Katharine D Malone Elementary School, Rockaway NJ

Original Research by School Decision on Katharine D Malone Elementary School

Katharine D Malone Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Rockaway, New Jersey, as part of the Rockaway Township School District. The school is located on Green Pond Road, set within a community that has a distinct historic and walkable downtown area. The borough itself is a small, dense town with a mix of residential and commercial character, a downtown district with shops and restaurants, and a legacy as a commercial hub dating back to the Morris Canal era. Public transportation options include bus service to New York, and Interstate 80 and US Route 46 provide highway access. For families, the area offers parks, the Parks Lake walking trail, and the Rockaway River.

The school's enrollment is moderate for an elementary school serving this grade band. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic minority and smaller shares of Black, Asian, and multiracial students. The share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch is modest, a common profile for schools in this part of Morris County.

On state assessments, the picture is one of reasonably solid academic performance with some variation across grades and subjects. In both math and English language arts, third graders showed a strong proficiency rate, and fifth graders performed even better in ELA. Fifth grade math also posted a strong showing. Fourth grade results are a softer spot: proficiency rates in both math and ELA were lower. A parent with a child entering fourth grade might want to talk with the school about how it supports learning at that level. In fifth grade science, about half of students met the state's proficiency criteria, which is a middling outcome that families may wish to understand in the context of the school's science curriculum.

Overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades is above the midpoint when compared with other districts in Morris County, a county known for generally high-performing schools. That positioning suggests the school is holding its own in a competitive suburban environment. No chronic absenteeism or graduation data is available for a K-5 school, as those metrics apply to older grades.

The district itself, Rockaway Township School District, was searched for recent changes that would matter to a parent, but no significant developments were found in publicly reported sources. That may indicate stability, or simply that information was not surfaced; families moving into the area can check directly with the district for any upcoming shifts in programming or boundaries.

For a family considering this school, the context is important. The town is built out and historic, not a fast-growth suburb with new developments. The school sits in a well-regarded county and performs above the middle of the pack relative to other county districts, which is a reasonable baseline. The biggest question mark a parent would want to explore is the dip in fourth grade results and whether it reflects a pattern or a cohort-specific anomaly. Otherwise, Malone presents as a stable elementary option with moments of strong achievement and a student body that is not economically diverse by national standards.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 375%

School 75% · District 66% · ▲ 9 pts above district

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

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 65% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 55% · ▲ 15 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 375%

School 75% · District 57% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 445%

School 45% · District 67% · ▼ 22 pts below district

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

Grade 584%

School 84% · District 65% · ▲ 18 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 39% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

This schoolRockaway 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.