Pittsgrove Township Middle School, Pittsgrove NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Pittsgrove Township Middle School

Pittsgrove Township Middle School serves grades five through eight as the sole middle school in the Pittsgrove Township School District, a regular public school in Salem County, New Jersey. The school sits on Almond Road in the rural township of Pittsgrove. Students here come from a district that five years ago absorbed the neighboring Elmer Borough school system, a consolidation that unified governance and enrollment for both communities. That merger is the most significant recent structural change families should know about.

On the 2024-25 New Jersey Student Learning Assessments, a clear pattern emerges: English language arts is the school’s stronger subject, while math and science proficiency are weaker. In grade-level terms, just over half of fifth and sixth graders met the state’s proficiency bar in ELA, and the share rose to well over half in seventh and eighth grades. Math scores tell a different story. In every grade tested, less than a third of students scored proficient, and the eighth-grade math result was the softest single spot, with roughly one in six students meeting the standard. Science results, tested in grades five and eight, also came in low, with about one in four students reaching the state’s target in each grade. A parent may want to ask the school how it supports math and science learning, especially as students move toward high school coursework.

The school’s overall proficiency across subjects and grades lands above the midpoint when compared with other districts in Salem County. That means it performs better than a number of its county peers but still has room to grow toward the top of the group.

Enrollment is moderate for a middle school, with roughly evenly sized grade cohorts. The student body is predominantly white, with a modest Hispanic share and smaller Black and multiracial populations. Just under a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure that places this school in a middle range of economic need. The school does not report counts for students with disabilities or English learners in the available data, so those figures are not part of this picture.

The community context matters here. Pittsgrove Township has no downtown or walkable commercial district. It is a rural, car-dependent place of scattered hamlets, farmland, and open space. Streets are mostly township, county, and state roads, with Route 55 running through the eastern part. Civic life revolves around volunteer fire companies, Parvin State Park, and the municipal complex. Population has been gently declining, and the district participates in New Jersey’s school choice program, which allows students from outside the district to enroll.

The school itself is one of five district buildings spread across the township’s hamlets. There is no concentrated campus; elementary schools sit in Norma, Elmer, and Olivet, while the middle school and A.P. Schalick High School are located separately. This distributed layout means families drive between sites, and there is no central school town green.

For a family considering this school, the narrative is clear: Pittsgrove Township Middle School offers a solid ELA program with proficiency rates that reach a comfortable majority of students by the later middle grades. Math and science are areas where the school performs below the state average, and the eighth-grade math results in particular are a point to investigate. The setting is rural, quiet, and low-density, suited for families who prefer that character over suburban convenience. The district’s recent consolidation with Elmer means the school serves a broader community than before, though enrollment and housing growth remain limited. The absence of data on special education and English learner populations is a gap worth filling with a direct inquiry to the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 32%

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

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 27%

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

Grade 732%

School 32% · District 32%

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

Grade 818%

School 18% · District 18%

▲ 1 pts above state median · even with county median

English language arts

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 53%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 654%

School 54% · District 54%

even with state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 761%

School 61% · District 61%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 858%

School 58% · District 58%

even with state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Science

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 823%

School 23% · District 23%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

This schoolPittsgrove Township 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 5Lower-income32%Higher-income60%28 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income26%Higher-income65%39 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income51%Higher-income66%15 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income43%Higher-income64%22 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income19%Higher-income37%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income6%Higher-income36%30 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income20%Higher-income39%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income14%Higher-income20%7 pp gap