Plainfield High School

Plainfield High School is a 9-12 campus of well-populated scale in PLAINFIELD, New Jersey, overseen by Plainfield Public School District, works with 2,077 students in grades 9 through 12. Enrollment runs roughly 124% above the state mean of about 929.

Plainfield High School is one of 15 schools operated by Plainfield Public School District, a district that instructs 8,522 students overall.

On demographics, Plainfield High School records that 82% of students identify as Hispanic, making the school strongly Hispanic-majority. Other groups include 16% Black. By comparison, Union County as a whole is about 35% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the income-and-resources front, Plainfield High School logs 156 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 13.3:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 75% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is above Union County's rate of about 52%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Plainfield High School is in the bottom 10% of New Jersey public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 24.9%; Plainfield High School posts 9.5%, -15.4 points below that line.

In the broader community, census data for Union County shows the typical household earns roughly $103,202 per year, about 39% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 7%. In all, Union County runs 180 public schools (combined enrollment of about 99,046 students), of which Plainfield High School is one.

Evergreen Elementary School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Plainfield High School at 9th of 9; the average score across the group is 18.8%.

Plainfield High School operates from a residential location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count grew 21%: 1,716 students in 2018 compared to 2,077 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment shrank from 27% to 16% over that span. Class-load math has narrowed: from 14.7:1 in 2018 to 13.3:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.