Passaic Preparatory Academy
Passaic · NJ · Passaic City School District · Public · K-12 combined
📄 Shareable scorecard →Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Passaic Academy for Science and Engineering → Collegiate School → Passaic High School No. 12 → Mesivta Of North Jersey → Passaic Arts and Science Charter School → Noble Leadership Academy → Bais Yaakov Machon Ora → Hope Academy →📋 At a glance
- 📚 20 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 7 physics · 5 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 80th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 1% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 77% (Bottom 25% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Passaic Preparatory Academy compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 20% nationally with 20 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyNJ students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+12 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Passaic Academy for Science and Engineering, Collegiate School, Passaic High School No. 12 and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
80th percentile nationally
✅ Gifted/talented program
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).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 1% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 25% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
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.
🏛️ 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 most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. 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 -1.8%/year, projecting from 2024's 710 students:
≈ 61 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $30,287 per student in district revenue, the 61 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,847,507/year in funding at risk.
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.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passaic Academy for Science and Engineering Passaic |
Public | 0.0 | 472 | -12.6% |
| Collegiate School Passaic |
Private | 0.2 | 38 | — |
| Passaic High School No. 12 Passaic |
Public | 0.3 | 2,484 | -0.2% |
| Mesivta Of North Jersey Passaic |
Private | 0.3 | 19 | — |
| Passaic Arts and Science Charter School Passaic |
Public · charter | 0.5 | 403 | +32.6% |
| Noble Leadership Academy Fair Lawn |
Private | 0.6 | 268 | -17.5% |
| Bais Yaakov Machon Ora Passaic |
Private | 0.9 | 162 | +3.2% |
| Hope Academy PASSAIC |
Public | 1.0 | 58 | +3.6% |