Perth Amboy High School
Perth Amboy High School (or PAHS) is a four-year public high school in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, United States. PAHS, which serves grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Perth Amboy Public Schools.
Perth Amboy High School built in the early 1970s. Today more than 2,100 students attend Perth Amboy High School, which was originally built for 1,600 students, causing it to be overcrowded. Perth Amboy High School is the only public high school in Perth Amboy besides Middlesex County Vocational Technical High School. Today, the school is 87% Hispanic, 7% Black, 4% White, and 2% Asian American. Students of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent predominate. Most of the students also belong to working class families. 68% of the students participate in the free or reduced price lunch program. 70% of the school speaks Spanish in their homes. There are also limited English proficient students or LEPs who compose 15% of the school. Limited English Proficient students cannot speak, read, or write in English and are placed in "bilingual" classes.
The school's ratio of computers to students is 12 to 1 meanwhile the state average is 4 to 1. The school day is longer than the state average. The instructional time is 7 hours whereas the state average is 5 hours and 52 minutes. 33% of the school graduated via the SRA process and 12% graduated through the LEP SRA process. The average SAT score is 849. Roughly 54% of the graduating seniors go on to two-year colleges, particularly Middlesex County College. However, another 29% of the graduating seniors go on to four year colleges. As of the 2004-05 school year, PAHS had a suspension rate of 44%. 91% of PAHS seniors graduated. The student to faculty ratio is 12 to 1. The faculty gets paid $46,350 a year while the state average is $52,563. The administrators get paid $103,562 as the state average is $102,755. Since the school is in a “special needs” or one of the Abbott Districts, it receives almost 80% of the money from the state. The total cost per pupil in the school district is $14,075.