The top reported proficiency rate is 45% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Charles W. Lewis Middle School
Charles W. Lewis Middle School serves a community of nearly seven hundred students in grades six through eight, all within the Gloucester Township Public Schools district in Blackwood, New Jersey. The school is a regular public middle school and sits in an area that has been a crossroads settlement since the 19th century, with the Blackwood Historic District nearby and the main campus of Camden County College also located in the community. The population of Blackwood itself has remained relatively stable in recent years, and the housing market in the broader area has seen activity consistent with a competitive suburban market, with home values and rents both rising over the past year.
The student body at Lewis Middle School is diverse in its racial and ethnic composition. White students and Black students each make up roughly a third of the enrollment, Hispanic students account for about a quarter, and Asian students represent a noticeable share. A substantial portion of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which is an indicator of economic need in the community. Data on special education identification and English learner status were not available in the reporting, so a reader interested in those supports would need to follow up with the school directly.
On the academic side, the school participates in New Jersey’s statewide testing program, the NJSLA, and the results show a clear pattern that varies by subject and grade. In English language arts, the school’s performance is mixed across the three grades. In sixth and seventh grade, a modest share of students met the proficiency benchmark, while in eighth grade that share rose to just over half, which is the strongest result for any tested subject or grade at the school. In mathematics, however, the results are lower across the board. In sixth and seventh grade, roughly a quarter of students reached proficiency, and in eighth grade that figure dropped further, with a small share of students meeting the bar. Science is tested only in eighth grade, and the proficiency rate there was low as well.
When placed alongside other school districts in Camden County, the school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades falls below the midpoint of the comparison set. This is the position that matters to families who are looking at schools within the same county and who may be weighing options within the broader region. The school’s performance in math, especially in the later middle school years, is an area that a parent may want to look into further with the school, including how the curriculum and instruction are structured and what supports are available for students who are not yet meeting grade-level expectations.
The school environment data is thin in terms of publicly reported details. There is no information on discipline, course access, staffing ratios, or attendance rates in the available data. For a middle school that sits in the middle of a child’s K-12 journey, these are relevant factors for a family to investigate on their own, particularly around class sizes, the availability of enrichment or remediation programs, and the school’s approach to student behavior and support.
No graduation rate is reported, which is expected for a middle school that does not serve high school grades. The school’s district, Gloucester Township Public Schools, did not have any recent parent-relevant changes or major developments that could be confirmed from publicly available sources at the time of this writing.
Overall, Charles W. Lewis Middle School is a mid-sized, diverse public middle school in a stable suburban community within commuting distance of Camden and Philadelphia. Its academic profile, as measured on state assessments, shows a split between English language arts, where outcomes are more mixed and where eighth graders perform at a meaningfully higher level, and math and science, where proficiency rates are lower. Families considering this school should look closely at how the school supports students in mathematics across the middle school years, and they should seek out additional information on programming, staffing, and school climate directly from the school itself.
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