Somerville High School (New Jersey)

Somerville High School
Location
222 Davenport Street
Somerville, NJ 08876
United States
Information
Type Public high school
Established c. 1909
Principal Gerard Foley
Faculty 90.8 (on FTE basis)[1]
Enrollment 1,204[1] (as of 2013-14)
Student to teacher ratio 13.3:1[1]
Color(s)      Orange and
     Black[2]
Athletics conference Skyland Conference
Team name Pioneers[2]
Website Somerville High School

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.[3][4]

As of the 2013-14 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,204 students and 90.8 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.4:1. There were 109 students (9.1% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 16 (1.3% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.[1]

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. During the 2004-05 school year, students enrolled in thirteen AP courses. Offerings have included 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.[5]

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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[8] The magazine ranked the school 73rd in 2008 out of 316 schools.[9]

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).[10]

Athletics

The Somerville High School Pioneers[2] compete in the Skyland Conference, which is made up of public and parochial 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).[11] With 869 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2014-15 school year as Central Jersey, Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 776 to 1,073 students in that grade range.[12]

The football team won the Central Jersey Group III state sectional championships in 1976-1977, 1979, 1983, 1985-1986 and in 1994.[13] In January 2015, former Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek was named co-head coach after Somerville had lost 22 straight games.[14] On October 2, 2015, Somerville won its first home game in nearly four years.[15]

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.[16] In 2007, the boys soccer team repeated as sectional champion with a 2-0 win over Shore Regional High School in the tournament final.[17]

The girls soccer team defeated Shore Regional High School 3-1 to win the 2006 Central, Group II sectional title.[18]

The Boys Lacrosse Team won the Central Jersey Group II Championship in 2013 and 2014. The team is currently on a 35 game home winning streak that dates back to 2011.[19]

Through the 2009 spring season, the team had won 72 dual meets in a row and had been the Central Jersey Group II sectional champions for the previous eight years.[20] 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).[21]

Robotics

Somerville's robotics team is Team 102, The Gearheads. Team102 participates in the New Jersey and Connecticut FIRST Regionals.[22] Team 102 has won:[23]

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:[24]

