Hope Community Charter School, Camden NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Hope Community Charter School

Hope Community Charter School is a K-8 charter school in Camden, New Jersey, offering a single-campus pathway for families who want their child to stay in the same school from kindergarten through the end of middle school. The school recently completed its grade-span expansion, having opened with just kindergarten through second grade and then adding one grade per year until it reached its full K-8 configuration for the 2022-2023 school year. For a parent considering this school, the main draw is this continuity: a child can enter in kindergarten and leave eight years later having been educated in a single building with a consistent community.

The student body is small and almost entirely low-income, with a very high share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The population is predominantly Hispanic and Black, and the school sits in a dense urban setting in Camden, a small post-industrial city directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. Camden has struggled with significant poverty and a declining population, though recent redevelopment has brought institutional employers such as hospitals and universities into the downtown core. Housing values in the zip code are well below both state and national benchmarks, and rents are relatively low. The charter school is part of a district that is the school itself, so there is no larger traditional district context to consider.

State testing data for the 2024-2025 school year shows a pattern of very low proficiency across most grades and subjects. In math, proficiency rates were reported for grades three through seven, with the highest rate in third grade and rates of zero in fourth, sixth, and seventh grades. The fifth grade saw about a quarter of students proficient. In English language arts, the rates were also low, with a peak in fifth grade where half of students met the proficiency bar, but zero proficiency in fourth and seventh grades. Science data for grade five shows about a third of students proficient, while grade eight results were suppressed. The school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile of Camden County districts. A parent considering this school will want to discuss the testing results directly with the school and ask about academic supports and interventions, particularly for the grades where no students reached the proficient level. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report.

The school had neither discipline data nor chronic absenteeism information available in the data provided, and special education and English learner counts were also missing. A parent should ask the school directly about its approach to supporting students with disabilities, its discipline policies, and its attendance patterns. The school's mission is rooted in the local community, and the grade-span expansion suggests a deliberate effort to offer a complete elementary and middle school experience in a charter setting. For a family seeking a small, familiar school environment in urban Camden, this is one of the options, but the academic results indicate that the school is struggling to move most of its students to grade-level proficiency, and a prospective parent would be wise to investigate what academic catch-up programs and enrichment are actually in place.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 40%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 40 pts below county median

Grade 525%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 40%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 55 pts below state median · ▼ 50 pts below county median

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 50%

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 623%

School 23% · District 23%

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 57 pts below state median · ▼ 44 pts below county median

Science

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 33%

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

This schoolHope Community Charter School, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.