Passaic Public Schools is classified an ‘”A” district in the New Jersey Department of Education’s District Factor Groupings (DFG). District Factor Grouping (DFG) is a system of ranking schools by socioeconomic status. The group designations are based on information from census data and include the following: income, poverty, unemployment, percent of population with no high school diploma, percent of population with some college, occupations, and median family income.

There are eight DFG groupings: “A” designates the lowest socio-economic level, followed by B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I, and J. The DFG groupings are valuable for comparison of districts with similar profiles for purposes of state aid and assessment information.

The City of Passaic is within Passaic County, 12 miles west of New York City. Passaic is situated on the Passaic River in a portion of lowlands between the First Watchung Mountains to the West and the low ridges on the westerly side of the Hackensack Meadows to the East.

The racial and ethnic demographics of the City of Passaic from the 2010 United States Census reflects a majority Hispanic/Latino population of 49,557 (71 %), a White population of 9,014 (13%), an African American population of 7,425 (11 %), and other population (inclusive of Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and East Indians) of 3,785 (5%).