Ocean County Vocational Technical School The Ocean County Vocational Technical School is a public school district based in Toms River that provides technical and vocational education to residents of Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. The district provides a number of full-time p ...

Grunin Performing Arts Academy (or PAA for short) is a specialized,

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

program which concentrates heavily on the fields of performing arts such as dance, vocal music, and theater, serving students in

ninth In music, a ninth is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a second. Like the second, the interval of a ninth is classified as a dissonance in common practice tonality. Since a ninth is an octave larger than a second, its ...

through

twelfth grade Twelfth grade, 12th grade, senior year, or grade 12 is the final year of secondary school in most of North America. In other regions, it may also be referred to as class 12 or Year 13. In most countries, students are usually between the ages of 17 ...

s from all of

Ocean County Ocean County is a county located along the Jersey Shore in the south-central portion of the U.S. state of New Jersey. It borders the Atlantic Ocean on the east. Its county seat is Toms River.New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

, United States. Located in Toms River on the campus of

Ocean County College Ocean County College (OCC) is a public community college in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. Its main campus is in Toms River. Other locations include the Southern Education Center in the Manahawkin section of Stafford Township and mult ...

, it is the sister high school of the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Sciences, another full-time program that is also part of the

district. Because the school is a full-time program, students take both their performance major and academic courses at the school. The school is accredited by the

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (Middle States Association or MSA) was a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit association that performed peer evaluation and regional educational accreditation, accreditation of public and priva ...

Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools through July 2027.Ocean County Vocational Technical School Performing Arts Academy

Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools. Accessed December 28, 2022. As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 284 students and 31.1 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a

student–teacher ratio Student–teacher ratio or student–faculty ratio is the number of students who attend a school or university divided by the number of teachers in the institution. For example, a student–teacher ratio of 10:1 indicates that there are 10 students ...

of 9.1:1. There were 16 students (5.6% of enrollment) eligible for

free lunch A free lunch is the providing of a meal at no cost, usually as a sales enticement to attract customers and increase revenues from other business. It was once a common tradition in saloons and taverns in many places in the United States, with th ...

and 5 (1.8% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.School data for OCVTS Grunin Performing Arts Academy

National Center for Education Statistics The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the part of the United States Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) that collects, analyzes, and publishes statistics on education and public school district finance ...

. Accessed December 1, 2022.

History

In January 2020, the OCVTS Grunin Performing Arts Academy moved from its original facility in Lakehurst to a new building located on the

campus. The facility was constructed at a cost of $27 million, with about $11 million covered by the State of New Jersey, $8 million by the County of Ocean and $8 million received from the Jay and Linda Grunin Foundation.

Awards, recognition and rankings

Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 173rd out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 139 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (78.5%) and language arts literacy (95.3%) components of the

High School Proficiency Assessment The High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA, pronounced "hess-pah" (/ˈhɛspə/) or sometimes just "H-S-P-A") was a standardized test that was administered by the New Jersey Department of Education to all New Jersey public high school students in ...

(HSPA). Students at the school have won numerous awards such as state-level and international level rankings at the New Jersey Thespian Festival and

International Thespian Society The International Thespian Society (ITS) is an honor society for high school and middle school theatre students. It is a division of the Educational Theatre Association. Thespian troupes serve students in grades 9–12; Junior Thespian troupes s ...

Festival. The school, staff, and students also hold achievements at the

Montclair State University Montclair State University (MSU) is a Public university, public research university in Montclair, New Jersey, with parts of the campus extending into Little Falls, New Jersey, Little Falls. As of fall 2018, Montclair State was, by enrollment, ...

Theatre Night Awards and

Paper Mill Playhouse Paper Mill Playhouse is a regional theater with approximately 1200 seats, located in Millburn, New Jersey on the Rahway River. Due to its relatively close location to Manhattan, it draws from the pool of actors (and audience members) who live in ...

Awards for their work in school productions.

Curriculum

PAA relies heavily on block scheduling; each year is broken up into two semesters and each semester consists of four 80-minute, 5-credit classes. Every class offered is either an honors course or college-prep course because the high school is designed to test and challenge the brightest students both academically and in performance.

Notable alumni

Elijah Boothe Elijah Boothe is an American actor best known for his role in Netflix's ''Luke Cage'' where he plays the young Cottonmouth. Boothe has appeared in numerous television shows and feature films including '' Golden Boy,'' '' Blue Bloods'', and the N ...

, actor best known for his role in ''

Luke Cage Lucas "Luke" Cage, born Carl Lucas and also known as Power Man, is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared in ''Luke Cage, Hero for Hire'' #1 (June 1972) and was created by Archie Go ...

''. *

Brigid Harrington Brigid Harrington (born 2000) is an American actress, singer, dancer and voice artist. She is best known as the first voice of Koko on the American version of the British animated TV series ''Chuggington'', and on Broadway as Jane Banks in '' Mar ...

, actress, singer, dancer and voice artist.Oglesby, Amanda
"Barnegat teen top vote-getter with #IDontDoDrugs song"
''

Asbury Park Press The ''Asbury Park Press'' is a daily newspaper in Monmouth and Ocean counties of New Jersey and has the third largest circulation in the state. It has been owned by Gannett since 1997. Its reporting staff has been awarded numerous national hon ...

'', April 15, 2015. Accessed January 19, 2022. "Had things gone differently, Brigid Harrington should have performed in the same room as actor Philip Seymour Hoffman..... 'I've liked his work for a while,' said Brigid, who voices the character of 'Koko' on the animated children's show ''Chuggington'' when she's not attending class at the Performing Arts Academy in Lakehurst."

References

External links

School websiteOcean County Vocational Technical School website
*
School Data for the Ocean County Vocational Technical School

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ocvts Performing Arts Academy Toms River, New Jersey 2001 establishments in New Jersey Educational institutions established in 2001 Public high schools in Ocean County, New Jersey Schools of the performing arts in the United States