Bushwick Ascend Charter School
Grades K-8 · 751 KNICKERBOCKER AVENUE · Brooklyn
Danielle Pena, Principal · 347-289-9080
About
Bushwick Ascend Charter School, serving grades K-8, is recognized for its strong academic performance, with ELA proficiency at the citywide 75th percentile and math proficiency exceeding it. The school is part of the Ascend network, which emphasizes a "whole child" approach, critical thinking, and anti-racist education through a Responsive Classroom model and inquiry-based learning. It operates in Bushwick across two adjacent sites for its lower and middle schools, housed in renovated facilities. The curriculum integrates arts, dance, physical education, and computer science. While some parents praise the school's support for student advancement, others have expressed concerns regarding inconsistent teaching staff, communication, and transparency, particularly for students with special needs. The school aims to create a joyful learning environment and offers free student meals and mental health support. It is generally well-regarded, ranking among the top public and charter schools in New York.
Sources (21)
Academics
State test proficiency rates and acceleration.
ELA proficiency
70%
Math proficiency
77%
Proficiency rates are from the Grade 3–8 NYS state test (school-level).
Attendance rate
Community & climate
Demographics, attendance, school survey results, and DOE quality ratings.
Quality signals
Overall positive % is averaged across every Pos/Neg survey question per respondent group (school year 2023-2024). 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
84%
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
$12.5MStudents: 738
Location & commute
Where the school is and how to get there.