The top reported proficiency rate is 50% in English language arts. The lowest is 40% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Dr. Paul Rafalides School
Dr. Paul Rafalades School is a regular public elementary school in the Jersey City Public Schools district, serving students from pre-kindergarten through fourth grade. Located on Union Street in the city’s West Side neighborhood, the school enrolls a student body that reflects the diversity of Jersey City itself. Families will find a school where students come from a wide mix of backgrounds, and where a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
The school’s academic performance on New Jersey state assessments shows a mixed picture. In third-grade English language arts, more than half of the tested students scored at proficient or advanced levels, a strength for an early elementary grade. Fourth-grade ELA proficiency was lower, coming in at just under half. Math results followed a similar pattern: third-grade math proficiency was close to half, while fourth-grade math proficiency dropped to about a third. These figures place the school’s overall proficiency, averaged across tested subjects and grades, above the midpoint relative to other schools in Hudson County, though parents may want to discuss with the school how math performance in the upper elementary grades is trending.
Because the school serves only grades PK through 4, there is no graduation rate to report, and no data on chronic absenteeism or discipline was available in the source materials. The school’s civil rights data, including counts of students with IEPs and English learners, was also not reported. Families of students with special needs or language support requirements should ask the school directly about services and staffing.
The school is part of Jersey City Public Schools, a large urban district that operates dozens of schools. The district has launched a new initiative called “Mission Forward” for the 2025-26 school year, publicly described as an effort to improve test scores, graduation readiness, student behavior, and social media awareness. For parents choosing a school within the district, this signals a systemwide push on academic performance and school climate.
Jersey City itself is a dense, transit-rich urban environment with a famously diverse population and a waterfront economy anchored in finance and logistics. Housing values in the school’s ZIP code are substantial, though they have recently trended slightly downward, and rents have risen modestly, consistent with a high-cost metro area. The neighborhood around the school is a mix of residential streets and commercial corridors, with good access to PATH trains, NJ Transit buses, and ferry service to Manhattan.
For a family considering Dr. Paul Rafalades School, the key decision points are straightforward. This is an early-elementary school with a diverse student body, no middle or high school grades, and a neighborhood setting within a large city district. Academic performance is mixed, with stronger third-grade results than fourth-grade ones, and math is the weaker subject overall. Parents who value a walkable, transit-connected urban environment and a school that draws from a broad cross-section of the community will find a fit here. Those concerned about the drop in fourth-grade math proficiency or who need specific special education or English learner services should ask the school for more detail, as that data was not available in the public record. The larger district’s new “Mission Forward” initiative suggests that school leadership is actively focused on raising academic outcomes, which may matter to families weighing their options.
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