Somerville High School (New Jersey)


Somerville High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from Somerville and Branchburg Township in Somerset County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the secondary school for Somerville Public Schools. Students from Branchburg Township attend Somerville High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Branchburg Township School District.
As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,195 students and 92.5 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 12.9:1. There were 175 students eligible for free lunch and 50 eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
Advanced Placement courses and the Senior Options Program at Raritan Valley Community College allow students the opportunity to earn college credits while attending high school. AP offerings include AP Biology, AP Calculus, AP Chemistry, AP English Literature and Composition, AP French Language, AP United States Government and Politics, AP Comparative Government and Politics, AP Music Theory, AP Physics, AP Spanish Language and AP United States History.

Awards, recognition and rankings

In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 54th in New Jersey and 1,635th nationwide.
In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 911th in the nation among participating public high schools and 68th among schools in New Jersey.
The school was the 110th-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 76th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 77th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 73rd in 2008 out of 316 schools.
Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 122nd 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 Somerville High School Pioneers have historically competed in the Skyland Conference, consisting of public and non-public high schools located in west Central Jersey. With 864 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 778 to 1,062 students in that grade range. The Skyland Conference football programs have re-organized into the Mid-State 38, adding Union County schools to the existing mix of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren County programs.
The Pioneers have won 8 Central Jersey Group Sectional Football Championships: 1976, 1977, 1979, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1994 and 2017.
In January 2015, former Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek was named head Football coach. On October 2, 2015, Somerville won its first home game in nearly three years. In the following 2016 season, Vanderbeek led the Pioneers to an undefeated regular season, the fourth in the program's history. The 2017 team won Somerville's eighth sectional championship, its first in 23 years, against Rumson-Fair Haven High School in the playoff final of the Central Jersey Group III state sectional tournament, in a game played at High Point Solutions Stadium on the campus of Rutgers University. Rumson-Fair Haven had defeated Somerville in the 2016 sectional final.
Pioneer football teams reached the Central Jersey Group II sectional playoffs in 1994, 1999-2001, 2004-2005, and 2016-2017, winning seven Skyland Conference championships over that time period.
The boys' basketball team reached the Central Jersey Group Sectional finals in 1992 and 2007 and won the Somerset County Tournament in 1999.
The Pioneers' baseball team has won Central Jersey Group sectional titles in 1963, 1973 and 2018, and the Somerset County Tournament 5 times. The Pioneers won the program's first Group III state title in 2018, defeating Roxbury High School 1-0 in the semifinal and Allentown High School 3-2 in the final.
The wrestling team won the Central Jersey Group II sectional championship in 1991, 1992 and 2003.
The boys' soccer team won the 2006 Central Jersey Group II sectional championship with a 3-1 win over Raritan High School. In 2007, the boys soccer team repeated as sectional champion with a 2-0 win over Shore Regional High School.
The girls' soccer team defeated Shore Regional High School 3-1 to win the 2006 Central Jersey Group II sectional title.
The boys' outdoor track and field team won the New Jersey State Group III title in 1942 and State Group II titles in 1973, 2001, 2003-2005 and 2007.The team won 72 consecutive dual meets and was Central Jersey Group II sectional champion for eight straight seasons.
The boys' cross country team won the New Jersey State Group II championship in 1984.
The boys' lacrosse team, founded in 2004, won Central Jersey Group II sectional championships in 2013 and 2014, compiling a 35-game home winning streak dating back to 2011.
Somerville's newest athletic program, boys' ice hockey, competes in a co-operative program with Bernards High School.

Robotics

Somerville's robotics team is Team 102, The Gearheads. Team102 participates in the New Jersey and Connecticut FIRST Regionals.

Administration

Core members of the school's administration are: