The top reported proficiency rate is 69% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lincoln School
Lincoln School serves fourth and fifth graders in East Rutherford, a small Bergen County borough with a mix of residential streets and large-scale commercial and entertainment uses. The school is one of three in the East Rutherford School District, which handles pre-kindergarten through eighth grade before students move on to Becton Regional High School. For a family considering this school, the picture is of an elementary building with solid ELA scores, math results that sit closer to the middle of the pack among Bergen County districts, and a notable weakness in science that a parent may want to explore further with the school.
On state assessments, Lincoln’s English language arts results are a clear strength. In both fourth and fifth grades, a substantial majority of students scored at or above the proficiency threshold on the NJSLA. Math results were more mixed: about half of fourth graders met the bar, while a modest majority of fifth graders did. When looking at the combined picture across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index falls below the midpoint when compared with other districts in Bergen County. That is a blunt positioning, but it is driven largely by science, where only about three in ten fifth graders scored proficient. Science is tested only in fifth grade at this level, so that single data point carries significant weight. A parent should consider how strong a priority science instruction is for their child and may want to ask the school what supports are in place.
The student body is diverse. A little under half of the roughly 150 students identify as Hispanic, roughly three in ten as white, and smaller shares as Asian and Black. Just under half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a common measure of economic need that is about typical for a public school in a mixed-income suburb. The school serves only two grades, so the enrollment is naturally modest for that band, and the peer group a child experiences will be the same cohort both years.
East Rutherford itself shapes the day-to-day context. The borough is a low-density, auto-oriented suburb. The residential core near the municipal building has some walkable street life, but the major draws—the American Dream mall, MetLife Stadium, and the Route 17 commercial corridor—are designed around highway access. The housing market is expensive relative to national norms, with home values that place it well above the typical national benchmark and rents that make buying versus renting a close call. The district has been stable: we looked for recent changes such as boundary shifts, program launches, or leadership turnover, but found nothing that met the bar for a lasting impact on families.
What is missing from the data may be as important as what is present. There are no figures on chronic absenteeism, discipline, or staffing ratios, so it is not possible to compare Lincoln on those fronts. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to consider. Those gaps are a function of the school’s grade band and the data available, not a signal of any problem. For a parent, the central takeaway is that Lincoln delivers strong reading instruction in a diverse, mid-sized setting within a compact district, with math results that are decent but not standout and science results that are worth a closer conversation.
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