Best Public Schools in Zip Code 07205

Schools in zip code 07205 serve Hillside, with seven schools spanning prekindergarten through grade 12: four elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school, enrolling 2,957 students. Six schools have test results in the supplied data; the early-childhood center has none. Across the tested elementary and middle grades, math is the clearest shared concern: every reported 2025–2026 result was below the state figure for the same grade.

Hillside Innovation Academy stands out in middle-school ELA, while Walter O. Krumbiegel Middle School had much lower results. Innovation reached 79% in grade 7 and 85% in grade 8, compared with Krumbiegel’s 33% and 36%—gaps of 46 and 50 points—and Innovation was also above the state in both grades. Math was weak at both schools: even Innovation scored 30% in grade 7 and 18% in grade 8, below state results of 38% and 23%. Among elementary schools, Hurden Looker Elementary School led ELA in grades 4–6 and math in grades 5–6, while Deanna G. Taylor Academy led in grade 3. Across the three tested elementary schools, average results were 38% in ELA and 26% in math, versus state averages of 49% and 46%. At the high school, Hillside High School was below state results in grade 9 ELA and grade 11 ELA and math.

Elementary results moved farther from state averages: the average ELA score fell 10 points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while the state average fell 3; the local math average fell 3 points as the state average rose by less than a point. SchoolDigger rankings also declined from 2023–2024 to 2025–2026 at Hillside High and Innovation by 16 percentile points each, and at Hurden, Taylor and Ola Edwards by 5, 6 and 10 points; Krumbiegel gained 3. Innovation’s 97 students and 16.1 student–teacher ratio contrast with Krumbiegel’s 323 students and 10.7 ratio. All seven schools report a free/reduced lunch eligible measure for 2024–2025; it was 67% at Innovation and 73% at Krumbiegel. These figures provide context, not an explanation for results; SchoolDigger rankings compare schools within school-type groups and are not test-score changes.