Summary:
There is just one school in the Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy PCS district: Mary McLeod Bethune Day Academy PCS, a Washington, DC public charter elementary school located at 1404 Jackson Street NE that serves 310 students from Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 8. The school is unusual in that it serves as its own district, meaning district-level statistics are essentially school-level statistics. The school is very well-resourced: it spends $34,581 per student and has a low student-teacher ratio of 6.7, suggesting small class sizes or significant staffing investment. The district currently ranks 42 out of 46 DC districts, placing it in the 9th percentile with a 1-star rating.
Academic performance at the school is well below DC state averages in nearly every subject and grade. In 2025–2026, all-grades English Language Arts proficiency was 20.0% compared to the state average of 39.6%, and math proficiency was 14.0% compared to the state average of 28.2%. Grade-level results show extreme variability. Third grade math stands out as a relative bright spot at 36.1% proficiency, just 4.4 points below the state average of 40.5%. However, math performance collapses after 3rd grade: 4th grade falls to 6.0%, 5th grade to 6.4%, 6th grade to 4.0%, and 7th grade to 7.6%. In English Language Arts, 8th grade is the weakest area at just 8.3% proficiency, a 37.1-point gap below the state average of 45.4%.
The school's ranking history has been volatile. It ranked 102nd out of 126 schools in 2023–2024, jumped to 60th out of 128 in 2024–2025, then dropped back to 90th out of 124 in 2025–2026. This is notable because the school's math proficiency actually improved from 10.9% to 14.0% and ELA from 19.7% to 20.0% over the most recent year — yet its rank fell sharply. This suggests other DC schools improved faster or the ranking model shifted. For parents, the key takeaway is that while the school has strong resources and a promising 3rd grade math result, the dramatic decline in math after 3rd grade and the very low 8th grade ELA scores are concerns worth investigating.
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