Best Public Schools in Zip Code 07603

Schools in zip code 07603 include four Bogota schools serving 1,302 students: elementary schools Lillian M. Steen and E. Roy Bixby, Bogota Middle School, and Bogota Junior/Senior High School. The clearest concern is that many reported test results fell: across 23 comparable school-grade-subject results, scores dropped an average of 7 percentage points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while state results fell an average of 1 point—about 6 points less.

For the fairest direct comparison, Steen was the stronger elementary performer in grades 3–5 in 2024–2025: it scored higher than Bixby in six of seven shared subject-grade comparisons, by an average of 12 points. Its biggest lead was 18 points in grade-3 math; Bixby’s only lead was less than 1 point in grade-4 math. Bixby was below the state in all seven comparisons, while Steen was above the state in all three ELA grades. At the high school, standout results in 2025–2026 included grade-8 Algebra I at 100% proficient, 26 points above the state, and grade-9 Geometry 29 points above. Science was a clear weakness there: grade-11 proficiency was 13 points below the state. At Bogota Middle, ELA was closer to state results than math, with gaps of 2 and 4 points below in grades 6 and 7, versus 9 and 7 points below in math.

Recent trends add important cautions: Steen’s seven matched results all declined, while high-school Geometry gains partly offset declines in other tests. SchoolDigger ranking percentiles also fell between the latest listed years at Steen (55 to 34), Bogota Middle (65 to 46) and the high school (59 to 47). Attendance figures are favorable: in 2024–2025, chronic absenteeism ranged from 3% to 6% across the schools, below the state’s 14%; the high school’s graduation rate was 91%, compared with 89% statewide. The schools reported free/reduced lunch eligible shares of 59% to 66% in 2024–2025, and student-teacher ratios ranged from 10.5 to 12.5. Because schools serve different grades and Bixby has no 2025–2026 test scores in the supplied data, the results do not support a current four-school ranking.