David E. Owens Middle School, New Milford NJ

Original Research by School Decision on David E. Owens Middle School

David E. Owens Middle School serves grades six through eight in the New Milford Public School District, a small, urban borough in Bergen County. The school functions as the district’s sole middle school, drawing students from the borough’s elementary schools before sending them to New Milford High School. For a parent evaluating the middle school experience here, the strongest signal comes from the English language arts results, where proficiency rates are robust across all three grades. Mathematics tells a more uneven story: sixth and seventh graders perform at a solid level, while eighth-grade math proficiency drops sharply. Science results, available only for eighth graders, are low. A parent whose child struggles in algebra or physical science may want to look into this further with the school to understand how the curriculum and support are structured for those subjects in the upper middle grades.

The student body is diverse. A substantial share of students are white, a large share identify as Hispanic, and a meaningful number are Asian. Black students and students of two or more races each make up a smaller presence. About one in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that is low compared to many New Jersey districts and signals a majority middle-income peer environment. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not reported, so a parent whose child receives special education services or language support will want to confirm directly with the school what those programs look like.

New Milford itself is a densely settled, fully urban borough with a compact street grid and a mix of residential blocks and commercial corridors. Homes are expensive. The housing market in Bergen County is active, with a median listing price above the national and state benchmarks. For a family not already living in the borough, the cost of entry is high, and rents are similarly elevated. The borough’s population has been stable in recent decades, with no major new housing developments identified in publicly available sources. The school’s facilities are spread across separate sites rather than a single campus: the elementary schools, the middle school on Marion Avenue, and the high school are each on their own plot.

In comparison to other districts in Bergen County, David E. Owens Middle School's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits below the midpoint. This is a straightforward statement of where the school falls relative to a large, high-performing county. The math dip in eighth grade and the low science proficiency are the main factors pulling the overall index down, while the strong English scores show the school is capable of solid results in one core subject. A parent considering this school should weigh the clear strength in reading and writing against the weaker areas in math and science and decide what aligns with their child’s needs. The district itself, as of the most recent available search, had no major parent-relevant changes or initiatives publicly reported, so the picture is largely static.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 48%

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

Grade 753%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 823%

School 23% · District 23%

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

English language arts

Grade 675%

School 75% · District 75%

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

Grade 777%

School 77% · District 77%

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

Grade 873%

School 73% · District 73%

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

Science

Grade 819%

School 19% · District 19%

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

This schoolNew Milford Public 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-income80%Higher-income74%6 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income69%Higher-income79%10 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income54%Higher-income80%26 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income31%Higher-income50%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income41%Higher-income56%15 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income19%Higher-income25%6 pp gap