Ocean City Intermediate School, Ocean City NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Ocean City Intermediate School

Ocean City Intermediate School serves students from fourth through eighth grade on the barrier island that defines this New Jersey shore community. The school is a regular public school whose attendance area covers the year-round population of Ocean City, a family-oriented seaside resort with a dry-town status that dates to its founding. The town’s permanent population is modest and has declined over a long period, though summer tourism and second-homeowners swell the island. Housing values in the zip code are well above national and state benchmarks, reflecting the island’s desirability as a vacation and retirement destination. The year-round demographic trends older, and the school’s composition mirrors the town’s predominantly white landscape, with a modest share of Hispanic students and small numbers of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. Just under a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a relatively low rate that aligns with the area’s overall affluence but still represents a meaningful share of the student body.

The school’s academic performance on New Jersey’s state assessments paints a mixed picture that shifts noticeably by subject and grade level. In English language arts, the school posts strong results across most grades, with proficiency rates that are solidly above the midpoint in fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth grades. Seventh-grade ELA is softer, with about half of students meeting the bar. In math, the pattern is more uneven. Fourth and fifth graders clear the proficiency mark by a comfortable margin. Sixth grade dips to a level that is more middling. Seventh grade slides further, and eighth grade math is a clear area of concern, with only a modest share of students scoring proficient. Science results follow a similar downward trajectory: fifth-grade science is weak, and eighth-grade science posts a very low proficiency rate. Parents should note that the eighth-grade science and math results represent the same cohort of students who came through the earlier grades, and the pattern suggests that as students approach the end of their time at the intermediate school, proficiency rates in math and science drop substantially. A parent may want to ask the school about the specific supports and interventions in place for middle-school math and science, and how the school prepares students for the transition to high school-level coursework.

When compared to other districts in Cape May County, the school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile. That is a useful anchor: the school is performing better than most of its county peers, even though the absolute numbers in middle-school math and science give a parent something to investigate. The school’s grade band means there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism and discipline data were not available in the profile.

The school’s setting is a tight-knit island community with a clear civic center along Asbury Avenue and the boardwalk. The town devotes a large portion of its land to parks, playgrounds, and athletic facilities, and the Ocean City Music Pier serves as a cultural anchor. The island’s grid street pattern and summer bike culture make it walkable and navigable. The district itself did not have recent publicly reported changes or major initiatives surfaced in the research, so what families see is a stable school within a stable district, one where the largest external factor is not new development but the seasonal ebb and flow of tourism. For a family considering the school, the academic picture is strongest in elementary-grade English and math, then becomes more uneven as students move through middle school, especially in math and science. The surrounding community is safe, affluent, and recreation-rich, but the year-round population is shrinking and aging, which shapes the peer environment for the students who attend.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 466%

School 66% · District 66%

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 568%

School 68% · District 68%

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

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 821%

School 21% · District 21%

▲ 4 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 469%

School 69% · District 69%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 582%

School 82% · District 82%

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

Grade 673%

School 73% · District 73%

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 756%

School 56% · District 56%

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

Grade 876%

School 76% · District 76%

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Science

Grade 525%

School 25% · District 25%

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

Grade 88%

School 8% · District 8%

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

This schoolOcean City 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 4Lower-income61%Higher-income72%11 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income59%Higher-income92%34 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income33%Higher-income85%52 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income20%Higher-income69%49 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income50%Higher-income86%36 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income44%Higher-income74%29 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income41%Higher-income79%38 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income27%Higher-income68%41 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income15%Higher-income55%40 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income13%Higher-income26%13 pp gap