Warwick has been home to two high schools since the re-purposing of Veterans Memorial high school to a middle school. The two remaining high schools are Toll Gate High School and Pilgrim High School. Although in the same school system, both high schools are perceived differently from each other, with these perceptions raging even further amongst Warwick citizens of different ages.
This topic has been discussed by the current students of Warwick high schools, with the common theme being flipped; Pilgrim is now being seen as the more sports oriented and spirited school. Some students even transfer from Toll Gate to Pilgrim to be a part of its sports programs, leaving Toll Gate without some key players that would highly benefit its teams. That being said, there is currently little talk about either school being sub-par, or more well off. Students of both schools share similar thoughts about the “type” of teens that attend each school. Both schools also are currently known to host the same advancements when it comes to academics; one isn’t necessarily better than the other. Some current students were asked how they felt, and this is what they said:
“I feel like people at Toll Gate just come to school and then leave, like, they don’t do any extracurricular activities.” – Hayden Henry, grade 12 (Toll Gate)
“Pilgrim is big on sports. There’s a lot of student involvement and I feel like our student section is really big.” – Connor Berard, grade 11 (Pilgrim)
“I have friends from both schools and everyone seems to be in the same place academically, so there probably isn’t a difference there.” – Lily Sousa, grade 11, (Toll Gate)
The notion that both schools are performing similarly, or even the opposite to how they performed a decade or two ago, has been surprising to many older Warwick school alumni. The common theme that each school followed then isn’t particularly the case today, as stated by some students of the classes of 2024 and 2025. Maybe the perception of either place of education will change again in the following decades, especially with the new construction of Warwick high schools.
