Cherry Hill School, River Edge NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Cherry Hill School

Cherry Hill School is the larger of two public elementary schools in the River Edge School District, serving students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. It is a regular public school in a small, primarily residential borough in Bergen County, about eight miles west of Upper Manhattan. Because the school serves only through sixth grade, it has no graduation rate to report.

The school’s academic performance on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments is strong overall. In English language arts, proficiency climbs as students progress, with a substantial majority of third graders meeting the bar, a larger share of fourth and fifth graders doing so, and an overwhelming majority of sixth graders scoring proficient or above. Math follows a similar pattern, with most students in each tested grade reaching proficiency, and the school is in the top quartile for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades relative to districts in Bergen County. Science results for fifth graders, however, are lower, with just over half of students scoring proficient. A parent may want to ask the school how it supports science instruction. The school enrolls a student body that is racially and economically diverse; a very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

The setting is stable and unflashy. River Edge is a walkable borough of roughly two square miles, with residential streets, a commercial corridor along Kinderkamack Road, and multiple parks including the River Edge portion of Van Saun County Park. There is no traditional downtown. Two NJ Transit stations on the Pascack Valley Line serve commuters to Hoboken and, via Secaucus Junction, to New York Penn Station. The borough is largely built out, and no major new housing developments were identified in publicly available searches. A bridge replacement project on Route 4 commenced in early 2025, but it is a regional infrastructure improvement rather than a local growth driver.

River Edge students move on to River Dell Regional Middle School (grades seven and eight) and River Dell Regional High School (grades nine through twelve), which are shared with the neighboring borough of Oradell as part of the River Dell Regional School District. The River Edge School District itself is the elementary authority, and recent searches for district-level changes or strategic priorities turned up little of note.

For a family looking at Cherry Hill School, the picture is a straightforward one. The school posts consistently high proficiency across elementary and middle-school grades in the core tested subjects, though science is a relative soft spot. The student body is economically mixed and the community is small, built-out, and commuter-oriented, with public transit links to New York. The lack of a standalone high school means the district ends at sixth grade; families continue into a regional system for the older grades. A parent considering Cherry Hill School should be comfortable with that structure and may want to follow up on the science results.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 372%

School 72% · District 72%

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 479%

School 79% · District 81% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 33 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 581%

School 81% · District 77% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 38 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Grade 677%

School 77% · District 77%

▲ 43 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 367%

School 67% · District 67% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 478%

School 78% · District 81% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 580%

School 80% · District 83% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 691%

School 91% · District 92% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Science

Grade 559%

School 59% · District 59%

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

This schoolRiver Edge 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.