Mildred Barry Garvin Elementary, East Orange NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Mildred Barry Garvin Elementary

Mildred Barry Garvin Elementary serves third through fifth grade in East Orange, a dense city that blends urban density with suburban-style housing stock. The school is part of the East Orange School District. Parents considering this school are looking at a mid-elementary program that feeds into the district’s middle and high schools.

The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic enrollment and very small numbers of white, Asian, and multiracial students. A significant share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a context where a majority of families are managing economic constraints. This is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, drawing from its local attendance zone.

State test results from the most recent year show a mixed picture. In math, proficiency rates across third, fourth, and fifth grades are each below a third of students tested, with fourth grade posting the lowest figure. In English language arts, the pattern is more varied. Third grade shows a rate below a quarter, while fourth grade climbs to above two fifths and fifth grade approaches half. Science testing, administered only in fifth grade, shows a very low proficiency rate. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, as the science result stands apart from the ELA trajectory and could reflect curriculum emphasis or test readiness. Overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places the school in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Essex County.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism, special education identification, and English learner services were not available in the source material. A parent who wants to understand the school’s supports for students with disabilities or multilingual learners would need to ask the school directly.

East Orange itself is a transit-oriented city with two NJ Transit train stations providing direct service to midtown Manhattan. The city is designated as a Transit Village, emphasizing walkable, transit-connected neighborhoods. Commercial corridors along Main Street and Central Avenue anchor retail and dining. Healthcare is the dominant employment sector, with CareWell Health Medical Center and a Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center as major employers. The city has seen population growth in recent years, rebounding from an earlier decline, and its Urban Enterprise Zone, set to expire in 2027, supports commercial investment. The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes of lasting impact; the district appears stable in its operations.

For a family, Mildred Barry Garvin Elementary offers a small, contained elementary setting for grades three through five, within a city that provides strong transit access to New York City and a mix of urban and suburban residential fabric. The academic numbers point to areas where the school is working to raise performance, particularly in math and science, while ELA results show a notable improvement as students move through the grades, with fifth graders performing stronger than third graders. That upward trend in reading is a detail a parent may find worth asking the principal about: whether there is a specific literacy initiative driving the change and whether it can be extended to other subjects.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 329%

School 29% · District 31% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 422%

School 22% · District 22% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 20% · ▲ 7 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 322%

School 22% · District 32% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 40% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 547%

School 47% · District 38% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Science

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 11% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

This schoolEast Orange 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income19%Higher-income27%8 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income31%Higher-income60%29 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income59%Higher-income24%35 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income28%Higher-income31%3 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income17%Higher-income30%13 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income32%Higher-income18%15 pp gap