The top reported proficiency rate is 83% in Social studies. The lowest is 31% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Anna S Kuhl Elementary School
Anna S Kuhl Elementary School serves kindergarten through grade six in Port Jervis, a small city in Orange County where New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania converge. The school sits within a district that has undergone substantial structural reorganization in recent years. A century-old former middle school building on East Main Street was fully renovated and reopened as an elementary school for grades K-5, while grade six through eight moved to the Anna S Kuhl campus on the city's edge, uniting the middle and high school on a single secondary campus. For a family considering Port Jervis schools, this means elementary students like those at Anna S Kuhl remain in their own facility, and the shift to the Anna S Kuhl middle school campus happens at grade six.
The school enrolls a diverse student population. A majority of students are white, but roughly a quarter are Hispanic, and smaller shares identify as Black, Asian, or multiracial. Over three-fifths of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting modest household incomes across the enrollment. The school has not reported data on students receiving special education services or English learner counts, so a parent interested in whether the school has particular strengths or structures supporting those populations would need to ask the school directly.
State testing data from 2024-25 shows proficiency rates that trend lower than the midpoint among Orange County districts overall. In grade three math, roughly three-fifths of tested students met or exceeded proficiency; by grade four that rate dropped to roughly half, and by grade five it fell to under half. English language arts shows a steeper decline: roughly half of third graders met proficiency, a third of fourth graders, and roughly two-fifths of fifth graders. Science proficiency in grade five was under one-third. The school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint for Orange County districts, meaning Anna S Kuhl is performing better than many peers in the county, but the downward trajectory within the school from grade three to five and the lower absolute proficiency rates in language arts and science suggest areas where a parent may want to look into further what instruction and support are in place, especially as students approach middle school.
Participation rates in state testing—that is, the share of students actually taking the assessments—hover in the low-to-mid eightieth percentile across grades and subjects, meaning the vast majority of students tested, though not all, so the results reflect the school's performance fairly well.
The city itself is in an active revitalization phase following decades of stagnation. Downtown Port Jervis, centered on historic Front and Pike Streets near the Metro-North train station, is gaining mixed-use housing, restaurant and brewery activity, and public-space improvements through a state-funded Downtown Revitalization Initiative awarded in 2023. Population has been roughly flat to modestly declining, so the district is not experiencing enrollment growth. Housing values in the Port Jervis zip code are below state and national benchmarks, and rent affordability is slightly above the national median, making it a relatively affordable small city by regional standards. A parent weighing the school is choosing a community with spare capacity and modest housing costs, but also modest household incomes.
The district has adopted structured, phonics-based early literacy instruction including Heggerty phonemic awareness curriculum and DIBELS assessments, along with a schoolwide Leader in Me framework centered on student leadership. These changes began rolling out recently and signal a deliberate focus on reading foundations in the elementary grades. Transportation eligibility was also expanded in the 2023 budget vote, lowering walking-distance thresholds so more elementary families qualify for busing, which eases logistics for working parents.
Anna S Kuhl is a regular public elementary school serving the district's youngest and early-middle-grades students in a small city where downtown renovation is underway but population remains flat. Academic proficiency is mixed, stronger in early grades and math than in upper grades and language arts. The student body is economically modest and racially diverse. A family moving to Port Jervis would find this school integrated into a district in structural transition, with new literacy and leadership programs in place but with testing results that warrant direct conversation with school staff about instruction, particularly in reading and upper elementary grades.
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