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Hi! I am a 29 year old single mom with a 3 year old daughter. A friend of mine has a great deal on an apartment for rent in Elizabeth that I might be taking her up on. I needed some opinions. The apartment is on Jackson Ave (almost at the intersection of North Ave and only 2-3 blocks from 1&9). I have a 3 year old and want to make sure that this is a safe area. Could someone PLEASE give me any type of feedback if you know the area at all! Thanks so much.
Elizabeth is kind of the place that everyone is from, going way back to George Washington's time and before. It's pretty much one of the first towns settled back in the 1600's. That gets balanced by the reality that for the last many decades it's been sort of a transitional town where many immigrant groups to the USA had settled then prospered and eventually moved elsewhere.
So getting down to business, that area itself is not too bad. Back when I went to high school in Elizabeth I had friends who lived a block from there. There where no problems back then. But I am 100% sure someone will mention something that happened in a slightly neighboring section, etc.
Elizabeth is kind of a historical town steeped in early American history yet being quite transitional doesn't get the respect it deserves lately, and sometimes for practical reasons. All in all a middle type place, in the area you are referring to. That's the best I could describe it now, gotta run.
Like captn stated, if it has to be Elizabeth, you could do a lot worse than Jackson Ave. That area is still pretty decent. However, you mentioned you have a 3 year old daughter. I hope you're either moving out before she turns 5 or are saving up for private school. Elizabeth public schools are terrible.
The area you specify is largely working class and most of the homes are owned by and still resided in by portuguese families. The downfall is parking so I hope that a space is in your lease.
That being said, I have to vehemently disagree with the previous poster's take on the Elizabeth Public school system. There has been an immense increase in the performance of Elizabeth schools. They have taken full advantage of the funding offered to them by the Abbott district to open a plethora of new state of the art school buildings. Their districting affords students with an excess of music and arts programs and they have a fantastic gifted and talented program. They just launched the first i-school which uses technology to the fullest in education. There was an article just today on the improvements in the schools. Elizabeth schools celebrate new record 410 perfect scores on NJ Standardized Tests | NJ.com
I have friends who are teachers in Elizabeth. I have family attending the schools. I cannot say enough good things about it. That being said, there are poor-er performing schools within districts. It's not perfect. But the opportunities that are there far outweigh anything else.
You can certainly do worse than Jackson Ave. North Ave is VERY busy all day. At night its only a bit less, its never "empty" until about 2am and then only until about 4-5am. Parking WILL be difficult unless you have an off street spot included.
Hillside is correct in that the better programs are MUCH better than can be found in surrounding areas BUT, the kids have to apply to be accepted into those programs. K-5 are almost all the same unless you can finagle to get them into the "Gifted & Talented" program.
They have recently restructured the highschool unto multiple schools/buildings. This is both good and bad. Average and below average students are grouped together into the Halsey and Dwyer buildings. Talented students can go to Jefferson where there is a mix of student abilities with an emphasis on the arts. Work study and blue coller career programs are in the Edison building. The students with the best grades get put in the Upper or Lower academies depending on the number of Advanced Placement classes they will be taking.
At all levels there are tremendous opportunities for kids to advance and I have yet to meet a teacher in the system that I would not have as my childs teacher (I have nieces, nephews, and kids of friends in the Elizabeth school system from 5yrs old to 17yrs) and I attend many of their functions.
Bottom line. It is an urban environment where you need to be aware of your surroundings. The schools are not horrible but not blue ribbon worthy either. There is crime, there are gangs but, for the most part, civilians are left alone. If you come from a very sheltered suburban environment you will most likely not like living in Elizabeth.
Okay, don't take my word for it ... go check out greatschools.org. If you decide to live on Jackson Ave., I'm guessing your daughter would attend Lafayette Elementary, which scored a whopping 2 out of 10 from this very reputable website, with 10 being the highest score. This is indicative of the other Elizabeth public elementary schools, since none of them scored higher than a 6. Which to me is a sign of a failing school district and certainly not one I'd trust with my child's education. But, like the song says, the choice is yours.
Great schools uses New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJ ASK) scores to compute their numbers. The NJ ASK, in my humble opinion, must be taken with a grain of salt. The tests are very important to the school, but as a parent, I don't put much stock in them. All the results tell you is how your student performed that day on that test. If there was consistency in the actual test and scoring methods, they might hold more weight for a parent.
Beyond that there are children whose parents have opted out of having their kids take the test. Truthfully it is just not a valid measure of what is happening in the classroom. They serve to gauge students for their test-taking skills but not learning. There is an OVEREMPHASIS on standardized testing.
I'd visit the school. Ask to talk to parents. But i would not be so disinclined to judge on a teach to test emphasis.
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