The top reported proficiency rate is 82% in English language arts. The lowest is 49% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Willard Elementary School
Willard Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Ridgewood, a village in Bergen County that functions as an affluent bedroom community about a short commute northwest of Midtown Manhattan. Ridgewood is primarily residential, with tree-lined neighborhoods and a walkable downtown commercial district along East Ridgewood Avenue. The village is largely built out, with modest population growth in recent decades, and its housing stock is predominantly owner-occupied single-family homes. The community’s family-oriented character is reinforced by the fact that most households are married-couple families and a substantial share have children under eighteen. Ridgewood has been recognized in national rankings as a desirable place to live, which aligns with a housing market where prices sit well above statewide medians.
Willard is one of six elementary schools in the Ridgewood Public School District, which also operates two middle schools and one high school spread across different neighborhoods rather than clustered around the downtown core. The school itself is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it serves its neighborhood attendance zone.
On state assessments, Willard’s students perform at levels that place the school in the top quarter of all schools in Bergen County when looking across tested subjects and grades. In both English language arts and mathematics, proficiency rates are strong across third, fourth, and fifth grades. The highest results appear in fifth-grade ELA, where a very large majority of students meet the state’s proficiency bar. Math proficiency is also consistently high across those grades. Science results for fifth grade are softer; about half of students reach the state’s proficiency level in that subject. This is a pattern a parent may want to ask about, particularly if a child’s interest in science is a priority, though the state’s science assessment uses a different proficiency threshold than math and ELA, so direct comparisons across subjects are not straightforward.
The school’s enrollment is modest for an elementary building, with a fairly even distribution of students across each grade from kindergarten through fifth. The student body is predominantly white, with a notable share of Asian students and smaller numbers of Hispanic students and students who identify as two or more races. The share of students from low-income households is extremely low. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported in the available records, so the school’s level of special education and language support services is not clear from this information.
Ridgewood’s civic life includes a public library and park system, with Veterans Field adjacent to the library hosting community events and free concerts. The Ridgewood Wild Duck Pond, connected by a multi-use pathway, offers ice skating and fishing under conditions. The NJ Transit Main Line station provides rail access to Hoboken and New York City, a key consideration for families where one or both parents commute. The district’s schools are spread across the village, so getting to Willard and other schools requires travel by car or bus through the residential neighborhoods.
Because Willard serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data was not available. The district brief found no recent changes that would shift a parent’s sense of the school’s stability; the district appears to operate without major recent disruptions.
For a family considering Ridgewood, Willard Elementary represents a school with consistently high academic performance in literacy and math, a student body that is economically homogeneous, and a setting in a village that is both suburban and walkable in its downtown core. The school sits within a district that has a full pathway through middle and high school, and the broader community offers the amenities of an established, well-resourced suburb within commuting distance of New York City. The softer science results are the one area where a parent might want to explore how the curriculum and instruction there compare with their own expectations for elementary science learning.
See more original research from School Decision →