Nehaunsey Middle School, Gibbstown NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Nehaunsey Middle School

Nehaunsey Middle School serves grades six through eight in Gibbstown, part of the Greenwich Township School District. It is a regular public school, and its enrollment is small for a middle school, with roughly similar numbers of students across the three grade levels. A substantial share of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, about a third, which is a common measure of economic need in public schools. Racially, the school is predominantly White, with a noticeable Hispanic minority and smaller shares of students who are Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or multiracial. Data on students with individualized education plans and English learners were not available in the state reporting.

The school's academic results on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments present a mixed picture that a parent will want to examine closely. In English language arts, the school posts strong proficiency rates in sixth and seventh grade, with a clear majority of students meeting state standards. That strength dips in eighth grade, where the share proficient falls to just over half, marking a notable drop-off. In math, the pattern is very different: proficiency starts below a majority in sixth grade, rises modestly in seventh grade, and then falls to zero in eighth grade, meaning no tested eighth grader was deemed proficient on that year's assessment. Science results for eighth grade are also low, with only a small share of students reaching the state's proficient level. When the school's performance is placed against other districts in Gloucester County using an overall proficiency index that averages all tested subjects and grades, Nehaunsey sits above the midpoint of the county, but that summary figure masks the wide variation between subjects and grades, particularly the eighth-grade math outcome.

A parent considering this school may want to ask the school directly how it approaches eighth-grade math instruction and what supports are in place for students at that level. The pattern of a steep decline in math from seventh to eighth grade does not appear in the English results, which hold up better across the same period, so the issue may be specific to math curriculum, assessment alignment, or student readiness rather than a general school-wide problem.

Gibbstown itself is a small, unincorporated community within Greenwich Township, located on the Delaware River. It is a compact place with a mix of residential neighborhoods and heavy industrial use, centered on the Paulsboro Refinery and the Port of Paulsboro. The port is being redeveloped as a multi-purpose facility, and studies have identified it as a potential site for wind turbine manufacturing and assembly. The housing stock includes older homes and conventional suburban-style houses, with home values near the national median.

The district brief did not turn up any recent parent-relevant changes such as curriculum overhauls, facility referendums, or major budget shifts, so the school is operating in a stable administrative context as far as publicly available information indicates. What a family gets here is a small middle school where English performance is a relative strength, where the economic profile is moderate, and where math and science achievement, especially at the eighth-grade level, are areas the school has not yet addressed as strongly as a parent might hope. A family whose child is a strong reader will find an environment that likely supports that strength; a family concerned about math preparation for high school will want to have a direct conversation with the school about how it handles the eighth-grade transition.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 633%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 0%

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

English language arts

Grade 684%

School 84% · District 84%

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Grade 781%

School 81% · District 81%

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

Grade 857%

School 57% · District 57%

even with state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Science

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 15%

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

This schoolGreenwich 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-income43%Higher-income15%28 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income78%Higher-income88%10 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income75%Higher-income84%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income32%Higher-income86%54 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income25%25 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income30%Higher-income35%4 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income25%Higher-income56%31 pp gap