The top reported proficiency rate is 51% in English language arts. The lowest is 49% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Jefferson (annex) Elementary School
Jefferson (Annex) Elementary School serves kindergarten through second grade in Wallington, a compact, fully developed borough in the southwest corner of Bergen County. Because the school covers only the earliest elementary years, many of the metrics that families typically use to evaluate older schools do not apply here. There is no graduation rate because the school does not serve high school grades, no chronic absenteeism data, and no multi-year academic trends were available. State assessment results are from a single year and reflect only third graders, of whom there were fewer than fifty tested, a group small enough that results can shift meaningfully from one year to the next. In that year, roughly half of tested third graders met the state's proficiency bar in English language arts, and a similar share did so in math, placing the school's overall proficiency below the midpoint among districts in Bergen County. A parent looking for a strong signal about academic performance from these results will find it inconclusive; the grade band and the single year of data limit what can be read from them.
The school's enrollment is modest, serving a population that is predominantly white, with a substantial share of students who identify as Hispanic, and smaller numbers of Asian and Black students. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a moderate level of economic need. Data on students with individualized education plans and English learners was not reported in the available records, so families with children in those categories may want to ask the school directly about support services.
Housing in Wallington is expensive relative to national benchmarks. The typical home value places homeownership out of reach for many households without significant resources, and rents are high enough that a typical renter would spend a large share of income on housing. The borough itself is a densely built, primarily residential community of roughly one square mile, with commercial and industrial uses concentrated along its edges. It has deep Eastern European roots and a notably high share of residents who do not speak English as their dominant language. The schools and civic buildings are woven into the residential fabric rather than set apart on large campuses. The district's three schools, Jefferson, Frank W. Gavlak Elementary for grades three through six, and Wallington High School for grades seven through twelve, are all within the borough's boundaries. NJ Transit bus routes connect Wallington to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, and the Bergen County Line rail passes through with a station on the borough's border.
Because Jefferson is a primary school serving only the youngest students, the experience of attending here is largely about the transition into formal schooling. The school is a regular public school within the Wallington Boro School District. No information about programs such as art, music, physical education, or extracurricular activities for this grade band was available in the data. Similarly, the district brief turned up no recent changes, such as boundary adjustments, leadership transitions, or facility projects, that would alter a family's understanding of the school's direction. For parents of young children, the most relevant factors may be the school's size, its location within a dense, walkable borough with transit access to New York City, and the fact that it feeds into Gavlak Elementary and then Wallington High School, so the elementary years here are just the start of a longer pathway through a single small district.
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