North Brunswick Township High School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other schools named Brunswick High School see Brunswick High School (disambiguation).

North Brunswick Township High School (NBTHS) is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in North Brunswick Township, New Jersey, as part of the North Brunswick Township Public Schools. The school’s current principal is Brian Brotschul.

Contents

[edit] Awards and recognition

For the 1999-2000 school year, North Brunswick Township High School was awarded the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education[1], the highest award an American school can receive.[2][3]

[edit] Facility

NBTHS is located on a sprawling ten-acre facility off of U.S. Route 130 South. The school was first built in 1973 to accommodate the growing student population (which, at the time, attended New Brunswick High School). The school, at the time an architectural marvel, was nicknamed by students from neighboring schools as the “Country Club” in its early years. Due to the growing population of students in North Brunswick, the school has undergone two expansions in 1990 and 2004-2006. During the latter renovation project, it was discovered that the land under the high school had served as a garbage dump prior to the construction of the building. This was a chief cause in the delays of the construction project. Apart from standard classrooms, the school has a fully equipped library, six electronic classrooms, industrial technological rooms, naturally lit art studios, three gymnasiums, two music rooms, an auditorium with an orchestra pit, and a commons area that serves as a link between the school and outside community.

[edit] Student Body and Academics

Nearly 90 percent of the 1,800 students at NBTHS go on to institutions of higher education. In recent years, students have mostly matriculated to the local state university, Rutgers University, with a few attending much acclaimed institutions of higher learning such as Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, University of Pennsylvania, Purdue University, Georgetown University, Brown University, Wellesley College, Stevens Institute of Technology, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Furthermore, the school sends a few students each year to the prestigious Governor's School of New Jersey summer program and to the local Middlesex County Arts High School. Also, several students at NBTHS have attended The Johns Hopkins University Center For Talented Youth summer programs. The school offers over fifteen Advanced Placement Program (AP) courses, and had over 20 AP scholars for the 2005-2006 school year.

The school is considered to be both economically and ethnically diverse. As of 2005, the school was made up of students who were 44% White, 23% Black, 17% Asian, and 16% Hispanic. Economically, the school enrolls students who come from high-income to low-income backgrounds.

[edit] Athletics

NBTHS is a member of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) and holds membership in the Greater Middlesex Conference (GMC). NBTHS has a wide range of athletic facilities, available to both its student body and the North Brunswick community. With over six multipurpose athletic fields, a six-lane track, a football stadium, five tennis courts, a gymnasium that seats over 1,500 people, and three multipurpose baseball/softball diamonds, the school has long been considered one of the premier athletic facilities in the county. Furthermore, the school is one of the only GMC members that has a six-lane indoor swimming pool, and has thus frequently been the host of GMC Championships and state sectional meets. Annually, the school's boys’ soccer and girls’ swimming teams are among the stronger representatives of the school's athletics, with which numerous state championships have been captured over the last decade. The school also fields teams in football, girls’ soccer, boys and girls’ tennis, boys and girls’ basketball, baseball, softball, boys and girls’ lacrosse, boys’ swimming, diving, boys and girls’ winter and spring track and field, cross-country, gymnastics, wrestling, and golf. Volleyball was introduced in the 2005-06 season.

Members of NBTHS also participate in the FIRST Robotics Program. Team 25, Raider Robotix, sponsored by local corporation Bristol-Myers Squibb, won the national Championship in 2000, and finished as world championship finalists in 2003 and 2006. The team has also consistently won numerous state regionals all across the country as well as received international recognition for its achievements.

[edit] Extracurricular Activities

NBTHS offers close to 35 extracurricular activities for its students, many of which are integrated with the school’s academic curriculum. Its DECA program, linked with the school’s marketing coursework, has won championships at the regional, state, and the national levels. The Model United Nations has won honors at a variety of prestigious conferences, including those held at Harvard University, Georgetown University and Princeton University. Daedalus, the product of the school’s yearbook program, has won awards for excellence in yearbook production across New Jersey and at an annual conference held by Columbia University.

The school also serves as the host to a chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Key Club, as well as honor societies like the National Honor Society, National Art Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, French Honor Society, German Honor Society, Latin Honor Society, and Italian Honor Society.

The school’s arts program continues to rapidly grow. As a consequence of the growth, the North Brunswick Board of Education approved a $67 million expansion that includes a 1,500 seat auditorium, music practice rooms, and theater and film production studios. The school has a marching band, which competes locally in the United States Scholastic Band Association (USSBA) circuit, along with a full orchestra, band, and choral groups.

The school also has a full theater program (The Alchemist Theater Company), which puts on three performances on an annual basis. During the 2006-2007 school year, they performed You Can't Take it with You "Theatre Revue 2007" and Les Misérables. In 2007 to 2008, they performed Romeo and Juliet, "Theatre Revue 2008", and Grease.

[edit] Notable faculty

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] References

  1. ^ Blue Ribbon Schools Program: Schools Recognized 1982-1983 through 1999-2002 (PDF), accessed May 11, 2006.
  2. ^ CIBA cited as one of the best by Education Department, Journal Inquirer, November 16, 2006. "The Blue Ribbon award is given only to schools that reach the top 10 percent of their state's testing scores over several years or show significant gains in student achievement. It is considered the highest honor a school can achieve."
  3. ^ Viers Mill School Wins Blue Ribbon; School Scored High on Statewide Test; The Washington Post. September 29, 2005 "For their accomplishments, all three schools this month earned the status of Blue Ribbon School, the highest honor the U.S. Education Department can bestow upon a school."
  4. ^ Galarcep, Ives. "Opportunity excites Howard", Herald News, May 12, 2006. Accessed August 27, 2007. "Howard, a North Brunswick High School graduate, who arrived at the U.S. World Cup team's training camp in Cary, N.C., on Wednesday, recalled the frustrations of playing in just six matches after playing in 71 matches during his first two seasons with the club."
  5. ^ Gadino, Dylan P. "Sketching up with Aries Spears", Punchline magazine. Accessed October 10, 2007. 'His family – his mother, Doris Spears is a renowned jazz singer – moved to New Jersey where he eventually dropped out of North Brunswick Township High School when he was 17."

[edit] External links