Metuchen High School
Metuchen High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Metuchen in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school of the Metuchen School District. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Secondary Schools since 1929.
As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 271 students and 44.6 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 6.1:1. There were 104 students eligible for free lunch and 17 eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
Awards, recognition and rankings
The school was the 77th-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 19th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 54th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 86th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 56th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 99th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics and language arts literacy components of the High School Proficiency Assessment.Athletics
The Metuchen High School Bulldogs compete in the Greater Middlesex Conference, made up of public and private high schools located in the greater Middlesex County area. Metuchen is placed in the Gold Division for Football. The league operates under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 500 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as Central Jersey, Group II for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 498 to 750 students in that grade range.The school participates in a cooperative gymnastics program together with Arthur L. Johnson High School as the host school / lead agency under an agreement that expires at the end of the 2018-19 school year.
The school was recognized as the Group I winner of the NJSIAA ShopRite Cup in 2006-07, which recognizes overall athletic achievement by schools in Groups I-IV, Group A and Group B, based on the all-around best athletic program within each group in the state of New Jersey. The award for the 2006-07 ShopRite Cup recognized the school for achieving 2nd place in girls' soccer, 2nd in boys' soccer, 1st in girls' cross country, 4th in boys' cross country, a tie for 3rd in football, and 1st in boys' track and field. The team repeated as Group I winner in the 2007-08 ShopRite Cup, with first-place finishes in girls' soccer, boys' winter track relays and boys' spring track, a second-place finish in boys' winter track individual and a third place in girls' cross-country, with an additional nine points awarded for having no disqualifications in all three athletic seasons.
The boys' cross country team won the Group III state championship in 1953, won the Group II title in 1962 and won the Group I championship in 1994, 2015 and 2016. In 2017, the team became the first Group I school to win the Greater Middlesex County championship.
The boys' track team won the indoor relay championship in Group I/II in 1972 and 1973, and the Group I title in 1992, 1997, 1999, 2003 and 2008; The seven titles are tied for third-most among public high schools in the state. The girls team won the indoor relay title in Group I in 1996.
The football team won the Central Jersey Group I state sectional championship in 1985.
In 2007, the girls' soccer team won the Central Jersey, Group I state sectional championship with a 1-0 win over Robbinsville High School in the tournament final. The win marked the team's third consecutive sectional title, their first three-peat since 1988-90. The team moved on to win the Group I state championship with a 1-0 win over Glen Ridge High School in the tournament final, the team's first ever state title.
Marching Band
The Pride of Metuchen High School Marching Band consists of over 80 wind, percussion, and color guard members. The band performs at all school football games and participates in many Tournament of Bands and USBands competitions located in the New Jersey area. At the 2013 New Jersey state championships at Rutgers University, the marching band won 3rd place in Group 4 Open competition. The Pride of Metuchen were the 2015-16 Tournament of Bands Group 3 A, Atlantic Coast Champions.Administration
Core members of the school's administration are:- Bruce Peragallo, Principal
- Susan La Fauci Paredes, Assistant Principal
Notable alumni
- Marqus Blakely, basketball player who has played for the Houston Rockets.
- Padi Boyd, astrophysicist who is the head of NASA's Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory.
- David Copperfield, illusionist.
- Scott Cowen, 14th president of Tulane University.
- Paula Danziger, children's author who wrote more than 30 books, including her 1974 debut young adult novel, The Cat Ate My Gymsuit.
- Jim Fielding, track star.
- Gail Fisher, pioneering African American actress best known for her role in Mannix TV series.
- Robert Hegyes, TV actor, best known for his role as Epstein on the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter.
- Dejuan Miller, football player at the University of Oklahoma.
- Brian Ralph, alternative cartoonist, whose graphic novel, Daybreak, was adapted for the Netflix series Daybreak.
- Nancy A. Roseman, 28th president of Dickinson College.
- Quinn Shephard, actress, writer, director and producer, whose directorial debut film Blame was shot in Metuchen and in the school.
- Julian E. Zelizer, author and Professor of Political History at Princeton University, and CNN contributor.