STRATFORD ROAD SCHOOL vs PASADENA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Pasadena Elementary School and Stratford Road School sit 0.8 miles apart in Plainview, New York, but their state rankings tell a meaningful story: Pasadena Elementary ranks #49 of 4,742 schools in New York, placing it in roughly the top 1%, while Stratford Road School ranks #108 — still an elite result, but 59 positions back in a field of nearly five thousand schools. On the overall 10-point scale, the gap is 0.2 points (9.1 versus 8.9), a modest headline figure that understates the positional difference when viewed through the state-rank lens.

Academically, the two schools are close: Pasadena Elementary scores 9.1 and Stratford Road School scores 9.0, a one-tenth difference that is essentially a wash. The more telling delta is on growth — Pasadena Elementary scores 9.0 versus Stratford Road School's 8.6, a 0.4-point gap indicating that students at Pasadena Elementary are advancing at a measurably faster rate relative to expectations. For families who weight year-over-year academic progress alongside absolute proficiency, that four-tenths gap matters.

Both schools share identical demographic profiles. Stratford Road School enrolls 596 students compared to Pasadena Elementary's 443, making Stratford roughly 35% larger. Despite that enrollment difference, both schools run an identical student-teacher ratio of 9.8:1 — an unusually low figure that signals strong staffing at both campuses. Free and reduced lunch eligibility also mirrors exactly at 17% for each school, indicating comparable socioeconomic draws from Plainview's population.

Both schools serve kindergarten through grade 4, so families will need to plan a middle-school transition from either campus on the same timeline. The structural experience — grade span, class size, and economic diversity — is a near-perfect match. The differentiation comes down to growth trajectory and state-rank standing, where Pasadena Elementary holds the clearer edge.