Ascend is a network of K-12 public charter schools serving 5,800 students in 16 schools across Brooklyn—New York’s most populous borough. Ascend exists to serve every student—to help them embody their inherent excellence by providing rich, joyful learning experiences that unlock a life of boundless choice.

Ascend is a network of K-12 schools that honor, nurture, and challenge the whole child. We foster critical thinking skills and a love of learning through our inquiry-based learning approach, Responsive Classroom model, and anti-racist education. We are deeply committed to advancing educational equity for all of our students.

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Ascend is a Brooklyn-based network of public charter schools that puts our students, their possibility, and their dignity at the center of everything we do. Ascend opened its first school—Brooklyn Ascend Lower School in Brownsville—in 2008 to 210 students in kindergarten through second grade. Ascend has grown to a network of 16 public charter schools in Brooklyn educating 5,800 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Ascend schools are located in the Central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Brownsville, Bushwick, Canarsie, Cypress Hills, East New York, East Flatbush, and Flatbush.

Ascend offers a rich, varied, rigorous Common Core-aligned curriculum, in a warm, supportive, and joyful culture. Our community is powered by our bold dreams, love of learning, commitment to collaboration, focus on anti-racism, and dignity and respect. Ascend schools are free, public, and open to all students by lottery. We proudly serve students with special needs and English language learners and fill every vacated seat through 9th grade.

We are relentlessly bold.

We dream wild futures inspired by our students’ power and confidently act on our unwavering belief that together, we can bring these dreams to life.

We are in love with learning.

We embody the hard work, dedication, and tenacity that power our learning journey and believe that laughter, community, creativity, and curiosity strengthen us along the way.

We are in this together.

We thrive through strong relationships amongst our schools, our families, and our communities, becoming stronger by learning from and with each other.

We are committed to shaping a more equitable future.

We work endlessly to ensure an equitable and just education for our students that is rooted in anti-racism and advances equity in our schools and in our world.

We are a place for all people.

We treat every person with dignity and respect, celebrating the many unique identities that add beauty, authenticity, knowledge, and depth to our community.

Our Programs

At Ascend, we recognize that within the education system as a whole and our own organization, many systems, and structures, even when well-intentioned, serve to perpetuate white supremacist culture. We recognize our participation in oppressive systems and we fully commit to becoming a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist organization.

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Significant student academic growth

We see and believe in the inherent excellence of every one of our students. Our role is to provide rich, joyful learning experiences that help students live to their fullest potentials. Ascend students make impressive academic progress.

Between 2015-2019, Ascend students had significantly higher growth rates than the average for the state, city, and their charter school peers. In ELA, Ascend students had an overall proficiency growth of 35 percent, as compared to 17 percent growth for NYC students and 14 percent for students statewide. In mathematics, Ascend students had an overall proficiency growth of 40 percent, as compared to 9 percent growth for NYC students and 10 percent for students statewide.