South End Elementary School

South End Elementary School is an elementary campus of reasonably sized scale in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, run under Cedar Grove Township School District, hosting 349 students in grades pre-K through 4.

Cedar Grove Township School District runs 4 schools in total, collectively educating 1,547 students. South End Elementary School is one of those campuses.

On demographics, South End Elementary School reports that White students make up the majority at 73%; the rest looks like 13% Hispanic, 8% Asian, 4% multiracial, 2% Black. By comparison, Essex County as a whole is about 30% White, so the school skews meaningfully more White than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, On paper, South End Elementary School has 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 12.5:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 11.4:1, putting South End Elementary School higher than the state norm the norm. About 7% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Essex County (around 54%), the school's rate is noticeably below typical.

After controlling for student poverty, South End Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 62.2%, the actual is 72.4%, a residual of +10.2 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Essex County indicate median household income runs about $80,789, 39% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 11%. In all, Essex County runs 249 public schools (combined enrollment of about 145,473 students), of which South End Elementary School is one.

The closest other public school is Frederic N. Brown Elementary School, roughly 0.6 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, South End Elementary School comes 1st of 8 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 55.6%.

The school occupies a commuter-belt site.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at South End Elementary School has increased 16%, going from 300 students in 2018 to 349 in 2025. The White share of enrollment fell from 83% to 73% over that span. Class-load math has rose: from 11.1:1 in 2018 to 12.5:1 in 2025.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.