See Newly Released School Performance Reports For Ridgewood, Glen Rock

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — Last week, the New Jersey Department of Education released the latest School Performance Reports, which include data from the last full school year, in this case, 2022-23. Districts are scored based on factors like graduation rates, standardized test scores, academic growth, absenteeism, and more.

The state Department of Education canceled statewide standardized tests n 2019-20 and 2020-21 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but those metrics are back in the latest round of reports.

If you want to check how your New Jersey school district ranked among others during the 2022-23 school year, here’s your chance.

In terms of numbers, the highest performing schools in the state were largely regional, county, and magnet schools. However, some individual public schools did exceptionally well — including a school in Glen Rock and one in Fair Lawn. See the top 10 list below.

Also:

• You can find a list of the schools in Ridgewood here.
• You can look at a report with Ridgewood's district-wide numbers here.
  
• You can look at Glen Rock's district-wide numbers here.
• You can look at other schools by putting the town or school name into this state search bar
  

Statewide Findings, Trends, And Top-Ranked Schools

There are some unique findings in the most recent round of data.

Statewide, statistics show a record-high 91.1 percent four-year graduation rate since the Garden State implemented the federal graduation rate calculation in 2011, as well as the state's second-place ranking in the country for highest percentage of schools offering at least one AP course.

The latest report also highlighted high numbers of chronic absenteeism (defined as being absent for 10 percent or more of the days enrolled during the school year) for students in grades K-12, with 214,698 New Jersey students chronically absent in 2022-23 (up 34.76 percent from 140,068 students a decade prior).

Schools are broken down into categories by configuration, or what grade levels they serve, and compared to others in that category. These include elementary/middle school, high school, and a mixed configuration school which combines many grades into one building.

Elementary schools which only teach children under grade three are not included, as there is no state testing at this level.

"Summative scores" provide a number from 1-99, and are based on factors listed above such as graduation rates and progress in English and math. Higher scores are better, and certain schools with lower scores are put into categories for support and improvement.

Schools are compared to one another based on grade level, as well, in the "summative ratings." For example, schools that serve high school students only are compared with one another. These are percentile ratings from 1-100, so a school with a rating closer to 100 is among the best of its peers.

Top performers

• Pennsauken Township Board of Education School District (Roosevelt Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics)
• Glen Rock Public School District (Alexander Hamilton School)
• Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School District (Woodbridge Academy Magnet School)
• Morris County Vocational School District (Academy for Mathematics, Science and Engineering)
• Monmouth County Vocational School District (High Technology High School)
• Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School District (Edison Academy Magnet School)
• Fair Lawn Public School District (Lyncrest Elementary School)
• School District of the Chathams (Milton Avenue School)
• Bergen County Vocational Technical School District (Bergen County Technical High School - Teterboro)
• Haddonfield School District (Central School)

Read more about this year's report cards here.

Patch editor Nicole Rosenthal contributed to this report.