Passaic County Technical Institute (also known as PCTI, Passaic County Tech, the Passaic County Technical Vocational High School or simply Tech), is a vocational public high school in Wayne, that serves students in ninth through twelfth grades from all of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. It is located near the city of Paterson. PCTI offers some vocational classes in addition to several college credit courses. As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 3,404 students and 287.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.9:1. There were 1,653 students (48.6% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 375 (11.0% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch. Awards, recognition and rankings Schooldigger.com ranked the school 212th out of 376 public high schools statewide in its 2010 rankings (an increase of 21 positions from the 2009 rank) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the language arts literacy and mathematics components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). History In 1917, a group of businessmen in Paterson helped form Paterson Vocational School to train young men to enter the textile industry. The school accepted boys who were at least 14 years of age or in the sixth grade, and trained them for two years or until they were ready to assume a job in a factory or trade. From 1917 to the early 1940s, Paterson Vocational School continued to operate as a two-year school, gradually expanding its curriculum to include a wider variety of trades. During World War II, the school remained open around the clock providing men and women with the training to become machinists and draftsmen to design and construct the engines used in bombers, fighters and transport aircraft flown in the Pacific and European theaters. For its service, the school was honored by the War Department. Aware of the part technology would play in the booming postwar economy, Paterson Vocational School applied for and received approval from the New Jersey Department of Education to become a full-fledged high school in 1946. Academic subjects were added, as were new trades like Refrigeration, Industrial Electric and Electronics. The school was renamed Paterson Technical and Vocational High School and quickly gained the name Paterson Tech. Agriculture was offered to shared-time students attending Central High School (now Kennedy High School), with Paterson Tech renting a farm