Harriet Tubman Elementary School, Newark NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Harriet Tubman Elementary School

Harriet Tubman Elementary School sits in the South Ward of Newark, a dense, mixed-use city that is New Jersey’s most populous and its largest employment center. The school serves pre-kindergarten through eighth grade as a regular public school within the Newark Public School District. With a total enrollment that is small by the standards of the district’s elementary and middle schools, the student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic minority; no White or Asian students were counted in the latest enrollment data. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic profile of the surrounding neighborhood.

On the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments, the school’s math scores are low across every tested grade. Proficiency rates hover well below the midpoint among Essex County districts, placing the school in the bottom quartile of its county in overall proficiency. In most grades, the share of students reaching the proficient or advanced level is in the single digits or the mid-teens. The single exception is fourth grade math, where the rate is somewhat higher, though still below state averages. English language arts results show more variation. Fourth grade stands out with a majority of students scoring proficient, a bright spot in an otherwise low-performing profile. In other grades, ELA proficiency ranges from modest to very low, with a dip in fifth grade and a small increase by sixth and eighth grade. Science results, tested in grades five and eight, show a small fraction of students meeting the proficiency bar, a pattern that families will want to explore further with the school.

Because Harriet Tubman Elementary ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The school does not offer high school programs, so measures like AP, dual credit, or career pathways do not apply here. The district brief notes that Newark Public Schools itself has expanded career-themed high school options in recent years—schools of data science, fashion, architecture, and global studies—but those are located at the high school level, not at this building. The district was also recently declared a High Performing District by the New Jersey Department of Education, a designation that speaks to system-level improvements since the end of state control.

The school’s setting is urban Newark, a city with a deep grid of streets, strong transit connections via bus and light rail, and major institutional anchors including Rutgers-Newark, NJIT, and University Hospital within a short distance. Branch Brook Park and its cherry blossoms are nearby. Housing values in the zip code covering this part of Newark are modest by county standards, though the county-wide market has seen rising listings and stable prices. Rents in the area are below the national rent-to-income benchmark, suggesting that the neighborhood is one of the more affordable sections of a city undergoing continued revitalization since the 1990s.

What a parent or resident gets at Harriet Tubman Elementary is a neighborhood school serving a concentrated population, with a majority of its students living in low-income households. The academic profile is one of significant challenge: proficiency rates in math and science are very low across the board, and while ELA shows a single strong grade, the overall picture suggests a school where many students are working below grade level. The district’s recent high-performing designation and its investment in career-themed high schools are positives that apply system-wide, but they do not change the fact that at this building, state test results are a soft spot that families will want to discuss directly with school staff. The school’s small size and its pre-K-through-8 span mean that students can move through elementary and middle school in a single building, a continuity that some families value, set within one of the five wards of a major American city.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 316%

School 16% · District 28% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 23% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 22% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 66%

School 6% · District 18% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 717%

School 17% · District 21% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 82%

School 2% · District 12% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 312%

School 12% · District 28% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · District 30% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 31% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 630%

School 30% · District 36% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 725%

School 25% · District 38% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 39% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Science

Grade 54%

School 4% · District 10% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 84%

School 4% · District 6% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

This schoolNewark 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.