Mount Olive Middle School, Budd Lake NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Mount Olive Middle School

Mount Olive Middle School serves grades six through eight in Budd Lake, an unincorporated community within Mount Olive Township in Morris County. The school is a regular public school and part of the Mount Olive Township School District. Budd Lake is a primarily residential suburban area centered on a glacial lake and the US Route 46 corridor. The community has grown steadily in recent decades, and many residents commute to work elsewhere. The district recently transitioned from half-day to full-day kindergarten, a programmatic expansion that families with younger children may want to note.

The school’s enrollment is typical for a middle school serving three grade levels, and the student body is racially and ethnically diverse. A substantial share of students are white, with sizable Asian, Hispanic, and Black populations, and a smaller share of multiracial students. About a fifth of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a modest level of economic diversity.

Academically, the school’s results on the state’s New Jersey Student Learning Assessments paint a mixed picture. In English language arts, the school shows solid performance. In sixth grade, a majority of students meet state proficiency standards, and that share rises in seventh grade, where close to two-thirds reach that bar. Eighth grade ELA holds around that level as well. These are reasonable outcomes for a middle school.

Math tells a different story. In sixth grade, about half of students are proficient, a figure that drops slightly in seventh grade. Then in eighth grade, the proficiency rate falls sharply to a very low level. Science is tested in eighth grade only, and the proportion of students meeting the state’s standard for science is low. When all tested subjects and grades are combined into an overall proficiency index, Mount Olive Middle School lands in the bottom quarter among Morris County’s districts. That county-wide comparison matters: Morris County is generally a high-performing region in New Jersey, so a bottom-quartile position here still does not mean the school is failing across the board, but it does point to areas where a parent would want to look more closely, particularly math and science instruction at the eighth-grade level.

Data on special education and English learner populations was not available in the provided materials, so it is unclear how those students are served or how they factor into the overall results. Chronic absenteeism and discipline data were also missing, which limits a full picture of the school environment.

The housing context in Budd Lake reflects a high-cost, competitive market. Home values are well above national and state medians, and rents are high relative to incomes. The county market is active, with homes selling quickly and limited inventory. For families moving to the area, this is an expensive but desirable part of New Jersey, with the school system being one factor in that equation.

Mount Olive Middle School offers a capable English language arts program that strengthens through the middle grades, but its math and science results, especially as students near high school, raise questions. A parent considering this school should probe how the school supports math learning for eighth graders and what science instruction looks like. For a family who values the suburban, lake-oriented community and is comfortable with a school where ELA is a clear relative strength, the school is a workable option, but the academic profile is uneven enough that it pays to dig deeper.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 651%

School 51% · District 51%

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 748%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 86%

School 6% · District 6%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 765%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 860%

School 60% · District 60%

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Science

Grade 823%

School 23% · District 23%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolMount Olive 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 6Lower-income42%Higher-income63%21 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income51%Higher-income68%17 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income46%Higher-income64%18 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income38%Higher-income55%17 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income24%Higher-income55%30 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income5%Higher-income7%1 pp gap