William C. McGinnis Middle School is a four-year public middle school in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, United States, as part of the Perth Amboy Public Schools. It serves grades 5,6,7, and 8 and is part of Perth Amboy Public Schools.
William C. McGinnis School was built in 1899 but was later refurbished in the mid-1990s. Today the school is 89% Hispanic, 6% black, 4% white, and 1% Asian. 76% of the students participate in free or reduced price lunch. 14% of the school is Limited English Proficient. The student to computer ratio is 4 to 1. The average class size is 19. The school day is longer than the state average. The has implemented Block Scheduling for the 2006-2007 school year. Programs of note include: 1:1 Laptop Team; Alternative Program; Gifted & Talented Program.
As of the 2005-2006 school year, less than 55% of the school scored partially proficient on the Language Arts section of the Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment (GEPA) and almost 70% of the students scored partially proficient on the Math section of the GEPA. On the science section of the test 58% scored partially proficient; thus, the school is now in year 6 of not making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) according to requirements set forth in President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. Since the school is in a “special needs” or one of the state's Abbott Districts, it receives almost 80% of the money from the state. The total cost per pupil in the school district is $14,075.