The top reported proficiency rate is 73% in English language arts. The lowest is 32% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on James Madison School #10
James Madison School #10 is a regular public elementary school in Garfield, New Jersey, serving students from prekindergarten through fifth grade. It sits within the Garfield Public School District, a densely built city in Bergen County situated at the junction of the Passaic and Saddle Rivers, roughly a short trip west of New York City. Garfield combines residential neighborhoods of single-family homes, two-family homes, and small apartment buildings with commercial corridors. Its population is diverse and relatively young. The district itself drew recent attention when Washington Irving School #4, another elementary school in Garfield, was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2023, one of only a handful of schools in New Jersey to receive that recognition that year—a publicly reported indicator of academic quality elsewhere in the same system.
For a parent or resident evaluating James Madison, the state testing results offer a clear picture of academic performance. The school participates in New Jersey's statewide assessments for math, English language arts, and science. Across the tested grades of three, four, and five, proficiency rates in math and ELA consistently rose with each grade level. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above increased from third to fourth to fifth grade, reaching a level that placed the school above the midpoint among the county’s districts on an overall proficiency index. In English language arts, a similar pattern emerged: a solid majority of students at each tested grade met the state’s proficiency benchmark, and again the trend was upward through the later elementary years. These results suggest that the school tends to build academic momentum as students move through the primary grades, a strength families may want to note.
Science testing is administered in fifth grade only. Here the proficiency rate was notably lower than in math or ELA, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school. That single data point does not diminish the stronger reading and math results, but it does mark a subject area where student performance did not match the level seen in the other two tested subjects.
The school’s enrollment is small for an elementary school, typical of a neighborhood school in a compact city. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a context where many families face economic pressures. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with White students the next largest group, followed by Black and Asian students; the remaining population is small. The school does not report data on the share of students with individualized education plans or those identified as English learners, so a reader cannot assess those dimensions from the available information.
James Madison’s setting in Garfield shapes the day-to-day experience. The city is densely populated and walkable, with grid-pattern streets and community institutions like a YMCA, a Boys and Girls Club, a recreation center, and a public library distributed across the city rather than concentrated in a single downtown. Dahnert’s Lake County Park sits near the city center, providing a nearby outdoor space. The housing market in the area reflects a mix of ownership and rental options. Home values in the zip code are moderate within the context of Bergen County, and rents have risen at a faster clip than the national average, consistent with a dense urban environment near a major metropolitan area. The school itself is located on Lincoln Place, set within a residential neighborhood.
The school does not offer any listed programs beyond the standard elementary curriculum, and no data on course access, staffing ratios, or discipline were available. As a regular public school serving only early and middle elementary grades, it has no graduation rate to report. The absence of those metrics is not unusual for a pre-K through grade five school, but it does leave gaps for a parent who wants to understand class size, teacher experience, or the range of extracurricular offerings.
For a family considering James Madison, the takeaway is a neighborhood elementary school that delivers solid to strong math and reading proficiency, with an upward trajectory through the tested grades. The science results are a soft spot worth investigating. The school operates in a dense, economically diverse city with a relatively young population. Families who value a small, community-anchored elementary school in a walkable urban setting may find it a good fit. Those seeking detailed data on special education, English learner support, or staffing will need to reach out to the school or district directly, as those details are not in the public data available here.
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