Watsessing Elementary School

Located at 71 Prospect Street, in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Watsessing Elementary School is a tight-knit K-5 school that enrolls 333 students (grades K through 6), operated by Bloomfield Township School District.

Bloomfield Township School District runs 11 schools in total, collectively educating 6,400 students. Watsessing Elementary School is one of those campuses.

On the student-mix side, Watsessing Elementary School reports that 46% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups; the rest consists of 28% Black, 17% White, 7% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 25% Hispanic, putting the school's mix noticeably more Hispanic than the area baseline.

On the resource side, On paper, Watsessing Elementary School has 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 10.7:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 11.4:1 average. An estimated 53% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Watsessing Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 37.2%, the actual is 38.6%, a residual of +1.4 points.

Across the wider county, ACS estimates for Essex County put median household income runs about $80,789, roughly 39% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 11% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Essex County runs 249 public schools (combined enrollment of about 145,473 students), of which Watsessing Elementary School is one.

Whitney E. Houston Academy is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Watsessing Elementary School comes 3rd of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 29.5%.

The campus sits in a suburban setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count increased 3%: 323 students in 2018 compared to 333 in 2025. Over the same period, the Black share declined from 41% to 28%. The student-to-teacher ratio widened from 9.5:1 in 2018 to 10.7:1 today.

On this page, members of the Watsessing Elementary School community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.