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Hi everyone my husband and I are looking for a house in Cranford zoned to Hillside Ave school. We have 2 kids, one in elementary and one in middle school. For some reason Hillside is rated 6/10 on multiple school rating sites. I understand all cranford schools are great, can someone explain the low rating? thanks
Would you go to a bad town that has a school rating of 9/10 or a good town with a school rating of 6/10?
A lot of these school ratings are subjective and based on made up metrics. Without some avg test scores of kids you can't judge many school ratings. I can give you a few school ratings with 9/10 and the neighborhoods are not desirable to own at all.
Look at the towns nearby zone high schools and ratings of schools in the town overall that should give a better picture.
Would you go to a bad town that has a school rating of 9/10 or a good town with a school rating of 6/10?
A lot of these school ratings are subjective and based on made up metrics. Without some avg test scores of kids you can't judge many school ratings. I can give you a few school ratings with 9/10 and the neighborhoods are not desirable to own at all.
Look at the towns nearby zone high schools and ratings of schools in the town overall that should give a better picture.
What are the made up metrics?
What schools in nj are rated 9 or 10 and in bad areas, other than selective academies where students need to apply so location is irrelevent.
Thanks
My daughter lives in Cranford and from what she tells me the town may change what school your child will attend. Meaning that even though you live near the Hillside School your children may not attent
What are the made up metrics?
What schools in nj are rated 9 or 10 and in bad areas, other than selective academies where students need to apply so location is irrelevent.
Thanks
Elizabeth has 2 schools with 9 ratings. Nearby like Union, Springfield, Maplewood, Cranford, Garwood don't even have a single school rated 9. Many well to do towns don't even have a single school rated a 9 such as Montclair.
Some of the metrics recently changed and Cranford gets dinged on diversity but the teachers are great and the schools are really, really good. Any rankings on any elementary schools should be taken with a huge grain of salt, there is very little scoring data to compare schools directly the way there is the SAT and graduation rates or things like that.
Hillside is just a large school with K-8, which is probably why it gets dinged in comparison to the K-2 and 3-5 and 6-8 schools in comparison. As someone else mentioned, the school district is attempting to consolidate schools and create a more equal distribution of teachers and students so Hillside would be more of a 6-8 instead of a K-8 but it's still very much up for debate and is probably 2-3 years out from actually being implemented.
Some of the metrics recently changed and Cranford gets dinged on diversity but the teachers are great and the schools are really, really good. Any rankings on any elementary schools should be taken with a huge grain of salt, there is very little scoring data to compare schools directly the way there is the SAT and graduation rates or things like that.
Hillside is just a large school with K-8, which is probably why it gets dinged in comparison to the K-2 and 3-5 and 6-8 schools in comparison. As someone else mentioned, the school district is attempting to consolidate schools and create a more equal distribution of teachers and students so Hillside would be more of a 6-8 instead of a K-8 but it's still very much up for debate and is probably 2-3 years out from actually being implemented.
I've also heard HAS's lower scores relate to special ed student test scores, because though all schools have special ed programs of some sort, HAS seems to take the most and has a dedicated special education classroom and teachers. When I went there kids who should have gone to OAS (or the other smaller schools on the other side of town) were in the special ed class in HAS, when they had siblings not in special ed who were in OAS.
I can never get this confirmed, but this explanation flies around a lot in Cranford.
HAS is a great school with an excellent principal. It IS ranked lower than the other schools but other than that possible reason, I see no other logical explanation for it. It's not like the kids in that area or side of town are any worse than elsewhere in any way. It's baffled me honestly and unfortunately some people in Cranford are petty enough to use it in any way that suit their own agendas.
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