Thomas Jefferson Arts Academy is a public high school in Elizabeth, New Jersey in Union County in the United States, specializing in the visual, performing, and media arts. Located in historic Midtown, the school serves students in ninth through twelfth grades as part of the Elizabeth Public Schools. Located across the street from Elizabeth's City Hall and the monuments of Winfield Scott Park, and Martin Luther King Jr monument, Thomas Jefferson Arts Academy is the oldest building of all the Elizabeth Public Schools high school academies. Jefferson Arts was first built in 1928 as an all-boys high school and named for the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States. In 1977, the former Thomas Jefferson High School (for boys) merged with the newly constructed Elizabeth High School main complex; the school was renamed Thomas Jefferson House of Elizabeth High School. The school is now a high school academy and the center for the district's visual and performing arts programs. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 2013. As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,062 students and 87.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.2:1. There were 577 students (54.3% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 80 (7.5% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch. Awards, recognition and rankings The school was named a Model School in the Arts by the New Jersey Arts Education Partnership in 2013. During the spring of 2014, the school was awarded the Healthy Schools Silver Award by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation Healthy Schools Program. Additionally, Thomas Jefferson Arts Academy students have been nominated and received awards in numerous, local and regional competitions including: Music in the Parks Montclair State University's Theatre Night Awards Paper Mill Playhouse's Rising Star Awards College of New Jersey's K-12 Student Art Exhibition SkillsUSA The school was the 321st-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 328th in the state of 328 schools in 2012. The 2016 High School Challenge Index published by The Washington Post, a continuation of high-school rankings formerly published in Newsweek, identified Thomas