The top reported proficiency rate is 85% in English language arts. The lowest is 81% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Luther Lee Emerson School
Luther Lee Emerson School serves second through fourth grade in Demarest, a small, affluent, primarily residential borough in Bergen County. The school is one of three elementary buildings in the Demarest School District, sitting between County Road School (pre-kindergarten through first grade) and Demarest Middle School (fifth through eighth grade). For high school, students from Demarest attend Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest, which also serves neighboring Closter and Haworth. Academy of the Holy Angels, a private Catholic school, is also located in the borough.
The school’s enrollment is modest for its grade band. The student body is roughly evenly split between white students and Asian students, with a very small share of Hispanic students, and almost no Black or multiracial students. Data on economic disadvantage, special education identification, and English learner status were not available, so a parent may want to ask the school or district directly about the level and type of student support services available.
On state assessments, the school posts results that place its overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades in the top quartile among districts in Bergen County. In third-grade math, the share of students scoring proficient or above was high, with a slight drop in fourth-grade math. English language arts proficiency was also strong in both tested grades, with a slightly higher share meeting the bar in third grade than in fourth. The numbers suggest that most students are meeting grade-level expectations by a comfortable margin, and the school’s performance is competitive with the highest-performing elementary schools in the county.
Because Luther Lee Emerson serves only grades two through four, the school does not have its own graduation rate, and chronic absenteeism data were not available. The district does not appear to provide course-access or staffing-ratio information in the data reviewed here, and no program offerings were listed.
The community context matters for any parent considering this school. Demarest is a low-density suburban borough with no traditional downtown commercial strip. Its civic anchors include the Duck Pond, a restored historic railroad depot used for community events, a free public library, and a volunteer fire department and ambulance corps. Rockland Coaches bus service from a stop by the Duck Pond connects residents to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan and the Palisades Center in West Nyack. The housing stock is almost entirely single-family homes, and home values are elevated relative to national and state benchmarks, consistent with an affluent Northern Valley suburb. The borough’s population has been roughly stable in recent years, with no major new developments identified.
The district recently completed HVAC upgrades and capital improvements across its schools, with a notable sum in total capital outlay in the most recent audited financial report. This investment affects the physical environment at Luther Lee Emerson as well as the other district buildings.
For a family weighing options, Luther Lee Emerson provides a strong academic foundation in the early elementary years, with top-quartile proficiency rates in a well-regarded suburban district. The student body is not diverse by income or language status based on available data, and the school’s small enrollment in a high-cost housing market means the surrounding community is largely limited to families who can afford the area’s home prices. Parents whose children will move through the district should note that the school is a single stop in a coherent progression from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade within Demarest, after which students enter the regional high school arrangement.
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