Original Research by School Decision on Lakewood Early Childhood Center
Lakewood Early Childhood Center serves only the earliest grades – prekindergarten and kindergarten – as part of the Lakewood Township School District. Because the school covers only those grade levels, no state assessment data exists; New Jersey does not test children in PK or KG, so there are no proficiency results to report. A parent looking for test-score comparisons will find none, and that absence is simply a function of the grade band, not an indication of performance.
The school enrolls a moderate number of students for a single-grade early childhood center, with most enrolled in prekindergarten and a smaller cohort in kindergarten. The student body is predominantly Hispanic and white, and a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Because the school does not serve older grades, it has no graduation rate, no chronic absenteeism figures, and no course-access or staffing data in the available records.
This school sits within Lakewood, a township that has grown rapidly and is now one of New Jersey’s most populous municipalities. The Orthodox Jewish community makes up more than half the population and shapes much of the daily life – synagogues, yeshivas, and kosher businesses are woven into the commercial corridors. There is also a significant Latino population. The built environment is largely suburban and car-dependent, though the central area around Clifton Avenue has a denser, more walkable commercial texture. The housing market in the area has seen strong price growth over the past year, and rents have also risen, reflecting the pressure of continued population growth. The township’s growth has been driven by high birth rates and in-migration, and new housing construction remains active.
A parent considering this school should be aware that the district has recently undertaken a major reconfiguration. According to publicly reported district planning documents, Lakewood Early Childhood Center’s three campuses are being closed as of June 2025 – some through land sale, one repurposed as offices – and the remaining schools in the district are being reassigned new grade bands. The district’s enrollment has declined steeply in recent years, which prompted these structural changes. For the 2025-2026 school year, prekindergarten and kindergarten will be housed at Spruce Street School, and Oak Street School will take preschool through grade 2. So a family enrolling now would not be sending a child to the current Lakewood Early Childhood Center location; the school as described here is effectively being phased out.
The district also adopted a new 2025-2028 Strategic Plan that sets priorities for academics, student support, and operations in the wake of these closures. A parent may want to look into that plan further with the district to understand what the early childhood programming will look like under the new configuration, and which building a child would actually attend. Given that the school is a PK-KG center with no test data, the decision for a family hinges less on academic metrics and more on the fit of the program, the logistics of the new grade alignment, and the broader community context of a fast-growing, culturally distinct township.
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