Tamaqua Area MS

As a small middle-grades school in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, Tamaqua Area MS teaches 488 students from grades 6 through 8, overseen by Tamaqua Area SD.

Across the 4 schools in Tamaqua Area SD (2,048 students total), Tamaqua Area MS accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On the student-mix side, Tamaqua Area MS logs that 83% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Beyond that, the school shows 13% Hispanic, 4% Black.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 14.1:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.2:1, putting Tamaqua Area MS higher than the state norm the norm. Around 58% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Tamaqua Area MS performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 52.7%, the actual is 36.3%, a residual of -16.4 points.

Zooming out to the county, ACS estimates for Schuylkill County put median household income runs about $68,313, roughly 20% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Schuylkill County runs 35 public schools (combined enrollment of about 18,259 students), of which Tamaqua Area MS is one.

The closest other public school is Tamaqua Area SHS, roughly 0.1 miles away. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Tamaqua Area MS ranks 4th on composite proficiency, above the local average of 34.3%.

The campus sits in a countryside setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 7%: 527 students in 2018 compared to 488 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share fell from 90% to 83%. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 15.6:1 in 2018 to 14.1:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the Tamaqua Area MS community share and discuss sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.