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 secondary school for Somerville Public Schools. Students from Branchburg Township attend Somerville High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Branchburg Township School District.
As of the 2015-16 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,177 students and 92.5 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student-teacher ratio of 12.7:1. There were 143 students (12.1% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 42 (3.6% 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.
Video Somerville High School (New Jersey)
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).
Maps Somerville High School (New Jersey)
Athletics
The Somerville High School Pioneers have historically competed in the Skyland Conference, consisting of public and non-public high schools located in west Central Jersey. With 864 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 778 to 1,062 students in that grade range. The Skyland Conference football programs have re-organized into the Mid-State 38, adding Union County schools to the existing mix of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren County programs.
The Somerville football team has a long and distinguished history dating back to the Paul Robeson era (1911-1915). The Pioneers have won 8 Central Jersey Group Sectional Championships: 1976, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1994 and 2017.
In January 2015, former Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek was named head coach. On October 2, 2015, Somerville won its first home game in nearly four years. In the following 2016 season, Vanderbeek led the Pioneers to an undefeated regular season, the fourth in the program's history. The 2017 team won its eighth sectional championship and its first in 23 years, with a thrilling last minute 20-15 comeback win against four-time defending champ and top-seeded Rumson-Fair Haven High School in the playoff final of the Central Jersey Group III state sectional tournament, in a game played at High Point Solutions Stadium; Rumson-Fair Haven had defeated Somerville in the 2016 sectional final. With the win, Somerville reached the Star Ledger Top 20 for the very first time in school history.
Head Coach Kevin Carty Sr. led the team to the 1994 Central Jersey Group II sectional championship over Manasquan in his first season with the team and finished with a 92-42 career record through his final season in 2006. In addiiton to the 1994 title, his teams made it to the state sectional playoff in 199-2001 and 2004-3005m in addition to winning the Skyland Conference championship on seven occasions.
The boys' basketball team compiled a winning tradition under coach Joe D'Alessandro, who won 512 games during his 26 years at the helm (1991-2016). The Pioneers reached the Central Jersey Group Sectional finals in 1992 and 2007 and won the Somerset County Tournament in 1999 behind the play of Josh Hobbs (SHS, class of 1999).
The Pioneers' baseball team has won Central Jersey Group Sectional titles in 1963 and 1973, and the Somerset County Tournament 5 times (1951, 1974, 1987, 1992 and 1995).
The boys' cross country team won the New Jersey State Group II championship in 1984.
The wrestling team won the Central Jersey Group II sectional championship in 1991, 1992 and 2003.
The boys' soccer team won the 2006 Central Jersey Group II sectional championship with a 3-1 win over Raritan High School. In 2007, the boys soccer team repeated as sectional champion with a 2-0 win over Shore Regional High School.
The girls' soccer team defeated Shore Regional High School 3-1 to win the 2006 Central Jersey Group II sectional title.
Through the 2009 spring season, the boys' outdoor track team had won 72 dual meets in a row and had been 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).
The boys' lacrosse team, founded in 2004, won Central Jersey Group II sectional championships in 2013 and 2014, compiling a 35-game home winning streak dating back to 2011.
Somerville's newest athletic program, boys' ice hockey, competes in a co-operative program with Bernards High School.
Robotics
Somerville's robotics team is Team 102, The Gearheads. Team102 participates in the New Jersey and Connecticut FIRST Regionals. Team 102 has won:
- 1999 - Mid-Atlantic Regional Finalist,
Mid-Atlantic Regional Best Offensive Round, Pennsylvania Robotics Challenge Second Place,
- 2000 - Mid-Atlantic Semi-Finalist,
National Finalists, Participated In The Pennsylvania Robotics Challenge, Participate In Havoc In The Hills,
- 2001 - Mt. Olive Mania Finalists,
- 2003 - J&J Mid-Atlantic Regional Winners,
Brunswick Eruption Refs Favorite Award, BattleCry Best Autonomous
- 2004 - New Jersey Regional Motorola Quality Award,
- 2006 - Trenton Regional Quarter-Finalist,
Long Island General Motors Industrial Design Award Winners, Long Island Regional Semi-Finalist, Monty Madness Quarter-Finalists, Brunswick Eruption Champions
- 2008 - FIRST Finale Asphalt Race: First Place,
Long Island Regional Winners, SPBLI Regional Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Entrepreneurship Award, N.J. Regional Judge's Award
- 2009 - FIRST Website Excellence Award,
Motorola Quality Award at the Long Island Regional, Semi-finalists in the Newton Division at the Finals in Atlanta, Georgia.
- 2010 - National Competition Newton Division Semi Finalists
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:
- Gerard T. Foley, Principal
- Scott E. Hade, Assistant Principal
Notable alumni
- Raymond Bateman (born 1927, class of 1945), New Jersey Senate president (1970-1972) and Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey (1977).
- Ben Carnevale (1915-2008, class of 1934), basketball coach inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970.
- Paul Robeson (1898-1976, class of 1915), athlete, bass-baritone, concert singer, and civil rights activist.
- Elliott F. Smith (1931-1987), politician who served in the New Jersey General Assembly from 1978 to 1984, where he represented the 16th Legislative District.
- Lee van Cleef (1925-1989, class of 1943), character actor who starred in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
References
External links
- Somerville High School
- Somerville Public Schools
- Somerville High School's 2015-16 School Performance Report from the New Jersey Department of Education
- Data for the Somerville Public Schools, National Center for Education Statistics
- Public School Review: Somerville High School
- Robotics team
Source of article : Wikipedia
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