The top reported proficiency rate is 76% in Math. The lowest is 67% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on A.e. Burling Elementary School
A.E. Burling Elementary School is a regular public school that served students in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey. The school is now inactive, meaning it is no longer accepting students or operating as a functioning school. Any parent or resident reading about this school today would be looking at a historical record rather than an active enrollment option.
When it was last assessed, in the 2021-22 school year, the school served a range of elementary grades, and students in those grades took the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments. Across the tested subjects and grades, the school posted an overall proficiency index that placed it in the top quarter of schools relative to other schools in Camden County. This means that, in the data available, its students performed at a level well above the midpoint of the county's schools. The county median was notably lower, so this school’s results stood out as strong.
In mathematics, students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades all showed rates of proficiency that were well into the majority, with a clear pattern of improvement at each successive grade level. In English language arts, performance varied more. Fourth graders achieved the highest rate, while third graders had a lower rate, with fifth graders landing between the two. In fifth-grade science, a solid majority of students met the state’s proficiency standards. The test participation rates were uneven, with some grades having only half the enrolled students taking the tests, while others reached four in five. This uneven participation means the reported results may not fully represent all students who were at the school that year.
No data was available on the school’s enrollment, student demographics, or economic background, including the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. These gaps often occur when a school is no longer active and its record-keeping has been archived. Similarly, figures on student discipline, course access, and staffing were not reported. The school did not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate.
The school was part of the Pennsauken Township Board of Education School District, which operates multiple elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school across the township. Pennsauken itself is a suburban community directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, connected by the Betsy Ross Bridge. The township’s character is shaped by major highways that crisscross it, giving the area a highway-corridor feel with commercial strips, residential neighborhoods, and industrial zones interspersed. A large industrial park includes operations such as a Pepsi bottling plant and J & J Snack Foods. The former Pennsauken Mart, a long-running indoor market, closed in the last decade, and its site has been redeveloped with a luxury apartment complex. Petty’s Island, an island in the Delaware River that was once an oil storage facility, is being converted into a state park and nature center, representing a major upcoming recreational asset.
Public transit options exist, including NJ Transit bus routes and three River Line rail stops, but the built environment is heavily auto-oriented. The district itself has seen population growth, though modest, and recent infrastructure investments such as a new transit center. The district brief turned up no major recent changes that would affect a school’s operations, so the context for A.E. Burling is the broader fabric of a working-class suburban township with a mix of industrial and residential land use.
For anyone researching this school, the picture is of a now-closed elementary school that, in its final testing year, produced strong academic results relative to its county peers, particularly in mathematics, while posting more mixed but still mostly solid results in reading and science. The incomplete participation data means those results should be taken as a partial snapshot rather than a full account. Because the school is inactive, it is not available as a current choice for families, but its performance record may still offer insight into the overall quality of elementary instruction in the Pennsauken district during that period.
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