PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE)

Located at 330 59TH ST, in BROOKLYN, New York, PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) is a medium-sized elementary campus that instructs 550 students (grades K through 5), operated by NEW YORK CITY GEOGRAPHIC DISTRICT #20. By comparison, New York's public schools average about 443 students each, so PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) sits 24% above that benchmark.

NEW YORK CITY GEOGRAPHIC DISTRICT #20 runs 48 schools in total, collectively educating 44,136 students. PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) is one of those campuses.

In terms of who attends, PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) shows that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 76% of enrollment. The remainder consists of 14% Asian, 8% White. The wider county runs roughly 19% Hispanic, putting the school's mix meaningfully more Hispanic than the area baseline.

On the resource side, The school reports having 71 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 7.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 12.8:1 average. About 94% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Kings County runs at roughly 79%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 40.4%, the actual is 50.1%, a residual of +9.7 points.

Zooming out to the county, ACS estimates for Kings County put the typical household earns roughly $80,263 per year, roughly 42% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 15% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Kings County's 583 public schools (combined enrollment of about 291,697 students), PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: PS 506 SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AND TECHNOLOGY (THE), around 0.0 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) comes 5th of 8 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 51.4%.

PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) operates from a high-density location.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 49%: 1,081 students in 2018 compared to 550 in 2025. Over the same period, the Asian share declined from 21% to 14%. Class-load math has narrowed: from 11.5:1 in 2018 to 7.8:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, the feed for PS 503 SCHOOL OF DISCOVERY (THE) typically covers fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.