to 100% due to rounding and small subgroup suppression.
Gender[4]
- Female 51%
- Male 49%
Female / male shares as published by the DOE; other gender identities aren’t reported in the source data.
Enrollment
592
Economic Need Index
90%
Free / reduced lunch
94%
English learners
3%
Students with IEPs
18%
Financials
[8]What this school has to spend, and what it spends it on. Spending is not a measure of quality. Schools serving more students with higher needs receive more money.
Charter schools manage their own budgets rather than receiving a school allocation from the DOE, so the staffing and supplies breakdown the DOE publishes for district schools is not published for this school.
Spending
Total spend
$10.9MStudents: 591
31st percentile citywide
Total spend per student
$18,406
2nd percentile citywide · city median $33,357
Location & commute
Where the school is and how to get there.