Yantacaw School, Nutley NJ - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Yantacaw School

Yantacaw School serves students from kindergarten through sixth grade in Nutley, a densely settled suburban township in northern Essex County. It is one of five elementary schools in the Nutley Public School District, and it sits within a neighborhood of tree-lined residential streets, a short distance from the commercial corridors that define the township’s everyday retail life. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it draws its attendance area from the surrounding part of Nutley.

On state assessments, Yantacaw shows a pattern of rising proficiency as students move through the grades. In both math and English language arts, the share of students meeting or exceeding the state’s proficiency benchmarks is lower in third grade and climbs steadily through sixth grade. By sixth grade, the vast majority of students score at proficient or above in ELA, and a similarly strong majority do so in math. Fifth-grade science results are moderate. When measured against schools across districts in Essex County, Yantacaw’s overall proficiency index lands in the top quartile, a clear strength. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report.

The student body is diverse in composition. White students form the largest group, followed by substantial shares of Asian students and Hispanic students, with smaller numbers of Black students, multiracial students, and a trace of Native American and Pacific Islander students. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which suggests that the school serves a predominantly higher-income attendance zone. Data on the share of students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the source materials; a parent may want to ask the school directly about those populations and the supports in place.

Nutley itself is a township whose character is overwhelmingly residential. It has a history as a bedroom community with quiet, well-maintained streets and an extensive park system—sources note that no home is more than half a mile from a park or playground. The town’s largest former employer, Hoffmann-La Roche, closed its campus in recent years, and that site is being redeveloped into a mixed-use life sciences and technology campus. The housing market in the area reflects the township’s desirability: home values are above the national benchmark and rents are substantial, making Nutley a relatively high-cost place to buy or rent. The district has been expanding its full-day pre-K program in recent years, shifting from a mostly half-day model to a full-day standard, a change that matters for families with younger children considering the district.

Yantacaw’s academic results are solid and improve markedly by the upper elementary grades. The school’s demographic mix is varied but leans toward families with higher income levels given the low free-lunch rate. For a parent looking at this school, the central considerations are the strength of the academic trajectory—particularly the climb in proficiency from grade 3 to grade 6—and the broader context of a suburban township with a strong sense of local identity, good parks, and a housing market that is expensive by national standards. The school does not offer high school programs; students move on to John H. Walker Middle School and then Nutley High School. Any further granularity on student support services, staffing ratios, or discipline patterns was not available in the data reviewed.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 352%

School 52% · District 56% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 461%

School 61% · District 59% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 579%

School 79% · District 60% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 36 pts above state median · ▲ 48 pts above county median

Grade 674%

School 74% · District 62% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 40 pts above state median · ▲ 49 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 352%

School 52% · District 48% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 474%

School 74% · District 69% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 579%

School 79% · District 69% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 31 pts above county median

Grade 691%

School 91% · District 86% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 41 pts above county median

Science

Grade 558%

School 58% · District 40% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 41 pts above county median

This schoolNutley 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

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income42%Higher-income53%12 pp gap