Emerson Public School District

Emerson Public School District has three schools serving prekindergarten through grade 12 and 1,054 students: Memorial School serves PK–3, Patrick M Villano School serves grades 4–6, and Emerson Junior Senior High serves grades 7–12. The clearest shared strength is ELA: all seven reported 2025–2026 school-grade results exceeded their matching state results, by an average of 15 percentage points.

Villano stands out across grades 4–6, with ELA results 14–22 points above state results and math 16–28 points above; its grade-6 math was 68% proficient versus 40% statewide, a 28-point advantage. Memorial was also above state results in grade-3 ELA and math, by 12 and 5 points. Emerson Junior Senior High had above-state ELA results in grades 7–9, by 4–19 points, but its grade-8 math result was 0% versus 23% statewide, and its grade-8 and grade-11 science results were 6 and 10 points below state. Since the schools serve different grades, these are state comparisons rather than same-grade comparisons among the schools.

Recent trends are strongest in ELA: the average advantage over state results grew from 7 points in 2024–2025 to 15 in 2025–2026, including a 27-point rise in Emerson Junior Senior High grade-9 ELA. Math has an important exception: the high school’s grade-8 score fell 45 points, from 45% to 0%, while the other five reported NJSLA grade-level math results averaged 20 points above state. SchoolDigger ranks the district 198th of 607, in the 67th percentile, with 3 stars; the high school’s rank improved from 172nd to 95th, while Memorial’s shifted from 466th to 479th. In 2024–2025, student-teacher ratios ranged from 9.3 at the high school to 13.1 at Memorial. All three reported free/reduced lunch eligible as their low-income measure that year: 14% at the high school, 11% at Villano, and 9% at Memorial.