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Looking for a house near a particular school, park, train or bus station? Or even near a close friend? Check out this example of a map search – all homes for sale near Central School, Glen Rock. That particular search results page shows homes on the market within 1/2 mile of Central School. You can use the “edit” button over the trash can to change the search radius. Or you can create your own search around any preferred location in the County. Maybe you want to live near the Glen Rock pool, for instance. You can edit the map below, or you can start from scratch using the Map Search.

Draw a circle around your preferred landmark. Or try the polygon tool if a different shape works better for your search.

Please call me for more information about buying a home in Glen Rock or any part of Bergen County. 201-421-0506 cell or 201-445-4300 x231.

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The NJ Department of Education has released school performance data for spring of 2014. The ten high schools with the highest combined SAT scores were all vocational-technical schools.

Vocational schools have evolved greatly in recent years. No longer are they focused on trade skills such as plumbing, cosmetology and carpentry. Today they offer specialized programs in bio-technology, medicine, engineering, computer science and math. Rather than serving students who may not wish to go to college, these vocational schools are attracting the top students in their part of the state.

Schools such as Bergen County Academies in Hackensack have a rigorous admission process. Students first take an admission exam covering math and English. A small percentage are then chosen for the interview round, after which the number of students admitted each year is whittled down to about 250.

As a public school, its funds come from the other public school districts in the county. Each school district is allowed to send a certain number of students in proportion to the size of the district.

Since Bergen Academies is drawing some of the top students from each district, its average SAT scores are quite high at 2129 – 3rd best in the state.

In comparison, the SAT scores for the highest ranking non-vocational schools in Bergen County are 1863 for Tenafly High School and 1785 for Ridgewood High School.

Of course staying in your nearby high school does have advantages for a student and his/her parents.   The time spent commuting to school is much shorter. And the competition is likely to be less fierce – a student is likely to have better grades in the local school.

Vocational-technical schools are indeed a major asset to the state of New Jersey. Our best and brightest students are offered an environment in which they can take their learning to a higher level. And that helps them not only get admitted to better colleges, it gives them advantages competing within the college environment. This writer recently heard from a college student at a well-known science and engineering school that students from NJ were academically ahead of their peers.

For more information about Bergen County Academies, visit http://bcts.bergen.org.

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Recently several new school reports have been published ranking the best schools in NJ. The results vary from one report to the next partly due to the fact that  methodology differs from one to the next and partly because “specialty” schools are not included in all ranking systems. Magnet schools, technical schools, online schools and vocational schools may or may not be included.

New Jersey Monthly Magazine comes out with their results every other year, right around September 1. They look at public high schools and some but not all specialty schools. NJ Monthly’s school ranking articles are available here. Their top 10 high schools are Chatham, Haddonfield Memorial, Northern Highlands Regional, West Morris Mendham, Millburn, New Providence, Pascack Hills, Glen Rock, Marlboro and Rumson-Fair Haven Regional.

NJ Monthly has a separate list for the best vocational schools in NJ.

US News & World Report ranks the best NJ schools here. Their results vary from most other ranking systems, at least for schools in Bergen County. Bergen Tech is on the list but Bergen Academies is not. Bergen Tech comes in at #5 and Tenafly at #18. The top 10 schools are Biotechnology High School, High Technology High School, Dr. Ronald E. McNair Academic High School, Middlesex County Academy, Bergen County Technical High School -​ Teterboro, Academy of Allied Health and Science, Ridge High School, Union County Magnet High School, Chatham High School and Princeton High School.

These results illustrate how adding the vocational/magnet schools drastically change the top 10.

A new publisher of the best schools in NJ and around the country is Niche.com. They rank NJ’s best public high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, school districts and private high schools. Charter and magnet schools are not included. Niche.com’s top public high schools are High Technology High School, Technical School – Teterboro, High Tech High School, Biotechnology High School, Dr. Ronald E. McNair Academic High School, Mountain Lakes High School, Millburn Senior High School, Tenafly High School, Science High School and Marine Academy of Science & Technology.

SchoolDigger.com takes a different approach and ranks the best NJ schools based purely on 2014 NJASK test results. They also have rankings for best NJ high schools, middle schools, elementary schools and schools districts. Rankings are available for all schools which have published HSPA scores.

SchoolDigger.com’s Best NJ High Schools are Academy Allied Health & Sci, Academy For Allied Hlth Sci, Academy For Info Tech, Bergen Acads Hackensack, Biotechnology H S, Communications High School, High Technology High School, Law & Public Safety, Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Sciences and Marine Academy Sci & Tech.

– Mike Shetler

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