The top reported proficiency rate is 48% in Science. The lowest is 26% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Ridley Ms
Ridley MS is a middle school serving grades six through eight in Ridley Park, a small historic borough in Delaware County outside Philadelphia. The school enrolls a mid-sized cohort of students, roughly balanced across the three middle grades.
The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial share of families from Black, multiracial, and Hispanic backgrounds. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting economic diversity in the enrollment. Data on students with IEPs and English learners were not available.
Academically, Ridley MS shows mixed results on Pennsylvania's System of School Assessment. In English language arts, proficiency was around two-fifths of tested students. In math, proficiency dropped to around one-quarter of students tested. Science data, from the most recent year available, showed proficiency around one-half of tested students. When looking at overall proficiency across these tested subjects, the school falls below the midpoint among districts in Delaware County.
These numbers point to a school where many students are meeting grade-level standards, particularly in science, but where math proficiency especially lags. Parents evaluating Ridley MS may want to look into what supports and interventions the school offers in math, and how the school approaches personalized learning pathways for students working below grade level.
The district has adopted a brain-based learning framework called MindPrint, which uses cognitive assessment to identify how individual students learn best and to inform grouping and instruction. This approach is now in place across grades six through twelve, with plans to expand into elementary schools. If this model is new to your child, the school should be able to explain what to expect from the assessment and how findings shape classroom experience.
Ridley Park itself is a walkable, established residential borough with tree-lined streets, Victorian and mid-century homes, and a compact downtown centered on the SEPTA station. Housing values are moderate for the region. Boeing's Vertical Lift Division is the area's dominant employer. The borough is built out and stable in population; recent activity focuses on rehabilitating existing apartment properties rather than new development. Property taxes have risen successively over recent years and are a material cost for homeowners in the district.
The middle school sits within a district that introduced full-day kindergarten in 2022-23, a shift for families with younger siblings. That structural change, along with the broader rollout of the MindPrint model, reflects a district in active curricular and pedagogical transition. For a family new to the area or the school, understanding these shifts and their fit with your child's learning style is worth discussing directly with the school.
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