East Brunswick High School

History

East Brunswick High School opened for the 1958-59 school year. Previously, students living in the Township attended South River High School in neighboring South River. In that first year, the school housed grades six, seven, eight and nine. Those four classes occupied the school until June 1962, when the original 9th graders became its first graduating class and the school contained grades nine through twelve. Because the school exceeded its intended capacity of 1,700 students, freshmen were dropped into the town's two junior high schools in 1967, later one junior high school. Enrollment reached a peak of about 2,600 in 1973. By 1990, the school had less than 2,000 students, falling to around 1,700 by 1997. Additions to the school were built in 1965, 1971 and 2001, in efforts to ease overcrowding. The 2001 expansion included a second level of classrooms, over the administrative offices; a corridor connecting three "buildings" that had previously been connected only by a covered outdoor walkway; and expanded facilities for the cafeteria, library, arts and athletic departments.

The school day at East Brunswick High School begins at 7:26 AM and ends at 2:12 PM. It operates its daily bell schedule on a 12-period system.

In the beginning of the 2005-06 school year, due to security reasons, the school instituted an ID system in which the students must wear their IDs at all times.

Awards, recognition and rankings

East Brunswick High School was awarded the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education, the highest award an American school can receive, during the 1990-91 school year.

In the 2014 "America's Top High School", "Newsweek" ranked the school 130th overall in the nation.

In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 484th in the nation among participating public high schools and 41st among schools in New Jersey.

In the 2012 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 45th in New Jersey, after being ranked 48th statewide in 2011. In Newsweek's May 22, 2007 issue, ranking the country's top high schools, East Brunswick High School was listed in 997th place, the 30th-highest ranked school in New Jersey. The school was ranked 886th in Newsweek's May 8, 2006, issue, listing the "Top 1,200 High Schools in The United States".

For the 1996-97 school year, East Brunswick High School was named a "Star School" by the New Jersey Department of Education, the highest honor that a New Jersey school can achieve.

In the April 1996 issue, the high school was cited as best in the state by Redbook Magazine.

During the 2001-02 school year, East Brunswick High School's Intergenerational Program was honored by the Best Practices Program in the state of New Jersey.

The school was the 47th-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 121st in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 71st in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 76th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 60th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state.

Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 109th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 35 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (87.9%) and language arts literacy (94.4%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

Curriculum

In addition to regular, honors, and Advanced Placement classes, the curriculum also includes numerous electives in Humanities, Business, Visual Arts, Music, Drama, Family and Consumer Science, and Technology Education. Two Cooperative Education programs are available, as well as a shared time program at the East Brunswick campus of the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical High Schools. Students are encouraged to elect courses outside their major interests. Students may receive credit for private music lessons.

Extracurricular activities

East Brunswick High School offers a full range of clubs and events. The school is perhaps most well known for its success in the national We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution competition, for which it won the national title in 1998, and then again three years in a row between 2004 and 2006. East Brunswick High School has also won the state competition for nearly every year in the past 25 years. Other clubs include Model United Nations, Mock Trial, Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Key Club, Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), Math Team, Academic Team, Science League, Code Club, Clarion (school newspaper), Emerald (yearbook), Drama Club, Jazz Ensemble, Marching Band, African American Club, Asian American Club, Spanish Club, French Club, German Club, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Club, Amnesty International Club, and various honor societies. East Brunswick High School is also one of the growing number of schools in the country that has various religious clubs such as According to Jesus (A2J, formerly known as Bible Club), Islamic Club, Coptic Orthodox Club, and the Jewish Student Union.

Pay to play

In the 2006-07 school year, a pay-to-play policy was implemented for all extracurricular activities due to the difficulties of the school budget. The cost to participate in a club is $15. For an athletic activity, or an activity needing regular school bus transportation, the cost is $50. This program has continued into the 2007-2008 school year. However, some clubs have returned to being free. This is likely to continue as long as the annual school budget continues to pass.

