Monroe Township High School

Monroe Township High School is a comprehensive four-year public high school located in Monroe Township, in Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades part of the Monroe Township School District. The school serves students from Monroe Township and approximately 300 from Jamesburg who attend Monroe Township High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Jamesburg Public Schools that has been in place since 1980. The school's mascot is a falcon and the school colors are purple and Vegas gold. The motto is "Excellence is Our Expectation".

As of the 2022–23 school year, the school had an enrollment of 2,568 students and 193.1 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.3:1. There were 186 students (7.2% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 65 (2.5% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch. Based on 2021-22 data from the New Jersey Department of Education, it was the tenth-largest high school in the state and one of 29 schools with more than 2,000 students.

History
The school's original building, designed to serve 1,100 students, was constructed at a cost of $4.7 million (equivalent to $ million in ). Groundbreaking for the new facility was held in July 1971 after a bond issue to cover the costs of the building was approved by voters in May 1971, and students started using the building in January 1974.

The New Jersey Board of Education voted in May 1979 to shutdown Jamesburg High School, which with an enrollment of 182 students was the smallest in the state. Starting with the 1979-80 school year, Jamesburg began sending students to Monroe Township High School.

The Marasco Center for the Performing Arts was added to that building in the 1990s, and more classrooms were added in the early 2000s. Because of Monroe Township's increasing population, a new high school was built and was finished in time for the 2011-2012 school year, despite discovery of an old farmstead on the site. The previous high school building (across the street from the current one) is now used by the township's middle school, and what was called "Applegarth Middle School" is now an elementary school building.

In recent years, the population of Monroe Township grew, leading to a proposal for relocation of the high school onto what was then part of the soccer fields of Thompson Park, across the road from the previous high school building. Opponents of the site of the proposed high school claim that historical records show that the new location is the 18th century site of Bethel Indian Town. An archaeological study found mostly European artifacts in portions of the 35 acre of the proposed site, with only about eight or so Native American artifacts among them. The new Monroe Township High School building was completed in 2011 on the Thompson Park property. Monroe Township High School is a rapidly growing school with approximately 2100 students and 200 staff members.

Awards, recognition and rankings
The school was the 82nd-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 124th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 118th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 113th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 106th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state.

Schooldigger.com ranked the school 178th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 17 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (78.0%) and language arts literacy (95.0%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools and by the New Jersey Department of Education.

Graduation requirements
In order to graduate from Monroe Township High School, a student must obtain a minimum of 130 credits in grades 9-12. In addition, the successful completion of certain subjects is required as follows:
 * Language Arts - 4 years
 * Physical Education and Health - 4 years (for each year enrolled)
 * United States History - 2 years
 * World History - 1 year
 * Fine, Practical, Performing Arts - 2 years
 * Mathematics - 4 years
 * Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics) - 3 years
 * World Language - 2 years
 * Career Education (infused in curriculum)
 * Technology - 1 year
 * Economics / Personal Finance - 1 year

Student activities
Extracurricular activities provide an opportunity for MTHS students to explore their interests, learn, and help the community. Most "clubs" meet after school when additional buses are available for after school transportation. Some clubs meet at night, in which cases the students are responsible for their own transportation.
 * Extracurricular activities

Clubs offered include:

The MTHS Marching Band competes in independent and USBands competitions held within New Jersey and New York. The marching band was under the direction of Martin Griffin and Alfred Hadinger. Now it is under the direction of Megan Alexander. Some of the instructors have a musical past of competing in the Drum Corps International circuit or Drum Corps Associates circuit. Some of the members have even branched out and joined a drum corps. Ever since 2003, they have competed as an A Class marching band varying in sizes of around a group 5, 4, 3 or 2 band. After minor successes in the past, the Marching Falcons won first place in Group 2A at the 2013 USBands A Class National Championships in Allentown Pennsylvania and the 2013 USBands A Class state championships in Group 2A in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In March 2014, the group was promoted from A class competition, to Open class competition because do their success in previous years. In 2018 they won Yamaha Cup in 4A with a score of 85.625. They are now a Group 4 Amateur marching band and plan on competing at the Yamaha Cup, Amateur Class State, and National Championships, as well as other local events.
 * Marching Falcons

Athletics
The Monroe Township High School Falcons compete in the Greater Middlesex Conference, which is comprised of public and private high school in the Middlesex County area, operating under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 1,732 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Group IV for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 1,060 to 5,049 students in that grade range. The football team competes in Division 5C of the Big Central Football Conference, which includes 60 public and private high schools in Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset, Union and Warren counties, which are broken down into 10 divisions by size and location. The school was classified by the NJSIAA as Group V South for football for 2022–2024, which included schools with 1,315 to 2,466 students.

Interscholastic sports for both boys' and girls' include bowling, track and field, basketball, golf, lacrosse, soccer, tennis and cross-country. Girls' only sports include softball, volleyball, and field hockey. Boys' only sports include football, baseball, ice hockey and wrestling. The team's colors are purple and Vegas gold.

The Falcons finished the 2009 season with an 11-1 record after winning the Central Jersey Group III state football title with a 30-10 victory in the championship game against a Middletown High School South team that came into the finals undefeated.

The boys' soccer team won the Group II state championship in 1987 as co-champion with Millburn High School. The Falcons were the 2012-13 Greater Middlesex Conference boys' soccer champions, defeating South Brunswick High School by the score of 2-1, to earn the program's first conference title since 2008. The team defeated Jackson Memorial High School in the Central Jersey Group IV state sectional championship by the score of 3-1, the first time that the team had won a sectional title since 1987.

The Monroe boys' bowling team won the Group III state championship in 2017.

The ice hockey team won the Kolodney Cup in 2018 with a 3-1 win against Woodbridge High School.

The Monroe boys' tennis team has had two GMC championship winners, both at 1st singles, in 2021 and 2023.

In 2023, Monroe Township High School launched New Jersey's first ever high school cricket team.

Administration
The principal is Kevin Higgins. His core administration team includes four vice principals.

Notable alumni

 * Nick Dini (born 1993), catcher for the New York Mets organization.
 * Leonard Leo (born 1965, class of 1983), conservative legal activist.
 * Dave Meads (born 1964), former MLB relief pitcher who played for the Houston Astros.