The top reported proficiency rate is 75% in Math. The lowest is 53% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Merritt Memorial
Merritt Memorial is one of two elementary schools in the Cresskill Public School District, serving students in first through fifth grade. It is a regular public school in a borough that is a primarily residential suburb of New York City in Bergen County. The school sits on Dogwood Lane, integrated into the borough’s small residential fabric rather than on a separated campus. Cresskill itself is a compact, built-out borough with a small-town feel, named for the watercress that once grew in its streams, and its population has plateaued in recent years after a period of steady growth.
The student body at Merritt Memorial is relatively small for an elementary school serving these grades. The racial and ethnic composition is predominantly white and Asian, with small shares of students who are Hispanic, Black, or of two or more races. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on the share of students with individualized education programs or who are English learners was not available for this school.
Academically, Merritt Memorial stands out as a high-performing school when measured against other districts in Bergen County. On the state’s NJSLA assessments, proficiency rates in both English language arts and math were strong across the grades tested. In third grade, a solid majority of students met the proficient or above benchmark in English language arts, and that rate rose to a large majority in fourth grade before settling back near the two-thirds mark in fifth grade. Math results followed a similar pattern: high rates in third and fourth grades, with a dip in fifth grade where about three out of five students scored proficient. In fifth-grade science, just over half of students met the proficiency standard. Because Merritt Memorial serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report. The school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile among the districts in Bergen County, a clear strength.
The reader should note that the dip in fifth-grade math and the lower science proficiency rate are visible soft spots. Fifth grade is often the first year students take a science assessment, and the proficiency bar is set at a different level, but a parent may want to ask the school how it supports students as they approach the transition to middle school, particularly in math. The school does not offer the kind of program pathways common in high schools, such as Advanced Placement or career and technical education, because the grade band does not support them.
The broader district context includes a notable capital investment. Publicly reported fiscal data shows that the Cresskill Public School District has committed a significant sum to construction and total capital outlay, a large per-student figure that suggests ongoing facility work that may affect families attending Merritt Memorial or the district’s other elementary school, Edward H. Bryan School. The district also operates a combined middle and high school for grades six through twelve.
For a family considering this school, the picture is that of a small, academically strong elementary school in an affluent, suburban borough with limited new development and a tight housing market. Home values in the area are well above the national and state medians, and rents are very high relative to income, a reflection of the broader Bergen County market. The student body is not economically diverse by the measure of free-lunch eligibility, but it is racially and ethnically mixed in a specific way: mostly white and Asian families. A parent looking for a school with strong elementary academic outcomes in a quiet, residential suburb with significant district investment in facilities would find this a good match. A parent concerned about the drop in fifth-grade math performance or wanting more student diversity as measured by socioeconomic background might want to investigate further with the school
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