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St Benedict Prep Middle School in Newark, NJ
mbrenes January 8, 2013
My son is a soccer player, this school has an excellent soccer program. However, I cant find anywhere academic reviews for this school, or test scores. Does anyone knows how this school stands with education ? or how it compares to other middle schols not in Newark ? currently we live in town in NJ where schools are excelent.
mattie_6499 March 14, 2013
My brother went here. At the end of freshman year, students go on the Backpacking Project, hiking on the Appalachian Trail. The school emphasizes brotherhood, often through community service and character-building programs.
As far as the academics, St. Benedict's is comparable to schools outside Newark. It is a part of the National Honor Society. My brother transferred to a nearby district ranked in the "Top 20" statewide due to a move and settled in fine academically without any struggle. SBP's newspaper is nationally recgonized, having won the Columbia Student Press Award more than once. FYI, the award is affiliated with the Graduate School of Journalism at THE Columbia University. The visual/arts program is good. There is choir, drama, and Visual Arts, which covers 3-D design, drawing, among other things.
You are right, the sports program is amazing. They have been ranked several times by ESPN as the top high school soccer team. Their track team is quite popular and does well. Don't leave out the teams for swimming, water polo, cross country, fencing, wrestling, tennis, golf, baseball, etc. SBP has birthed numerous Olympic gold medalists. Their field is beautiful.82728
TeacherParent March 21, 2013
Try www.privateschoolreview.com - I didn't check to see if St. Benedict's is reviewed there but it's worth a try.
Academic reviews are based on things like average SAT scores, percentage of kids going on to college and sometimes a list of colleges their graduates commonly attend. Private schools are not required to administer state standardized tests but many will do a yearly testing using the ERBs or one of several standardized test packages and you could always ask the admissions people at St. Benedict's for a complilation of their standardized test scores but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll give you one.
Despite all the talk and all the money spent, a school's seeming success continues to derive from one - at most two - things. The first is affluence - the more affluent the families in a school, the more successful the students of that school are. That's a shame and even quite sad but we haven't found a way to change that yet. If the families who send their children to St. Benedicts are generally affluent families, their kids tend to do well in school and St. Benedicts will look like a successful school.
If you try to compare private schools with each other looking for one to be better than another, that 'better' usually doesn't result in significant differences on SATS, grades, learning, etc. Is St. Benedicts a competitive admission school? If so, the school then chooses the students most likely to do well and they usually do.
Private schools are more easily compared by philosophy and approach to learning rather than by how much the kids really learn. Usually private schools will only allow you a tour or an 'Open House' but they won't allow you to spend a morning or afternoon sitting in on classes and that's a shame too because it's the best way to see if the school feels like a place that's right for your child. Besides the soccer program, what else would you like it to have? Warm and welcoming teachers or teachers who tend to be strict? Homework every night and weekend? Do they keep a calendar that all teachers have to post their nightly homework on? What's their homework policy? How many tests are allowed to be given on any one day? Do they have a system of consequences for infractions and is it one you can live with etc. etc.
Good luck with your decision. 82770
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