Type Public high school Principal Gerard Foley Faculty 90.3 FTEs Phone +1 908-218-4108 District Somerville Public Schools Athletics conference Skyland Conference | Established c. 1909 Asst. principal Scott E. Hade Enrollment 1,159 (as of 2014-15) Color Black Founded 1909 | |
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Address 222 Davenport St, Somerville, NJ 08876, USA Similar Immaculata High School, Somerville Board of Ed, Watchung Hills Regional, Hunterdon Central High Sch, Branchbu Central Middle Sc | ||
Somerville High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from Somerville and Branchburg Township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school of the Somerville Public Schools. Students from Branchburg Township attend Somerville High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Branchburg Township School District.
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As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,159 students and 90.3 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.8:1. There were 142 students (12.3% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 32 (2.8% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
Advanced Placement (AP) courses (such as AP United States Government and Politics) and the Senior Options Program at Raritan Valley Community College allow students the opportunity to earn college credits while attending high school. AP offerings include AP Biology, AP Calculus (AB/BC), AP Chemistry, AP English Literature and Composition, AP French Language, AP United States Government and Politics, AP Comparative Government and Politics, AP Music Theory, AP Physics, AP Spanish Language and AP United States History.
Awards, recognition and rankings
In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 54th in New Jersey and 1,635th nationwide.
In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 911th in the nation among participating public high schools and 68th among schools in New Jersey.
The school was the 110th-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 76th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 77th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 73rd in 2008 out of 316 schools.
Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 122nd out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 13 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (85.0%) and language arts literacy (95.5%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
Athletics
The Somerville High School Pioneers compete in the Skyland Conference, which is made up of public and private high schools covering Hunterdon County, Somerset County and Warren County in west central New Jersey, operating under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA). With 864 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as North II, Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 778 to 1,062 students in that grade range.
The school operates as a partner in a cooperative ice hockey program with Bernards High School as the host school / lead agency, that expires at the end of the 2016-17 school year.
The football team won the Central Jersey Group III state sectional championships in 1976, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1994. In January 2015, former Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek was named co-head coach after Somerville had lost 22 straight games. On October 2, 2015, Somerville won its first home game in nearly four years.
The boys' cross country team won the Group II state championship in 1984.
The wrestling team won the Central Jersey Group II state sectional championship in 1991, 1992 and 2003.
The boys' soccer team won the 2006-07 Central Jersey, Group II state sectional championship with a 3-1 win over Raritan High School in the tournament final. In 2007, the boys soccer team repeated as sectional champion with a 2-0 win over Shore Regional High School in the tournament final.
The girls' soccer team defeated Shore Regional High School 3-1 to win the 2006 Central, Group II sectional title.
The boys' lacrosse Team won the Central Jersey Group II Championship in 2013 and 2014. The team had a 35-game home winning streak that dated back to 2011.
Through the 2009 spring season, the boys' outdoor track team had won 72 dual meets in a row and had been the Central Jersey Group II sectional champions for the previous eight years. In addition to a Group III title in 1942 and a Group II title in 1973, the team won five Group II titles during the eight-year streak (in 2001, 2003-2005 and 2007).
Robotics
Somerville's robotics team is Team 102, The Gearheads. Team102 participates in the New Jersey and Connecticut FIRST Regionals. Team 102 has won:
Mid-Atlantic Regional Best Offensive Round, Pennsylvania Robotics Challenge Second Place,
National Finalists, Participated In The Pennsylvania Robotics Challenge, Participate In Havoc In The Hills,
Brunswick Eruption Refs Favorite Award, BattleCry Best Autonomous
Long Island General Motors Industrial Design Award Winners, Long Island Regional Semi-Finalist, Monty Madness Quarter-Finalists, Brunswick Eruption Champions
Long Island Regional Winners, SPBLI Regional Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award, N.J. Regional Judge's Award
Motorola Quality Award at the Long Island Regional, Semi-finalists in the Newton Division at the Finals in Atlanta, Georgia.
Connecticut Regional Winner, New Jersey Regional Gracious Professionalism Award
The team has been to Atlanta in 2010 and other years prior.
Administration
Core members of the school's administration are: