Hillside Avenue School, Cranford NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Hillside Avenue School

Hillside Avenue School is a regular public school in Cranford, New Jersey, serving kindergarten through eighth grade as part of the Cranford Public School District. The school sits within a township that describes itself as a bedroom community to New York City, with a downtown built around a train station and pedestrian plazas, a riverwalk along the Rahway River, and three business parks that bring inbound commuters as well. The town has seen downtown investment through transit-oriented development near the station, and a mix of historic homes and neighborhoods shape the residential character.

Enrollment at Hillside Avenue is substantial for a K-8 building, with students spread across all nine grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with meaningful shares of Hispanic, Asian, and Black students, and a smaller presence of multiracial students. A very modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, well below statewide averages. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the profile; a parent may want to ask the school directly about special education and language support services.

On state assessments, Hillside Avenue shows strong academic performance in both math and English language arts across most tested grades. In math, proficiency rates for third, fourth, sixth, and seventh graders are solidly above the state midpoint, with sixth grade particularly high. Fifth grade math is somewhat lower, and eighth grade math drops noticeably, with fewer than half of students reaching proficiency. This dip at the upper end is a pattern a parent may want to explore further with the school, especially to understand how the middle school math curriculum sequences into high school. In ELA, the story is consistently strong: every tested grade from third through eighth posts proficiency rates that are well above the state median, with sixth and seventh graders performing especially well. Eighth grade ELA is a bit softer but still above average. Science results are tested in fifth and eighth grades and are weaker in both years, with a minority of students reaching proficiency. That too is worth a conversation, as science performance does not track with the school's otherwise strong literacy and math outcomes.

Because Hillside Avenue ends at eighth grade, there is no high school graduation rate to report for this building. Students move on to Cranford High School, which is part of the same district.

The school sits in a housing market that reflects Cranford's desirability. Home values in the area are well above national and state medians, and rents are high relative to incomes. The township offers a walkable downtown, train access to Newark and Manhattan, parks and river recreation, and a mix of older and newer development projects. For families considering relocating for the school, housing affordability is a practical factor to weigh.

When placed against other districts in Union County, Hillside Avenue's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades lands in the top quartile. That positioning, combined with the school's consistently strong ELA scores and generally solid math results through early middle school, paints a picture of a school that delivers above-average academic outcomes within a well-resourced suburban community. The soft spots in eighth grade math and in science are real outliers that parents should investigate, but they do not define the school's broader profile. The school's size, its location in a town with an active downtown and commuter rail, and its demographic makeup are characteristics that families will weigh according to their own priorities. District-level strategic planning information was not available, so this account focuses on what the data and the town's published materials show.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 375%

School 75% · District 78% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 35 pts above county median

Grade 467%

School 67% · District 69% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Grade 557%

School 57% · District 63% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 677%

School 77% · District 80% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 44 pts above state median · ▲ 51 pts above county median

Grade 771%

School 71% · District 71%

▲ 36 pts above state median · ▲ 49 pts above county median

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 32% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 374%

School 74% · District 70% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Grade 475%

School 75% · District 74% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 564%

School 64% · District 71% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 677%

School 77% · District 81% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 775%

School 75% · District 80% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 867%

School 67% · District 74% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Science

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 53% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 42% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

This schoolCranford Public School District, 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.