Perth Amboy High School

Perth Amboy High School (or PAHS) is a four-year comprehensive community public high school which serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from Perth Amboy in Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as the lone secondary school of the Perth Amboy Public Schools. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1928. As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 2,593 students and 197.5 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.1:1. There were 1,707 students (65.8% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 254 (9.8% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch. Based on 2021-22 data from the New Jersey Department of Education, it was the eighth-largest high school in the state and one of 29 schools with more than 2,000 students. The current Perth Amboy High School was built in 1971, to replace an earlier building that opened in 1881. The building was originally built to accommodate 1,600 students, resulting in overcrowding with nearly 50% students above the design capacity attending the school. Perth Amboy High School is the only public high school in the city other than the Perth Amboy campus of the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical High Schools. The school mascot is a panther. Awards, recognition and rankings The school was the 322nd-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 320th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 318th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 270th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 274th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state.