Belleville Middle School

Belleville Middle School is a public middle school serving grades 7-8 in Belleville, New Jersey, which is part of the Belleville Public School District. The school has consistently ranked in the bottom half of New Jersey middle schools over the past decade, with a current ranking of 556 out of 752 schools and a 1-star rating.

Belleville Middle School significantly underperforms the state averages in academic proficiency across all subject areas and grade levels. For example, in 2024-2025, only 44% of 7th graders were proficient in ELA compared to the state average of 57%, and only 20.8% were proficient in Math compared to 38.8% statewide. The school also has consistently high chronic absenteeism rates, ranging from 14.9% to 19.3% over the past few years, which is significantly higher than the state average. Additionally, Belleville Middle School has a high percentage of students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, with 55.74% to 66.01% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch over the past few years.

Interestingly, Belleville Middle School's performance lags significantly behind nearby middle schools, such as Bloomfield Middle School, Washington Middle School, and Lyndhurst Middle School, which generally have higher academic proficiency rates, lower chronic absenteeism, and serve a less economically disadvantaged student population. Despite these challenges, the school's student-teacher ratio is relatively low, ranging from 11.2 to 11.8 over the past few years, suggesting that class sizes are not a significant barrier to student learning.