St Marys Area SHS

St Marys Area SHS, a close-knit 9-12 campus in Saint Marys, Pennsylvania, operated by Saint Marys Area SD, serves 572 students, covering grades 9 through 12. Compared to the state average of about 738 students per school, that is 22% below typical.

Within Saint Marys Area SD, which oversees 4 schools and 1,845 students, St Marys Area SHS is one campus in the system.

In terms of who attends, St Marys Area SHS lists that 96% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Compared to Elk County overall, the school's racial mix sits in roughly the same range.

Looking at school resources, St Marys Area SHS shows 40 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 14.2:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 12.8:1 average. Roughly 101% of students at St Marys Area SHS qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is north of Elk County's rate of about 89%.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, St Marys Area SHS is in the OUTPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations model, which fits a per-state line through proficiency and FRL share. Schools with this campus's poverty mix typically land near 34.4%; this one delivers 53.3%, a residual of +19.0 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Elk County shows the typical household earns roughly $66,380 per year, about 21% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 4%. In all, Elk County runs 10 public schools (combined enrollment of about 3,139 students), of which St Marys Area SHS is one.

Nearest neighbor: St Marys Area MS, around 0.2 miles off. Within five miles, there are 3 other public schools. On composite proficiency, St Marys Area SHS comes 5th of 7 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 55.2%.

St Marys Area SHS operates from a rural location.

Trend over the last 7 years. St Marys Area SHS's enrollment has ticked down 19% since 2018, when it stood at 707 (now 572). Class-load math has pulled in: from 15.9:1 in 2018 to 14.2:1 in 2025.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.