J. Christian Bollwage Finance Academy

📋 At a glance

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

Solid mid-tier academic profile.

• ▸ StatewideAP rigor at the 63th percentile nationally with 5 AP courses.
• ▸ LocallyNJ students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+12 points).
• ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Academy, K. Johnson D. Vaughan and M. Jackson STEM Academy, John E. Dwyer Technology Academy and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

🎓 Academic rigor

AP + advanced-course offerings

Strong — solid AP program + advanced courses

63th percentile nationally

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).

🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts

What % of students graduate on time?

60th percentile nationally

Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.

👩‍🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC

Teacher experience & reliability

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.

🏛️ Federal Title I context

High-poverty school

Title I Schoolwide eligible

≥75% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. These schools qualify for the highest tier of federal Title I funding and typically receive extra wraparound services. Academic outcomes vary widely — check the state assessment + grad-rate tiles.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.

Chronic absenteeism

Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.

Counselor capacity

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.

Enrollment trend & projection

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of +7.5%/year, projecting from 2024's 415 students:

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Revenue upside

At $23,938 per student in district revenue, the 181 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $4,332,778/year in additional funding.

District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.

Nearby high schools — the local competition

The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.