South Amboy Middle/High School

Now take what I'm saying as flavor text, not legal accusations. I'm speaking from my experience and giving commentary, not asserting omniversal university-cited truths. Honestly though, this school feels like a disability discrimination lawsuit waiting to happen.

Within this school, I faced many staff who were actively hostile to me. On my first day of a certain class, I was told to stay after class, my teacher then encouraged me to drop out because my teacher "knew how I'd be." The qualities they listed sounded suspiciously like the symptoms of ADHD. Of course this also followed with the teacher asserting that I was going to be monitored by them, and any issues would lead to my parents being harangued with their complaints.

What a welcoming and supportive environment.

Due to the awful size of this school, I was forced to have a class with the same teacher the next year. On the first day of class, I forgot to bring a notebook, as soon as class was done the teacher called home, sent emails, et cetera. At every minor slip-up this would follow.

IN MY OPINION, one of the counselors just doesn't do their job well, like ever. I genuinely had to CC so many people just to get responses on simple things. This is a very small school, my graduating class was around 80 people. That's a counselor's dream, or at least I'd think it is. Really doesn't sound that hard, especially when the SAT averages are this low and barely anyone I knew from here is going straight to a 4 year college.

There was an amazing counselor, but they left the school to pursue their passion.

Good for them honestly.

I've been told to "just focus" so many times by so many teachers. Incredible advice for someone with ADHD. As if I didn't have more college credit than anyone else in my class. My SAT Reading/Writing score was around 2.2 standard deviations above my school's average, using the national SAT standard deviation as a proxy.

But sure, all ya gotta do is just focus.

Did I mention you need to cross train tracks for a train that takes about 4–8 minutes to clear the crossing if you're coming from certain streets. Not crossing that way requires you to walk further up, onto the bridge, and then walk across a stroad while people are driving to work. Whether a crossing guard is there is a coin flip, whether a crosswalk is there is also a coin flip depending on which way you're coming from. Only one side of the bridge actually has a crosswalk.

You might be thinking, "This seems more like a municipal infrastructure complaint."

If the school didn't consistently lower the window to get into homeroom, and make homeroom times earlier and ironically closer to the windows where train is leaving, it would be. (A lot of people have 10 minute walks, last I remember the train leaves at 7:50, they changed homeroom to be at 8.)

A small town environment is all this school has going for it, whether you find your crowd is a different story. The cafeteria is small. 2 grades would sit in the same small cafeteria. I had a falling out with my friend group, this cafeteria was so small I had to sit outside on the pavement for lunch after, since I didn't want to go back to that table, and there was literally no room to sit elsewhere. I mean that as literally as possible-- in my recollected experience at least.

I would rate this school .2/10. There were some teachers I genuinely enjoyed, like my AP history classes, my environmental science classes, my physics and chem classes, and I could probably list a few more.

If you're someone with kids that lives in the area or is thinking of moving, I implore that you try to get your kids into either a vocational school or private school if you can afford it.