The top reported proficiency rate is 72% in English language arts. The lowest is 41% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Brookside Elementary School
Brookside Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Westwood, a Bergen County borough that residents often call the hub of the Pascack Valley. The school is one of four elementary buildings in the Westwood Regional School District, which also includes a middle school and a high school that Brookside students feed into after fifth grade. The borough itself is a compact, walkable place centered on a downtown business district near the train station, and many commuting residents travel to New York City for work.
This is a regular public school with an enrollment that fits a mid-sized elementary by the numbers for its grade band. The student body is largely white, with a Hispanic population that is the next largest group, followed by small shares of Asian students, students of two or more races, and Black students. A very small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a relatively affluent economic context. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about how those populations are supported.
Academic performance on the New Jersey Student Learning Assessment shows a pattern that varies by grade and subject. In third-grade math, the proficiency rate was strong. Fourth-grade math was softer, with a lower share of students meeting the state's proficient or above threshold. Fifth-grade math came back up to a solid level. On the English language arts side, third and fourth graders posted moderate proficiency rates, and fifth graders reached a notably high level. Fifth-grade science, which uses a different scoring standard, showed a lower proficiency rate than the other tested subjects at that grade. Taking a step back and averaging across all tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint among districts in Bergen County, a competitive area with many high-performing schools. A parent moving into the district could feel generally confident about academic foundations here, though the dip in fourth-grade math and the science result are worth discussing with the school to understand how the curriculum supports students across all years.
Brookside Elementary offers no high school programs, so there are no graduation rate, Advanced Placement, or dual-credit metrics to report. That is simply a function of the grade span. The school environment data on discipline, staffing, attendance, and course access was not available in the provided records, which limits the picture of day-to-day conditions inside the building.
The housing market in the area is expensive. Homes in the zip code covering Brookside carry a value well above the national benchmark, and the typical price-to-income ratio suggests a significant stretch for the average household. The county's real estate market has seen active listings rise modestly and median days on market remain relatively low, indicating steady demand. A family considering a move to Westwood should expect a high-cost market, consistent with much of Bergen County.
The Westwood Regional School District had no publicly reported recent changes of lasting significance in the available research. The district brief turned up little, so the current picture for Brookside is largely what the test results and enrollment data describe. That stability may be reassuring to some families, and for others it may mean there are no recent initiatives to look into. Either way, the school presents as a solid, mainstream elementary option in an expensive commuter suburb with a strong academic context relative to its county peers.
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