Gloucester City High School, Gloucester City NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Gloucester City High School

Gloucester City High School is a regular public high school serving grades nine through twelve in a dense, small-city setting directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. The school sits along Market Street in the city’s traditional downtown civic core, with the middle school and an elementary school also on the same street. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial share of Black and Hispanic students and a smaller Asian population. A majority of students come from low-income households, as reflected in the free- and reduced-price lunch count. The school’s size is moderate for a four-year high school, with enrollment relatively evenly distributed across the four grade levels.

State testing data for this school is limited and carries a complication. The most recent assessment results available come from a period when the school operated as a combined junior-senior high school and served seventh and eighth graders. For seventh-grade math, roughly a third of students met proficiency, while eighth-grade math was lower, with about one in six students reaching that bar. English language arts results were stronger: nearly half of seventh graders and a little more than half of eighth graders scored proficient. Because these are middle-grade scores from a prior school configuration, they do not directly reflect the high school’s current academic performance. The school’s overall proficiency index, which combines all tested subjects and grades from that year, placed it slightly above the midpoint among districts in Camden County. Graduation rate data was not available in the records reviewed, and a parent may want to ask the school directly about its four-year completion outcomes. No information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, or course access was included either, so those dimensions of the school environment are gaps a prospective family should investigate.

The district that operates the high school, Gloucester City Public School District, has been working with the New Jersey Schools Development Authority on facility planning. The middle school has crossed an overcrowding threshold because enrollment has grown district-wide, and this could lead to future redistricting or expansion decisions. On the positive side, the high school recently received a fully state-funded roof replacement, a lasting improvement to the physical plant. The district is one of the former Abbott districts where the state covers all capital costs for school buildings through the Schools Development Authority.

The surrounding community is a compact, walkable river town that was built around a traditional street grid, though Interstate 76 and several state highways cut through parts of the city, creating barriers to continuous pedestrian movement. Housing values in Gloucester City are well below state and county medians, and the owner-occupancy rate is modest. Rents are also lower than the New Jersey average, which makes the area relatively affordable compared to much of the region. The local economy leans heavily on transportation and warehousing, consistent with the city’s position near bridge and highway connections to Philadelphia. Population growth has been very slow over the past decade, and the city’s small land area limits large-scale new development. The daytime population drops notably as many residents commute out for work, with a mean commute time shorter than county and state averages.

For a family considering Gloucester City High School, the picture is one of a mid-sized high school in an older, affordable river city, with a majority low-income student body and academic data that is both dated and drawn from a different grade span. The school’s proficiency stood slightly above the midpoint of its county peers a decade ago, but more current testing information is needed to understand how high school students perform today. The district is actively managing enrollment growth and facility needs, which may bring changes to school assignments or building plans in the coming years.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

75-79%Cohort of 126 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

425 schools plotted. 7 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 734%

School 34% · District 23% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

Grade 816%

School 16% · District 9% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 748%

School 48% · District 42% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 858%

School 58% · District 55% · ▲ 4 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

This schoolGloucester City Public 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 7Lower-income41%Higher-income68%26 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income52%Higher-income67%15 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 7Lower-income34%Higher-income34%1 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income15%Higher-income17%2 pp gap