Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex is a moderately sized primary school in PATERSON, New Jersey, operated by Paterson Public School District. The school instructs 513 students in grades pre-K through 8. Compared to the state average of about 405 students per school, that is 27% bigger than typical.

Across the 43 schools in Paterson Public School District (21,372 students total), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On the student-mix side, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex reports that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 71% of enrollment. The remainder looks like 25% Black, 2% Asian. That is meaningfully more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 44%.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 49 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 10.6:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 11.4:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 66% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 30.0%; actual is 11.0%, a gap of -19.0 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Passaic County shows the typical household earns roughly $87,522 per year, roughly 31% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 11% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Passaic County runs 155 public schools (combined enrollment of about 83,237 students), of which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex is one.

Nearest neighbor: School 24, around 0.3 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex at 5th of 8; the average score across the group is 15.5%.

The campus sits in a commuter-belt setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked down 26%: 691 students in 2018 compared to 513 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment ticked down from 30% to 25% over that span.

In the discussion threads here, members of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Complex community share and discuss sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.