The top reported proficiency rate is 67% in Math. The lowest is 53% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Washington School
Washington School serves just three grades, first through third, in the Rutherford School District in Bergen County. It is a regular public school, and because its grade band is so narrow, a parent reading its profile should understand it as one piece of a longer elementary-to-middle-to-high school sequence, not a standalone school that a child will attend for many years. Most of the standard metrics a family might look for, such as a graduation rate or a chronic absenteeism rate, simply do not apply or were not reported; the school is too young for those to be meaningful, and the available data covers only what the state tests in these early grades.
Enrollment is modest and the student body is diverse. White students make up the largest share, followed by Hispanic students and Asian students, with smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races and Black students. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that stands out as low. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available, so a parent who needs those supports should confirm directly with the school or district whether the level of services matches their child’s needs.
What the state test results do show is a mixed picture in a single tested grade. In third-grade math, a solid majority of students scored at the proficient level or above on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment. In third-grade English language arts, about half of students reached that same benchmark. The school’s overall proficiency index, combining both subjects, places it slightly below the midpoint among districts in Bergen County. That is a straightforward position: the school is not at the top of a highly competitive county, nor is it at the bottom. A parent might want to look into how the school’s literacy instruction is structured, since the reading results are noticeably lower than the math results, and ask whether that gap is something the school is actively working on.
The wider context of Rutherford matters for a family considering this school. The borough is an inner-ring suburb of New York City, roughly a short commute to Midtown Manhattan, and its downtown along Park Avenue is pedestrian-focused with shops, restaurants, and a train station. The tree-lined streets and mix of Victorian and Edwardian homes give the borough a distinct residential character, and the presence of Felician University and the Williams Center for the Arts adds cultural and institutional activity. Housing values and rents in the area are high, consistent with Bergen County’s market as a whole, and the mortgage-to-income ratio is steep. The borough has seen modest population growth in recent years, and while a large remediation and development project known as EnCap was terminated, the downtown and station area have seen ongoing investment.
The Rutherford School District is the parent district, and a parent considering Washington School should also look at the schools their child would move into after third grade, since this building is only the entry point into the district’s elementary sequence. The district’s priorities and recent financial decisions were not captured in the available research, so a parent may want to check district communications about budgets, staffing, or curriculum changes that could affect the elementary years. Because the school does not serve the full K-12 span, its profile is necessarily incomplete on its own; it is a piece of a larger system, and the fit for a family depends on how that whole system operates.
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