Green Hills School, Greendell NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Green Hills School

GreenHills School is a regular public school serving prekindergarten through eighth grade, located in the rural unincorporated hamlet of Greendell within Green Township, Sussex County. It is the only school in the Green Township School District and the only public school in the ZIP code. Because the school stops at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report — students move on to a high school elsewhere after completing eighth grade.

Greendell itself is a quiet crossroads settlement with minimal commercial activity. A post office, the K-8 school, and a volunteer fire department serve as the community’s civic anchors. The built environment consists of scattered residences along rural roads; there is no downtown, no sidewalks, and little pedestrian infrastructure. Most residents rely on automobiles. The area’s character is quiet and rural, with hiking and fishing nearby. A notable infrastructure development is the potential restoration of the Lackawanna Cut-Off rail line, with NJ Transit service projected to begin in the late 2020s, but no significant new housing or commercial development has been reported in Greendell itself. The district itself has seen little in the way of publicly reported recent changes.

The student body is comparatively small for a K-8 school and is predominantly white. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate well below most schools in the state. The school reports no data on special education or English learner populations, so a parent with a child who has an individualized education plan or who is learning English may want to ask the school directly about available supports.

On state assessments administered through the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment, Green Hills School’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quarter of school districts in Sussex County. That overall picture, however, masks variation by grade and subject. In English language arts, the school is a clear strength. Proficiency in the lower elementary grades is mixed — around half of third graders and a little over a third of fourth graders met the bar — but from fifth grade upward the results are notably strong. By sixth grade, roughly three-quarters of students scored proficient or above, and in seventh and eighth grade the share reached into the low eighties. Those are high levels by any measure.

In math, the pattern is more uneven. Proficiency rates in grades three through seven cluster around half to a bit above three-fifths, which is solid and broadly consistent with the school’s overall position in the county. Eighth grade math is a sharp exception — only about one in five students reached proficiency. That is a significant drop, and a parent considering the school may want to discuss with the staff how the school supports students making the transition to more advanced middle-school math, especially before they head to high school. Science scores for fifth and eighth graders hover around the mid-thirties proficient range, a softer spot that may also warrant a conversation with the school about its science curriculum and instruction.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there are no Advanced Placement, dual-credit, or career pathway offerings to report, and no data on college readiness metrics. No information on chronic absenteeism, discipline rates, or staffing ratios was available in the provided data.

For a family looking at this school, the story is largely about a small, rural K-8 environment with a strong academic profile in middle-grades reading, a generally sound showing in elementary and middle-school math except for a notable dip in eighth grade, and a science score that falls below the school’s own ELA highs. The community is quiet, car-dependent, and sparsely populated — a setting that will appeal to families seeking a close-knit, low-key rural school experience rather than the breadth of options found in larger districts or high school campuses.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 363%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 456%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 559%

School 59% · District 59%

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 649%

School 49% · District 49%

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 820%

School 20% · District 20%

▲ 3 pts above state median · even with county median

English language arts

Grade 345%

School 45% · District 45%

even with state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 439%

School 39% · District 39%

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

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 675%

School 75% · District 75%

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 783%

School 83% · District 83%

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 881%

School 81% · District 81%

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Science

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 35%

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

This schoolGreen Township 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 5Lower-income55%Higher-income65%10 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income46%Higher-income62%17 pp gap