Hawthorne High School

Hawthorne High School operates as a modestly sized senior high in HAWTHORNE, New Jersey, overseen by Hawthorne Public School District. Current enrollment sits at 569 students spanning grades 9 through 12. Compared to the state average of about 929 students per school, that is 39% leaner than typical.

Across the 5 schools in Hawthorne Public School District (2,129 students total), Hawthorne High School accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

Looking at the student body, Hawthorne High School shows that the most-represented group is Hispanic (46%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school shows 45% White, 4% Black, 3% Asian. That composition is broadly in line with Passaic County as a whole.

On the income-and-resources front, The school employs 53 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 10.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 12.7:1 average. Around 43% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Passaic County runs at roughly 61%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully below the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Hawthorne High School falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 42.9%; this one comes in at 25.0%, -17.9 points off the demographic line.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Passaic County indicate median household income runs about $87,522, 31% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 11%. Across Passaic County's 155 public schools (combined enrollment of about 83,237 students), Hawthorne High School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Lincoln Middle School, roughly 0.5 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Hawthorne High School comes 7th of 9 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 39.1%.

Hawthorne High School operates from a bedroom-community location.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 16%: 677 students in 2018 compared to 569 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 64% to 45% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 12.5:1 in 2018 to 10.8:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.