William B. Cruise Memorial School No. 11, Passaic NJ

Original Research by School Decision on William B. Cruise Memorial School No. 11

WilliamB. Cruise Memorial School No. 11 sits in Passaic, a densely packed urban city with a deep industrial past and a rapidly diversifying population. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade as a regular public school within the Passaic City School District. It is a sizable building for its grade band, and its student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic, making the peer environment one where a large majority of children share a common ethnic and linguistic background. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, an indicator that the school serves a community facing significant economic challenges.

On state assessments, the school’s results are among the lowest when measured against other districts in Passaic County. Proficiency rates in mathematics, English language arts, and science all fall well below the county midpoint. Across multiple grade levels, the share of students reaching the state’s proficiency bar is small, and in some subjects and grades it is minimal. Parents should note that the school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to review, and the data does not include figures for special education or English learner populations—those measures were not reported. The absence of those numbers may reflect reporting gaps rather than program absence, but a family with a child receiving specialized services may want to ask the school directly about how those supports are structured.

The academic picture points to a school where the baseline is low, but that context does not tell a parent everything about the classroom experience. A school in this position often has high staff turnover or concentrated needs that make it hard to move the needle on tests. For a family whose priority is a strong test-score profile, this school would not offer that. For a family committed to an urban setting and willing to be actively involved in supplementing academics at home, the school may still provide a stable neighborhood option within walking distance of many homes in Passaic’s compact street grid.

Passaic itself is one of the most densely populated cities in the country, with a walkable urban fabric, a historic Main Avenue commercial corridor, and a growing Orthodox Jewish community that has added dozens of yeshivas and kosher businesses. Housing values in the area are elevated relative to national averages, though still below many suburban parts of the same county. The rental market is competitive, with prices rising. A redevelopment effort has been underway for years on a former industrial site, and the city’s Urban Enterprise Zone status is set to expire, which could affect future commercial incentives.

The district briefly oversees the school, but no recent referendum or major facility initiative was uncovered in publicly reported sources, so there is little to share about planned capital improvements or district-level strategic changes. What the available data makes clear is that William B. Cruise Memorial School No. 11 is a high-poverty, urban elementary and middle school where academic performance is markedly low by state and county standards. A parent considering this school should expect a peer group shaped by economic disadvantage and linguistic diversity, and should look into what tutoring, after-school programs, or bilingual supports the school offers to supplement core instruction. The school’s location within Passaic means it is part of a dense, transit-connected city with its own commercial and cultural life, but the housing costs and tight rental market mean that affordability is a real consideration for any family moving into the attendance zone.

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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% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 37 pts below county median

Grade 420%

School 20% · District 23% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 21% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

Grade 610%

School 10% · District 18% · ▼ 8 pts below district

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

Grade 78%

School 8% · District 15% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 38%

School 8% · District 22% · ▼ 14 pts below district

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

Grade 433%

School 33% · District 25% · ▲ 8 pts above district

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

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 30% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 37% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 738%

School 38% · District 39% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 41% · ▼ 8 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 57%

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

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 8 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.