1
What's the vibe like in the hallways at Liberty Middle School right now?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
559
Middle
DISTRICT 498 · STATE 578
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·WEST ORANGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS·NCES 341761006112
Liberty Middle School
1 KELLY DRIVE, WEST ORANGE, NJ 07052 · (973) 243-8650 · Essex County
GRADES 07–08MIDDLE21-SUBURBTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL559 STUDENTS
B
allk12 Grade
Scored higher than 62% of New Jersey public middle schools
- B-Test scores Share of students meeting the state standard in reading, math, and other tested subjects, 2023-24 and 2024-25.
- B+Beats expectations How far test scores land above or below what the share of low-income students predicts for a school in this state.
- ·Three-year trend Not available for this school, so the grade uses the other parts.
Grades compare a school only with schools in the same state, because every state gives its own test. How grades work · Top-graded New Jersey public middle schools
Student : Teacher
10.3:1
54 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 9.2:1 · STATE 10.9:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
46%
258 students
DISTRICT 39% · STATE 41%
Community
1
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other middle schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 7 | 270 | 48% |
| Grade 8 | 289 | 52% |
Student demographics
68%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 71% · STATE 71% · US 70%
Student head counts by race/ethnicity from federal NCES enrollment data. District, state, and US figures are each group's share of all public school students in that area (US excludes territories). Very small groups may be suppressed in the source, so categories do not always sum exactly to total enrollment.
Gender split
School pathway
Students here typically continue to
Liberty Middle School→West Orange High School
Based on grade levels within West Orange Public Schools. Attendance zones can vary; confirm enrollment with the district.
Test scores
NJSLA 2024-25 . % Meeting or Exceeding ExpectationsEnglish Language Arts
60.9%
NJ avg 53.1% . +6.9pp since 2023
Math
42.6%
NJ avg 41.6% . +2.4pp since 2023
What this means: On the NJSLA, New Jersey's statewide test, about 61 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 43 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all New Jersey schools, those numbers are about 53 and 42. Reading and writing scores are up about 7 points since 2023, while math scores are up about 2 points.
NJSLA results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 60.9% | 42.6% |
| 2023-24 | 54.0% | 40.2% |
% Meeting or Exceeding Expectations, all students and all tested grades.
Source: NJSLA. All students, all grades. See all years and grades →
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
44.5%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
40.9%
based on NJ schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
+3.6pp
above demographic expectation
What this means: About 44% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 41% typical for New Jersey schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among New Jersey's top nor bottom 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
Schools most like Liberty Middle School
Liberty Middle School's state test result (44.5% proficient) is higher than 3 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberty Middle School this school | 559 | 46.2% | 44.5% |
| Roosevelt Middle School W ORANGE | 457 | 43.8% | 46.2% |
| Jefferson Elementary UNION | 564 | 52.7% | 32.3% |
| Kawameeh Middle School UNION | 729 | 43.2% | 43.3% |
| Edison Middle School W ORANGE | 477 | 42.6% | 55.3% |
| Benjamin Franklin Middle School TEANECK | 463 | 52.3% | 40.0% |
Matched among New Jersey middle schools on enrollment, the share of students from low-income families (eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and racial and ethnic makeup. Proficient is the average share of students meeting the state standard across all of the school's state tests in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the same combined score our test-score rankings use. Online schools and schools serving specialized populations are not matched.
Where Liberty Middle School ranks
Among middle schools| Measure | This school | In New Jersey | In Essex County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 44.5% | #220 of 433 | #17 of 27 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 42.6% | #215 of 437 no change | #18 of 28 no change |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 60.9% | #216 of 437 ▲ 28 | #18 of 28 ▲ 1 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 559 | #211 of 445 | #14 of 29 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 10.3:1 | #152 of 417 | #12 of 28 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 67.9% | #67 of 419 | #4 of 28 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 46.2% | #155 of 436 | #8 of 27 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked fastest growth first | +9.2% | #57 of 122 | #2 of 11 |
Ranked against other public middle schools. Online schools are left out of every list, and test-score lists leave out schools that serve specialized populations. Each rank links to the full list. Arrows under a test-score rank show places moved since the prior test year, among schools tested both years.
4-year change
SY 2020-21 vs SY 2024-25Enrollment
559
-1 (0%) vs 2020
+1% since 2010-11, when it was 555
Student : Teacher
10.3:1
was 11.2:1
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Enrollment and staffing by year
| School year | Students | Teachers (FTE) | Students per teacher | Free and reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 559 | 54 | 10.3:1 | 46% (258) |
| 2023-24 | 542 | 57 | 9.5:1 | 43% (234) |
| 2022-23 | 526 | 53.8 | 9.8:1 | 49% (258) |
| 2020-21 | 560 | 50 | 11.2:1 | 40% (222) |
| 2017-18 | 512 | 50.3 | 10.2:1 | 48% (244) |
| 2015-16 | 497 | 53 | 9.4:1 | 47% (234) |
| 2010-11 | 555 | 51 | 10.9:1 | 42% (231) |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Liberty Middle School.
