New Castle SHS

As a moderately sized 9-12 campus in New Castle, Pennsylvania, New Castle SHS hosts 740 students from grades 9 through 12, one of the schools within New Castle Area SD.

Within New Castle Area SD, which oversees 4 schools and 2,872 students, New Castle SHS is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, New Castle SHS lists that the most-represented group is White (51%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Other groups include 24% Black, 18% multiracial, 7% Hispanic. The wider county runs roughly 90% White, putting the school's mix considerably less White than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 48 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 15.4:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 12.8:1 average. Roughly 99% of students at New Castle SHS qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Lawrence County (around 67%), the school's rate is north of typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), New Castle SHS performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 35.2%, the actual is 35.8%, a residual of +0.6 points.

Across the wider county, the surrounding county (Lawrence County) logs that median household income runs about $61,931, 23% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. New Castle SHS is one of 25 public schools in Lawrence County (combined enrollment of about 11,015 students).

Nearest neighbor: New Castle JHS, around 0.1 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around New Castle SHS. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts New Castle SHS at 5th of 8; the average score across the group is 44.2%.

New Castle SHS operates from a small-town location.

Looking at the recent track record. New Castle SHS's enrollment has showed little movement since 2018, when it stood at 748 (now 740). Over the same period, the White share edged down from 66% to 51%. The student-to-teacher ratio loosened from 13.7:1 in 2018 to 15.4:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the feed for New Castle SHS typically covers enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.