Cherry Hill Among The Best School Districts In The State In New Rankings

CHERRY HILL, NJ — A new ranking of the state's best school districts has been released and the Cherry Hill Public School District is ranked 71st.

Niche.com, which recently released its annual rankings of the best school districts in the country, looked at data from the U.S. Department of Education as well as test scores, college data and ratings collected from users.

The methodology for each category of ranking varied. (Click here for more information on how Niche calculates its rankings.)

Niche assigns a standardized score for each factor, which is then weighted before an overall score is calculated for each school district. The overall scores are again standardized and some districts are disqualified from receiving a final letter grade if there isn’t enough data. School districts are then ranked numerically and assigned grades.

Cherry Hill received an overall grade of A-. Its highest score was an A, for clubs and activities and for college prep. (You can see the full report card here.)

“The Cherry Hill School district is overall great," one reviewer wrote. "I didn't have problems with teachers and neither did anybody else I knew. In fact I really liked most of my teachers that I've had throughout the years. I like some of them enough that I always go back to visit them whenever I am free. There are always many sports to choose from and the community is very active ranging from fundraisers to various clubs giving opportunities for community service. But the district can make bad decisions at times. They like to make a lot more unnecessary work for themselves and the schools. For example this one time when the weather condition was just horrible (during winter when roads became dangerous and slippery and it was said to snow up to 6 inches that day). Every other district around us cancelled school. But not ours. They made us come to school and ended up dismissing us at the middle of second period after they saw the weather and the news report. But other than that it's a great district.”

According to Niche, these are the 25 best school districts in New Jersey:

1. Princeton Public Schools (14th in nation)
2. Millburn Township Schools (36th in nation)
3. West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District (55th in nation)
4. Livingston Public Schools (97th in nation)
5. Summit Public Schools
6. The School District of the Chathams
7. Bernards Township School District
8. Montgomery Township School District
9. Tenafly Public Schools
10. West Essex Regional School District, North Caldwell
11. East Brunswick Public Schools
12. Pascack Valley Regional High School District, Montvale
13. Moorestown Township Public School District
14. Montclair Public Schools
15. Ridgewood Public Schools
16. South Brunswick Public Schools
17. West Morris Regional High School District
18. Hopewell Valley Regional School District
19. Glen Ridge Public Schools
20. Haddonfield Public Schools
21. Fair Lawn School District
22. Mountain Lakes School District
23. Somerset Hills Regional School District, Bernardsville
24. Northern Valley Regional High School District, Demarest
25. Berkeley Heights Public Schools

Click here to see the full list.

Niche’s data for its K-12 school district rankings comes from various sources, including the U.S. Department of Education, the National Center for Education Statistics and the Civil Rights Data Collection.

The rankings also rely on data that is self-reported by Niche users and schools. (Click here to learn more about where Niche’s data comes from.)

What do you think of the rankings? Let us know in the comments below.

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