Summary:
The middle-school list for the Mountainside School District has one school, Deerfield Elementary School, serving grades 3–8 and enrolling 483 students. In 2025–2026, Deerfield’s average proficiency was 82% in English language arts (ELA) and 71% in math, compared with statewide averages of 51% and 40%, respectively. The clearest overall takeaway is that Deerfield outperformed state averages across its reported, unsuppressed results, although its performance varied considerably by grade.
Deerfield is both the top and bottom of this one-school area, so there are no local school-to-school standouts to compare. Within the school, grade 7 ELA was 90% proficient, while grade 5 ELA was 74%; math ranged much more widely, from 84% in grade 4 to 25% in grade 8. That grade 8 math result was only 3 percentage points above the state’s 23%, while grade 4 math was 38 points higher than the state rate. Course results also stood out: 84% were proficient in Algebra I, End of Course, 44 points above the state, while grade 8 Geometry was 89%, 3 points above the state. These results show why the strong averages do not tell the whole story: grade 8 math is a notable relative weak spot.
Recent results show different directions across subjects: ELA’s average advantage over the state widened by 3 points, while math’s advantage narrowed by 2 points when comparing grades 3–7. Algebra I, End of Course, rose from 63% to 84%, but grade 5 science fell from 58% to 40% and grade 8 Geometry from 100% to 89%. SchoolDigger ranked Deerfield 57th of 743 schools in 2025–2026, at the 92nd percentile with five stars, up from 92nd of 752 and four stars the prior year. Context figures include a 10.7 student–teacher ratio and 3% free/reduced lunch eligible in school year 2024–2025. Because this list includes only one school, these figures cannot show how Deerfield compares with other local schools.
Thank you for your feedback!