McNair/Academic High School
123 Coles Street

McNair Academic High School
Photo: C. Karnoutsos 2008

McNair/Academic High School is the most recently founded public high school in Jersey City. It began in 1976 at the former Rutgers University Building on 168 Sip Avenue and later moved to the Ukrainian Catholic School at 16 Bentley Avenue. Twenty years later it moved to its present location that had previously been occupied by Ferris High School and Public School No. 32. It was named after Ronald E. NcNair, the African-American crew member of the Challenger, which exploded in flight. He had been a staff physicist with Hughes Research Laboratories and a NASA astronaut with the Challenger Space Shuttle.