Ocean County Vocational Technical School Performing Arts Academy or PAA for short is a specialized, public high school program which concentrates heavily on the fields of performing arts such as dance, vocal music, and theater, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from all of Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. Located in Lakehurst, it is the sister high school of the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Sciences, another full-time program that is also part of the Ocean County Vocational Technical School district. Because the school is a full-time program, students take both their performance major and academic courses at the school.
As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 256 students and 6.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a studentâ€"teacher ratio of 42.7:1. There were no students listed as eligible for free lunch or for reduced-cost lunch.
Awards, recognition and rankings
Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 173rd out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 139 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (78.5%) and language arts literacy (95.3%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
Curriculum
PAA relies heavily on block scheduling; each year is broken up into two semesters and each semester consists of four 80-minute, 5-credit classes. Every class offered is either an honors course or college-prep course because the high school is designed to test and challenge the brightest students both academically and in performance.
Notable alumni
- Brigid Harrington (born 2000), actress.
References
External links
- School website
- Ocean County Vocational Technical School website
- Ocean County Vocational Technical School's 2015â€"16 School Report Card from the New Jersey Department of Education
- School Data for the Ocean County Vocational Technical School, National Center for Education Statistics