Leadership Prep Ocean Hill Uncommon Charter Academy

Leadership Preparatory Ocean Hill Charter School, part of the Uncommon Schools charter network, was founded in 2010 and spans kindergarten through 8th grade with its Elementary Academy and Middle Academy, both housed in the same building. The school has strong leadership and a safe, respectful environment with little indication of bullying on school surveys. Test scores are better than the citywide average and far above other schools in the Brownsville neighborhood. More than 90 percent of 8th graders earned some high school credit. The school’s atmosphere and leadership get fairly high marks as well.

The intense, academically demanding school has an extended school year and a school day that begins at 7:15 a.m. for middle schoolers and 7:30 a.m. for elementary students, and lasts until 4 p.m. (12:30 p.m. on Fridays). Those who are struggling academically stay even later for tutoring and may come in on Saturdays. Students have significant amounts of homework every night: about 45 minutes a night for the elementary grades and about two hours a night for the middle school grades. The school urges parents to be involved with the homework and provides a Homework Hotline for them to call.

In 2017, the U.S. Department of Education named the Elementary Academy a Blue Ribbon School, an honor recognizing academic excellence. This came after 99 percent of 3rd-graders scored proficient on the state standardized math exam. In 2016, the school was one of seven high-performing charter schools awarded a grant by the state Education Department to share their practices with traditional public schools.

Enrichment and athletics include drama, arts, dance, basketball and step.

The school is safe and orderly, with strict rules of conduct. Students who are late must stay for detention; those who skip class or repeatedly violate the dress code may be suspended; a child who misses more than 10 days of school may be held back, according to the family handbook.

Although surveys show children feel safe inside the building, roughly one third of the teachers are concerned about safety outside the building on surveys.

Graduates of Leadership Prep Ocean Hill can go on to Uncommon Leadership Charter High School, which opened on the Franklin K. Lane Campus on the Brooklyn-Queens border in 2017.

ADMISSIONS: Lottery for both kindergarten and 5th grade, with priority to students who live in District 23. Applications are available from the Uncommon website. (Lydie Raschka, web reports, August 2017; updated by Gail Robinson, DOE statistics and web reports, May 2018)