Deal Elementary School, Deal NJ - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Deal Elementary School

Deal Elementary is the single school serving the Deal Boro School District, a K-8 regular public school in the tiny, oceanfront borough of Deal on the New Jersey shore. The school sits within a community that is both small and extraordinarily wealthy. Deal is a predominantly residential borough with a year-round population that is modest, but the number of residents swells dramatically in summer, driven largely by an Orthodox Sephardic Jewish community, many of whom come from Brooklyn. The housing stock consists of older Victorian and Foursquare homes alongside oceanfront mansions, and Deal has consistently ranked among the most expensive ZIP codes in New Jersey, with Forbes listing it as the most expensive in the state in recent years. The borough has no traditional downtown and very limited commercial activity; its character is overwhelmingly residential and seasonal.

The student body at Deal Elementary is small, reflecting the size of the community, with enrollment spread across kindergarten through eighth grade. The student population is heavily white, with much smaller shares of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that, given the area’s extreme housing wealth, may represent a narrower slice of the community than it would in many other places. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the source material. The school itself occupies a single building embedded in the residential fabric rather than on a remote campus.

Academically, state assessment results from the most recent testing year show a pattern that varies sharply by grade. In math, proficiency rates in grades three through six are relatively low, while the seventh-grade cohort posted a very high proficiency rate. Eighth-grade math results were suppressed, likely due to a very small testing group. English language arts results show more consistency, with most tested grades falling around the middle of the range and seventh and eighth grades performing at a higher level. Science proficiency in both fifth and eighth grades was low. The school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades, when measured as an index, places it below the midpoint relative to districts in Monmouth County. A parent may want to explore this variation further with the school, particularly to understand what accounts for the jump in seventh-grade math and whether supports are in place for the earlier grades where proficiency is weaker.

Because Deal Elementary serves only kindergarten through eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. For ninth grade onward, students attend Shore Regional High School in neighboring West Long Branch through a sending-receiving relationship, so the high school experience happens outside the borough entirely. The district brief found no recent major changes such as property-tax shifts, referendums, or curriculum overhauls that would affect families. Chronic absenteeism data and program offerings were also absent from the available records. What is clear is that Deal Elementary operates in a setting of extraordinary housing wealth and a tight-knit, seasonal community, and its academic results present a mixed picture that families will want to investigate directly with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 341%

School 41% · District 41%

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 411%

School 11% · District 11%

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

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 39 pts below county median

Grade 618%

School 18% · District 18%

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

Grade 789%

School 89% · District 89%

▲ 54 pts above state median · ▲ 43 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 353%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 450%

School 50% · District 50%

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 47%

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 778%

School 78% · District 78%

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

Grade 873%

School 73% · District 73%

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

Science

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 813%

School 13% · District 13%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

This schoolDeal Boro 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.