Pigeon Forge High School is located at 414 Tiger Drive, near the Parkway that serves as the main transportation artery of the city of Pigeon Forge. The high school was established in 1999 in a building that had previously been the Pigeon Forge Middle School. Beginning with only the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, Pigeon Forge High School added one grade per year, graduating its first class in the 2002-2003 academic year. Located on a campus of some, PFHS has added a number of athletic and scholastic facilities since its first year. Its proximity to facilities maintained by the city of Pigeon Forge, such as the city park and community center and library complex, make a variety of services available to students. Governed and operated by the Sevier CountyBoard of Education, Pigeon Forge High School receives a part of the system's annual operating budget of $68,353,327, averaging an expenditure of $5,212 per student annually. A three-tier system of tracking is in place to allow learning in the skills, standard, and honors venues in order to best meet the needs of students at varying ability levels. To supplement all these offerings, the student body is also able to participate in a variety of extracurricular sports ranging from wrestling to biking and an array of intellectual pursuits including a Beta club as well as many others.
Demographics
The faculty at Pigeon Forge High School is a certified staff of 53 full-time and 5 part-time teachers with an average class size of 25. Over 50% of the staff has more than five years of experience. Pigeon Forge High School has a student body of over 700 members. With a slightly higher percentage of male students, the student body is overwhelmingly Caucasian with small populations of Native-American, Hispanic, African-American, Asian, and other ethnic groups. English as a Second Language classes have become a focus of some administrative attention in recent times in order to meet the needs of those students whose primary language is Spanish. Roughly 40% of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program. Overall attendance remains quite good, with only 5% of the student body absent on a daily basis. Transfer rates are relatively high, possibly due to the very nature of Pigeon Forge’s economy, which is predominantly seasonal.