Sussex-Wantage Regional School District

The Sussex-Wantage Regional School District includes three schools serving prekindergarten through grade 8: Clifton E. Lawrence (PK–2), Wantage Elementary School (grades 3–5), and Sussex Middle School (grades 6–8). The clearest concern in the reported 2025–2026 results is math: all six grade-level comparisons were below state results, by 8 to 21 points, with an average gap of 16 points. ELA and science were also below the state on average, but by smaller amounts—10 and 9 points, respectively. Overall, math is the subject where the supplied results show the largest shortfall.

Sussex Middle School had the strongest individual result: eighth-grade ELA proficiency was 57%, compared with 53% statewide, a 4-point advantage. Its results also include the lowest score: eighth-grade math was 5%, versus 23% statewide, an 18-point gap, though that score rose 5 points from the prior year’s 0%. Wantage Elementary School’s strongest reported result was third-grade math at 29%, still 20 points below the state’s 49%. Its math scores stayed in a narrow 25%–29% range across grades 3–5, while the state results were 46%–49%.

Across 14 matching ELA, math, and science comparisons, the average gap widened from 9 points below the state in 2024–2025 to 13 points below in 2025–2026—about 4 points farther behind. Wantage’s ELA gaps improved in all three grades, while its grade-5 math gap worsened substantially; at Sussex Middle, ELA gaps widened in all three grades, but eighth-grade math improved from the prior year. SchoolDigger ranked Wantage 1,065th of 1,331 schools (20th percentile) and Sussex Middle 457th of 743 (38th percentile) in 2025–2026. In 2024–2025, the free/reduced lunch eligible measure was 35.2% at Clifton, 35.1% at Wantage, and 32% at Sussex Middle; ratios were 10.9, 10.1, and 8.5 students per teacher, respectively. Chronic absenteeism was higher than the state rate at all three schools: 22% at Clifton and Sussex Middle and 19% at Wantage, versus 14% statewide. Clifton has no supplied test scores, and the schools serve different grade spans, so their performance cannot be compared on a like-grade basis.