Lenape Valley Regional High School


Lenape Valley Regional High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school and school district in serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from two municipalities in Sussex County and one in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. The communities served by the high school are Byram Township and Stanhope Borough in Sussex County and Netcong Borough in Morris County. The school is located in Stanhope.
As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 691 students and 58.0 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 11.9:1. There were 70 students eligible for free lunch and 23 eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
The district is classified by the New Jersey Department of Education as being in District Factor Group "GH", the third-highest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J.
Lenape Valley had been the only high school in Sussex County with a planetarium. In February 2016, the board of education voted to eliminate the planetarium and use the space for science labs.

History

closed in 1974 and Lenape Valley began serving students from Netcong and those from Byram Township and Stanhope, who had previously attended Sparta High School.

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 180th-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 120th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 108th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 105th out of 316 schools statewide in its September 2008 cover story. The school was ranked 139th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state.
Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 145th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics and language arts literacy components of the High School Proficiency Assessment.
In the 2013-14 school year, Lenape Valley Regional High School ranked seventh in SAT scores in Sussex County out of nine other public high schools.

Extracurricular activities

Lenape Valley Regional High School offers a selection of sports, including football, soccer, cross country, tennis, wrestling, field hockey, swimming, basketball, and cheerleading. It also has a weight room available. The school also offers business activities, creative writing-based courses and music courses, including choirs and bands.

Athletics

The Lenape Valley Regional High School Patriots participate in the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference, following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 620 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as North I, Group II for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 495 to 762 students in that grade range. Until the NJSIAA's 2009 realignment, the school had participated in the Sussex County Interscholastic League, which was made up of public and private high schools located in Sussex County and northern Morris County.
The school operates as the host school / lead agency for joint boys' and girls' swimming programs with Newton High School, under an agreement that expires at the end of the 2017-18 school year; Newton High School is the host school for a joint ice hockey program shared by the two schools that expires at the end of the 2019-20 school year.
The football team won the North I Group II state sectional championships in 1977, 1981, 1989–1991, 1993 and 1999. The Patriots made it to the 2004–05 NJSIAA Group II Section I state championship at Giants Stadium, falling in double overtime to Lakeland Regional High School Lancers by a score of 17-14.
The field hockey team won the North I Group II state sectional championship in 1978 and 1990.
The wrestling team won the North I Group II state sectional championship in 1985, the North I Group III titles in 1998 and 1999, and won the North II Group I title in 2009. The Patriots wrestling team in the 2005–06 season was 21-7, ranked 16th in New Jersey, and won district 2. In the 2005–06 wrestling season, DJ Russo was the state runner-up and national champion for the 215 weight class; he ended his season with only one loss. The Patriots wrestling team repeated with a district championship in the 2006–07 season, and finished the year with a 16-11 record. The Patriots wrestling team in the 2008–09 season finished 18-5, ranked 15th in the state, and won the North II Group I state sectional title, the program's first since 1999, after defeating Elmwood Park Memorial High School 40-23. The team had won sectional titles in 1985 in North I Group II and in both 1998 and 1999 in North I Group III.

Special education

The school staff includes 17 special education teachers. The school offers support to the visually, hearing and physically impaired, through special classes and extra-curricular help. The school also provides assistance with speech therapy and development.

Notable alumni

Core members of the district's and school's administration are:
The district's board of education, with nine members, sets policy and oversees the fiscal and educational operation of the district through its administration. As a Type II school district, the board's trustees are elected directly by voters to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with three seats up for election each year held as part of the November general election. Seats on the high school district's nine-member board of education are allocated based on the populations of the constituent municipalities, with five seats assigned to Byram Township and two seats each to Netcong and Stanhope.