Notable alumni

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 School Data for Somerville High School, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed November 29, 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 Somerville High School, NJSIAA. Accessed October 6, 2015.
  3. ↑ Somerville High School 2014 Report Card Narrative, New Jersey Department of Education. Accessed February 14, 2015. "We proudly serve a diverse population of approximately 1,200 students from the communities of Somerville and Branchburg."
  4. ↑ Somerset County School Districts-Sending/Receiving/Regional, Somerset County Superintendent of Schools. Accessed April 4, 2011.
  5. ↑ Mathews, Jay. "The High School Challenge 2011: Somerville High School", The Washington Post. Accessed September 9, 2011.
  6. ↑ Streib, Lauren. "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast, May 6, 2013. Accessed May 9, 2013.
  7. ↑ Staff. "Top Schools Alphabetical List 2014", New Jersey Monthly, September 2, 2014. Accessed September 5, 2014.
  8. ↑ Staff. "The Top New Jersey High Schools: Alphabetical", New Jersey Monthly, August 16, 2012. Accessed August 26, 2012.
  9. ↑ Staff. "2010 Top High Schools", New Jersey Monthly, August 16, 2010. Accessed April 4, 2011.
  10. ↑ New Jersey High School Rankings: 11th Grade HSPA Language Arts Literacy & HSPA Math 2010-2011, Schooldigger.com. Accessed March 4, 2012.
  11. ↑ League Memberships – 2014-2015, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed September 11, 2014.
  12. ↑ 2014-2015 Public Schools Group Classification: ShopRite Cup–Basketball–Baseball–Softball for Central Jersey, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, as of July 8, 2014. Accessed September 11, 2014.
  13. ↑ Goldberg, Jeff. N.J.S.I.A.A. FOOTBALL PLAYOFF CHAMPIONS, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed November 19, 2015.
  14. ↑ Frezza, Harry; and Deak, Mike. "Vanderbeek hired as co-head football coach at Somerville H.S.", Courier News, January 22, 2015. "By an 8-1 vote on Tuesday night, the board of education appointed Vanderbeek as co-head football coach for $1 a year. Vanderbeek will serve on the sidelines with Chris Casamento, whose team will begin the 2015 season determined to snap the state's second longest losing streak of 22 games."
  15. ↑ LoGiudice, Daniel. "Somerville football wins first game since 2012", Courier News, October 2, 2015. Accessed October 6, 2015. "The Somerville High School football team did something Friday evening that it hasn’t done since 2012. The Pioneers won a game. Somerville defeated North Plainfield 26-20 in overtime on a cold and rainy night. It was the first victory since October 27, 2012, when the Pioneers defeated Roselle 31-20."
  16. ↑ 2006 Boys Soccer Tournament - Central, Group II, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed November 4, 2007.
  17. ↑ 2007 Boys Soccer - Central, Group II, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed November 14, 2007.
  18. ↑ 2006 Girls Soccer Tournament - Central, Group II, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed November 4, 2007.
  19. ↑ Somerville Pioneers, LAX Power. Accessed May 30, 2014.
  20. ↑ Moretti, Mike; and Lambert, Jim. "Somerville's sectional streak ends at 8; Tasco ties for 800 title (High school Boys Outdoor Track news)", The Star-Ledger, May 23, 2009. Accessed May 26, 2015. "For the first time since 2000, Somerville failed to come home with a sectional trophy. Loaded with superstars the last eight years, Somerville boasts no such athletes this spring and finally had to settle for less than gold after butting heads with Matawan.``We met our match today," said Somerville coach Carl Weigner after his squad bowed to Matawan, 125-60, in the NJSIAA/Star-Ledger Central Jersey, Group 2 meet yesterday at Monmouth Regional in Tinton Falls."
  21. ↑ "2014 Outdoor Track & Field State Championships Program", New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed May 26, 2015.
  22. ↑ About Us, FRC Team 102 Gearheads. Accessed November 29, 2015.
  23. ↑ Awards, FRC Team 102 Gearheads. Accessed November 29, 2015.
  24. ↑ Staff Directory, Somerville High School. Accessed October 6, 2015.
  25. ↑ "Interview with Raymond Bateman", Rutgers University Eagleton Institute of Politics Center on the American Governor. Accessed September 10, 2013. "A lifelong resident of Somerset County, Raymond Bateman was born in Somerville on October 29, 1927, and graduated from Somerville High School in 1945."
  26. ↑ Hatala, Greg. "Glimpse of History: 'Being born with a pair of beady eyes was the best thing that ever happened to me' - Lee Van Cleef", The Star-Ledger, August 26, 2013. Accessed September 10, 2013. "Looking at this photo of Clarence Leroy Van Cleef Jr. from the 1943 Somerville High School yearbook, it’s hard to imagine him acquiring the sobriquet 'ugly.' Yet he was tagged just that 23 years later when he starred with Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach in Sergio Leone’s classic western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."
  27. ↑ Frezza Jr., Harry. "Raritan man attends Final Four for 57th time", Courier News, April 1, 2001. Accessed August 2, 2007. "Ben Carnevale, who turns 86 on Oct. 30, has had the kind of life some people might call legendary. In fact, when you look at his life, which began in a house just off the last trolley stop on Gaston Avenue in Raritan Borough, you might agree. The 1934 Somerville High School graduate is a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame. He is also the winningest coach in United States Naval Academy history, a survivor of a ship that was torpedoed during World War II, and somebody who had a lot to do with building the NCAA basketball tournament."
  28. ↑ Paul Robeson - High School, accessed April 15, 2007. "Paul attended school in Somerville and graduated from Somerville High School in 1915."

External links

Coordinates: 40°34′41″N 74°36′47″W / 40.577989°N 74.613026°W / 40.577989; -74.613026

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