Sonia Sotomayor School #21, Passaic NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Sonia Sotomayor School #21

Sonia Sotomayor School #21 is a regular public school in Passaic serving kindergarten through eighth grade. It sits within the Passaic City School District, one of the larger urban districts in Passaic County. The school is named for the U.S. Supreme Court justice, a reflection of the district's practice of naming schools after figures of national significance.

The student body is almost entirely Hispanic, with a very small number of Black and Asian students enrolled. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in a high-poverty context that shapes its resources and daily reality. The school is moderate in size for a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade building, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across the elementary and middle grades.

On the state assessments administered by New Jersey, the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments, the school's results across the tested grades are low. In mathematics, the share of students scoring proficient rose slightly from third through fifth grade before declining in sixth and seventh, where only a very small fraction of students met the bar. English language arts proficiency is somewhat higher, particularly in fifth, sixth, and eighth grades, where roughly a fifth to a quarter of students scored proficient. Eighth grade shows the strongest English language arts results in the building. Science results are low in both tested grades, with a small share of fifth graders proficient and no eighth graders reaching that threshold. A parent considering this school will want to look into how the school supports students who are behind grade level, and what academic interventions are in place.

The school's overall proficiency across subjects and grades places it in the bottom quartile relative to the districts in Passaic County. The district-level comparison set includes all thirty districts in the county, making this a broad benchmark; within that group, Sonia Sotomayor School #21 sits well below the median. There is no graduation rate because the school does not serve high school grades, and chronic absenteeism data was not available.

Passaic is a dense, compact city of just a few square miles, among the most tightly packed municipalities in the country. Its urban fabric is walkable, with Main Avenue as a historic commercial spine and the Passaic River forming the eastern border. The city has a substantial and growing Orthodox Jewish community, with many yeshivas and kosher businesses, concentrated especially in the Passaic Park section. Manufacturing and industry have long roots here, though the city is also a commuter base for New York City, a short distance away. A long-running redevelopment effort at the former Okonite industrial site has aimed to bring an upscale mall to the city, though its outcome has remained uncertain for years. The city's Urban Enterprise Zone, which has offered a reduced sales tax to stimulate commerce, is set to expire.

Housing values in the area are above the national median, and rents have been rising at a faster clip than the national average, reflecting broader pressure in the New Jersey suburbs near New York. The mortgage-payment-to-income ratio suggests that buying a home is a stretch for a typical household, while renting consumes a significant share of income. Passaic's unemployment rate tracks the national figure, and the local housing market shows a notable increase in active listings compared to the previous year, a shift from the tighter inventory of recent years.

The district brief returned little information about recent referendums or strategic initiatives, so that context is not available. A parent looking into this school may want to ask the district directly what plans exist for facilities, programming, or academic support. For now, the school's profile is that of an urban K-8 building where the vast majority of students face economic disadvantage and where academic proficiency levels are low across subjects, with relatively stronger performance in upper elementary and middle school English language arts. It fits a family that is looking for a neighborhood school within walking distance in a dense, transit-connected city, and that is prepared to engage actively with the school around academic support.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 34%

School 4% · District 19% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 36 pts below county median

Grade 410%

School 10% · District 23% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 36 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 514%

School 14% · District 21% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 67%

School 7% · District 18% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

Grade 72%

School 2% · District 15% · ▼ 13 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 35%

School 5% · District 22% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 41 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 414%

School 14% · District 25% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 42 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 30% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 621%

School 21% · District 37% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 710%

School 10% · District 39% · ▼ 30 pts below district

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

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 41% · ▼ 17 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 14% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 6% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolPassaic 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.