Since 2017-18: students up 9% (512 to 559); teachers up 7% (50.3 to 54).
About Liberty Middle School
Among the schools in WEST ORANGE, New Jersey, is Liberty Middle School, a medium-sized middle school. It serves 559 students in grades 7 through 8.
Enrollment across the 13 schools in West Orange Public Schools totals 6,616 students.
Liberty Middle School's enrollment has no majority group, and Black students are the largest at 40%. It is also 37% Hispanic, 13% White, 6% multiracial, and 3% Asian. That is close to the 36% Black share among all Essex County residents. The chance that two students picked at random at Liberty Middle School belong to different racial or ethnic groups, known as the diversity index, is 68%.
A ratio of 10.3:1 comes from the school's 54 full-time-equivalent teachers. Middle schools in New Jersey have a similar average ratio of 10.9:1. Free or reduced-price lunch eligibility was 46% in 2024-25. The average for public schools in Essex County is 54%.
allk12 grades Liberty Middle School a B. The grade compares the school only with New Jersey public middle schools, because each state gives its own test.
Liberty Middle School is 3.6 points above its predicted average proficiency rate on state tests (44.5% versus 40.9%), which places it in neither the top nor the bottom 10% in New Jersey.
Essex County census figures show that median household income is about $80,789, roughly 39% of adults have a four-year degree or more, and the share of residents below the poverty line is 11%. Liberty Middle School is among the 249 public schools in Essex County.
The shortest distance from Liberty Middle School to another public school is about 0.4 miles, to Mount Pleasant Elementary School. The five-mile area around Liberty Middle School holds at least 8 other public schools. The school's 44.5% average proficiency ranks 8th among 9 nearby schools.
Liberty Middle School is coded as Suburb: Large in federal locale data.
The student count changed little between 2020-21 (560) and 2024-25 (559).
Topics for discussion here include sports tryouts, band and choir, and theater. Alumni can share how the school prepared them.
Essex County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
863,002
Census ACS
Median income
$80,789
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
39%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
11%
Below federal line
Schools in county
249
145,473 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in West Orange Public Schools
- West Orange High SchoolHigh · 2,106 students
- Gregory Elementary SchoolElementary · 484 students
- Edison Middle SchoolMiddle · 477 students
- Roosevelt Middle SchoolMiddle · 457 students
- Kelly Elementary SchoolElementary · 451 students
- Redwood Elementary SchoolElementary · 446 students
Other schools in WEST ORANGE
- West Orange High SchoolHigh · 2,106 students
- Mount Pleasant Elementary SchoolElementary · 349 students
- West Orange Early Childhood Learning CenterElementary · 54 students
- Betty Maddalena Early Learning CenterElementary · 49 students
Other Liberty Middle schools
28 other US public schools in 21 states are named Liberty Middle. Liberty Middle School is the 18th largest of the 29.
- Liberty Middle SchoolCumming, GA · 1,256 students
- LIBERTY MIDDLE SCHOOLOCALA, FL · 1,171 students
- Liberty Middle SchoolMadison, AL · 1,103 students
- LIBERTY MIDDLE SCHOOLWest Fargo, ND · 1,103 students
- Liberty MiddleClifton, VA · 913 students
Nearby schools
- Mount Pleasant Elementary School0.4 mi · 349
- Mount Pleasant Middle School1.0 mi · 530
- Mount Pleasant Elementary School1.0 mi · 407
- St. Cloud Elementary School1.6 mi · 436
- Harrison Elementary School1.6 mi · 522
- Kelly Elementary School1.6 mi · 451
Frequently asked questions
About Liberty Middle SchoolHow large is Liberty Middle School?
Liberty Middle School enrolls approximately 559 students in grades 07-08.
Is Liberty Middle School an elementary, middle, or high school?
Liberty Middle School is a middle school covering grades 07-08.
What is the student-teacher ratio at Liberty Middle School?
The student-to-teacher ratio at Liberty Middle School is approximately 10.3:1 (54 FTE teachers).
What is the student diversity at Liberty Middle School?
Student demographics at Liberty Middle School are roughly 13% White, 37% Hispanic, 40% Black, 3% Asian, 6% Two or more.
Who oversees Liberty Middle School?
Liberty Middle School is overseen by West Orange Public Schools in Essex County.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.