Pine Grove Area MS

Located at 105 School Street, in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, Pine Grove Area MS is a cozy middle-grades school that teaches 411 students (grades 5 through 8), one of the schools within Pine Grove Area SD. By comparison, Pennsylvania's public schools average about 594 students each, so Pine Grove Area MS sits 31% below that benchmark.

Pine Grove Area SD runs 3 schools in total, collectively educating 1,469 students. Pine Grove Area MS is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Pine Grove Area MS lists that 94% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. The remainder is composed of 3% multiracial.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 39 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 10.7:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.2:1 average. An estimated 47% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Schuylkill County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is below the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Pine Grove Area MS sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 57.5%; actual is 38.0%, a gap of -19.5 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Schuylkill County shows median household earnings sit near $68,313, 20% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. Pine Grove Area MS is one of 35 public schools in Schuylkill County (combined enrollment of about 18,259 students).

The closest other public school is Pine Grove El Sch, roughly 0.1 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 2 other public schools cluster around Pine Grove Area MS. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Pine Grove Area MS at 8th of 8; the average score across the group is 52.7%.

Geographically, the school is in a low-density area.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Pine Grove Area MS has contracted 23%, going from 534 students in 2018 to 411 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 14.2:1 in 2018 to 10.7:1 today.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.