Athletics

The East Brunswick High School Bears compete in the Greater Middlesex Conference, which operates under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 2,102 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as Central Jersey, Group IV for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 1,082 to 2,349 students in that grade range.

The boys' bowling team won the overall state championship in 1997.

The boys' volleyball team won the 2007 NJSIAA South Jersey sectional championship with a 25-19, 31-29 victory over Southern Regional High School. The team went on to win the overall state title, defeating St. Peter's Preparatory School, 25-21, 25-22. This was the sixth state championship in East Brunswick boys volleyball history, also winning in 1999-2001 and 2003–04, tied for second with the most overall titles with Bridgewater-Raritan High School.

The East Brunswick girls' soccer team has been one of the most successful programs in New Jersey. The Bears have won 27 of 30 county/conference tournament championships, including 21 consecutive championships from 1980 to 2000. The Bears won five consecutive Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament titles, including a 2-1 victory over Old Bridge in 2007 and a 3-0 win over Bishop Ahr in 2008.

The girls tennis team has one of the most notable streaks at the Greater Middlesex Conference (GMCs). The team has won the title for nine consecutive years from 2006-2014.

The girls bowling team won the Group IV title in the 2007-08 season, after bowling a 1077 in the state final.

After winning their second Group IV championship in 2008, the girls tennis team won the Tournament of Champions, defeating Millburn High School and ending that school's streak of winning 98 consecutive matches.

The football team won the Central Jersey Group IV state sectional championships in 2004 and 2009. The East Brunswick football team won the Central Jersey Group IV state sectional title in the 2009-10 season, defeating Brick Memorial High School by a score of 9-0, earning the program its first sectional championship since 2004.

Football coach prayer controversy

On October 7, 2005, shortly after being informed by Superintendent of Schools Jo Ann Magistro that he would not be permitted to join his football team in prayer as he had done in the past and that some parents had complained about the prayers, East Brunswick High School coach Marcus Borden resigned from his position. Borden, also a Spanish teacher, had by then had a 23-year career with East Brunswick Public Schools. District spokeswoman Trish LaDuca told the East Brunswick newspaper Home News Tribune that a "representative of the school district cannot constitutionally initiate prayer, encourage it or lead it." Following Borden's resignation, nearly 100 players, parents, and coaches arrived at his house pleading for his return. Borden agreed and received pro bono legal representation the next week. He filed a lawsuit against the district on November 23 that year alleging that it was violating his constitutional rights; lawyer Ronald Riccio represented Borden.

Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled on July 26, 2006, that Borden could bow his head and bend his knee if the team captains (i.e., students) lead the players in prayer. However, this decision was overturned on April 15, 2008 by a unanimous decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in which Judge D. Michael Fisher concluded that "a reasonable observer would conclude that he is continuing to endorse religion when he bows his head during the pre-meal grace and takes a knee with his team in the locker room while they pray."

Grades

The school district had all its staff input their students' grades into a computer program called InteGrade Pro. Starting with the 2009-10 school year, InteGrade was replaced with a system known as Genesis, which provides a unified, wholly online attendance and grading system. Genesis also features auto-updating grades, a huge improvement over the previous online component to the InteGrade system, ParentConnect, which only updated once daily. If a teacher finds the need to, progress reports will be mailed to students' homes at a designated date near the middle of a quarter. At the end of a quarter, the grades are exported by teachers to administration, where they are formally presented to the parents/guardians of students through a formal report card.

The Board of Education changed the grading system to a "quality point" type of system where grades are equal to a number (GPA) and the GPA from the four quarters plus midterms (and/or finals) are averaged as well. Grade Point Average calculations are weighted three different ways: Standard scale, Honors Scale and AP scale. The Honors Scale transposes GPA values to their respective letter grades by a factor of 1.15, while the AP scale transposes by a factor of 1.25.

Administration

Core members of the school's administration are:

Notable alumni