MAURICE SENDAK COMMUNITY SCHOOL (THE) vs PS 397 FOSTER-LAURIE

Maurice Sendak Community School and PS 397 Foster-Laurie sit 2.3 miles apart in Brooklyn, but their ratings tell a sharply different story. Maurice Sendak Community School earns a 9.3/10 overall versus PS 397 Foster-Laurie's 7.9/10 — a 1.4-point gap that reflects a substantial performance difference. In state context, that gap is even more striking: Maurice Sendak Community School ranks #10 of 4,742 schools in New York, placing it in the top 0.2 percent statewide, while PS 397 Foster-Laurie ranks #761, which is still a solid top-16 percent performance but in an entirely different tier.

Academic results drive most of that separation. Maurice Sendak Community School scores 9.2/10 on academics against PS 397 Foster-Laurie's 7.8/10 — a 1.4-point delta that represents a meaningful gap in measured proficiency. On growth, the two schools are much closer: Maurice Sendak Community School earns a 9.5/10 versus PS 397 Foster-Laurie's 9.2/10, meaning students at both schools are adding value at a high rate relative to peers. Parents at Foster-Laurie can take real confidence from that growth figure even as the absolute academic gap remains wide.

The demographic contrast between the two schools is the sharpest difference of all. Maurice Sendak Community School serves 199 students with 19 percent qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, signaling a largely affluent enrollment. PS 397 Foster-Laurie enrolls 167 students, with 81 percent on free or reduced-price lunch — a 62-percentage-point gap that reflects a fundamentally different community context. Student-teacher ratios are nearly identical: 11.7:1 at Maurice Sendak Community School and 11.9:1 at PS 397 Foster-Laurie, so classroom staffing gives neither school a meaningful edge.

One structural distinction matters for families with younger children: PS 397 Foster-Laurie offers pre-kindergarten starting at PK, while Maurice Sendak Community School begins at kindergarten. Families seeking a single school for a child not yet of kindergarten age have only one option between the two. Both schools then run through fifth grade, so the upper-elementary experience is offered on equal footing in terms of grade span.