Asbury Park High School


Asbury Park High School is a comprehensive, six-year community public high school serving students in seventh through twelfth grades headquartered in a landmark building in Asbury Park, Monmouth County New Jersey, United States, constructed during the New Deal as a model high school campus. The school is part of the Asbury Park Public Schools, an Abbott District that serves children in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The current school building opened to students in September 1926.
As part of a reconfiguration of district schools announced in July 2019, students in grades 7 and 8 will attend classes in the high school starting in September 2020.
Students from Deal attend the high school as part of a sending/receiving relationship. Students from Belmar attend either Asbury Park High School or Manasquan High School. Students from Allenhurst and Interlaken had attended the district's schools as part of sending/receiving relationships that have since been terminated. Interlaken received permission of the Commissioner New Jersey Department of Education in July 2014 to terminate its sending agreement with Asbury Park, which was replaced with a new relationship with the West Long Branch Public Schools for grades K-8 and with Shore Regional High School for grades 9-12. In July 2017, the DoE's Acting Commissioner approved a plan by Allenhurst to end its sending relationship with Asbury Park and join Interlaken in sending to West Long Branch and Shore Regional. The nearly 40 public school students from Allenhurst would start transitioning to the new sending districts as the relationship with Asbury Park is severed.
As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 420 students and 38.5 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 10.9:1. There were 202 students eligible for free lunch and none eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 313th-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 177th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 280th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 281st in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 296th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school 379th 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 Asbury Park High School Bishops compete in the Shore Conference, an athletic conference made up of private and public high schools centered at the Northern Jersey Shore. All schools in this conference are located within Monmouth County and Ocean County. The league operates under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 264 students in grades 10–12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015–16 school year as Central Jersey, Group I for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 12 to 467 students in that grade range.
The girls' basketball team won the Group III state titles in 1976 and 1977, defeating Paramus Catholic High School in both years and won the Group II state championship in 1985 vs. Somerville High School. The boys team won the Group IV title in 1936 vs. Emerson High School, in 1941 vs. West New York Memorial High School, in 1943 vs. Trenton Central High School, won Group II titles in 1978 vs. Lodi High School and in 1987 vs. Orange High School, and won Group I titles in 2011 vs. Jonathan Dayton High School and in 2012 vs. University High School
The school's football team won the Central Jersey Group II title in both 1980 and 1984, before winning the Central Jersey Group I state sectional championships in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011. The 2007 football team won the Central Jersey, Group I state sectional championship with a 32–18 win over Keansburg High School in a game played at Rutgers Stadium, finishing the season with an 11–1 record and earning its first state title in more than 20 years. The program won its seventh title in 2016, when the team defeated Keyport High School by a score of 26–17 in the tournament final of the Central Jersey Group I state sectional championships.
The school's track and field and cross country teams have a history of accomplishment dating back to the 1950s. The boys' cross country teams were Group IV state co-champions, Group II state champions in 1990 and 1993, Group II sectional champions in 1987, 1988, 1990 and 1991. In outdoor track and field, The Blue Bishops were Group II state champions in 1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1993 and Group I state champions in 1988. They won the Group III sectional championships in 1977, Group II 1977, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, and were Group I Sectional Champions in 1988. The Blue Bishops boys' team was relay state champions in Group III in 1977, in Group II in 1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985 and in Group I in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995; the 15 state titles and eight consecutive titles from 1988 to 1995 are the most of any public school in the state. The girls' team won the Group I/II title in 1981 and the Group II title in both 1992 and 1993. The Blue Bishops won the indoor open championships Group III 1977 and 1980, Group II 1978, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996, Group I 1988.

Notable alumni