Pascack Valley High School

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 39th-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 73rd in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 23rd in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 25th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 23rd in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 49th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 4 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (91.8%) and language arts literacy (98.0%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). In 2013, Pascack Valley earned a place on the AP District Honor Roll along with Pascack Hills and 475 schools across the US and Canada.

History

School principal Dr. Joseph Poli died suddenly in 1989. Among the many memorials to Dr. Poli was the renaming of the annual holiday girls' basketball tournament in his memory. The Joe Poli Tournament attracts top teams from across the region.

1997 walkout

In 1997, in an act of support for the proposed school budget which was up for voter approval, up to 700 students (much of the student body) walked out of the school. In the previous three years, the budget had been voted down and if the budget had gone down again, the school would have had to dismiss about one third of its teachers, including all of the teachers who were under the age of 40. In addition to other local activist activities, such as handing out fliers encouraging people to vote up the budget, students staged a walkout and the local media were called to attend the event. Originally, the principal had planned to let students walk only to the back following an all-student meeting, but students took matters into their own hands when the leaders of the group led the walkout to the front. In the end, the budget passed.

Mascot controversy

The school's mascot is an Indian. In 2004, there was a major controversy at the school about the appropriateness of the mascot. The school took up the issue after researching high schools and colleges around the U.S. with similar nicknames that had decided to change their mascots. Many of these schools had received complaints from Native American groups about the stereotypes that the mascots reinforced. The student council also discussed rumors that New Jersey would be banning Native American-related mascots, and eventually it was decided that taking up the issue by choice rather than force was the right thing to do. After months of public debate and an official symposium in which students voiced opinions from both sides of the issue, a vote was held among the students and faculty and the motion to keep the Indian was affirmed, 67% voting in favor of keeping the mascot.

In 2015, the school district decided to change the logo to one using the initials "PV" while deferring a decision on the mascot name.

2008 child pornography scandal

In 2008, four freshman students were caught with nude pictures of underage girls. These pictures were shown to have been transmitted through school laptops.

2008 death of principal

On January 29, 2008, the school district announced that following surgery on her knee, then-principal Dr. Barbara Sapienza had become comatose and that her recovery was uncertain. Assistant principal Thomas DeMaio took over as acting principal, and has remained in that position following Dr. Sapienza's death on March 5, 2008. DeMaio was subsequently appointed principal in his own right.

2015 white supremacy scandal

On May 10, 2015 an open letter from the school's Human Rights League was published on the website of the school's newspaper, The Smoke Signal. The letter referenced "incidents of racism" at the school, including a swastika being drawn on a hallway wall and white supremacy hand signs being flashed at sporting events. Media in northern New Jersey and nearby New York City picked up on the report, and the Anti-Defamation League visited with the school superintendent on Thursday, May 21. School officials revealed in media reports that five students were suspended, although the school would not make it clear what, if any, involvement these students had in these incidents. To protest against white supremacy and to promote racial equality, school students put up a banner in the hallway for students who want racial tolerance and diversity to sign.

1:1 eLearning initiative

In the fall of 2000, it was proposed to provide a laptop to every student and teacher for educational purposes. A wireless network environment for the school part of a referendum project. As the concept evolved, school representatives visited districts where such a program was already in place. The school's Steering Technology Committee was responsible for the logistics of the plan from 2000 forward.

For the 2004–05 school year, the school issued all its students laptops, the first public school in the state to do so. The laptops were issued by Sony and were put under a contractual lease for a period of four years, expiring in 2008. While the laptops were hailed as a success by the administration, students largely differed in their opinions.

As a response to a possible drop in academic performance due to non-academic use of the laptops during the school day, computer use was for the first time restricted for all students in the 2005–06 academic school year. Students no longer have access to student email during the school day and are limited to a restricted screen with a single window full of shortcuts to only the applications recognized as being appropriate for student in-class use.

The high school ceased use of the Sony Vaio laptops given to students and teachers during the years 05-07 in order to integrate 1.6 GHz MacBooks from Apple. for the student body and administration's use for the 2007–2008 school year. Several classes were used as "guinea pigs" with the MacBooks in order to test the students' abilities to adapt to Mac OS interface, and assess the laptops' value for use with school activities. The MacBooks ran the Mac OS X Tiger OS and featured all the standard Mac programs as well as having a digital camera built into the top of the screen. The "test runs" of the MacBooks were successful. However printer driver issues arose but were addressed during the 2007– 2008 school year.

Campus

Pascack Valley High School has a wide range of facilities and a large campus, including a track (with new surface as of Spring 2006), surrounding an artificial turf football field. The school grounds also have four tennis courts, a dance/recreational room equipped with a ballet bar, a softball field and one baseball field. The school has two levels and is mainly arranged in a rectangular fashion.

The campus underwent major renovations in 2005 that added several wings and a total overhaul of the athletic complex and auditorium.

Extracurricular activities

Like most other area high schools, Pascack Valley offers a wide range of co-curricular and extracurricular activities, including:

Athletics

The Pascack Valley High School Indians compete in the Big North Conference, following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA). With 890 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as North I, Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 786 to 1,074 students in that grade range. Prior to the NJSIAA's realignment in 2010, the school had participated in the North Bergen Interscholastic Athletic League. There are 10 boys interscholastic sports activities and seven girls interscholastic sports activities.

School colors are Kelly green and white. Interscholastic sports offered by the school include:

The school participates as the host school / lead agency in a joint boys' / girls' swimming and ice hockey program with Pascack Hills High School, under an agreement that expires at the end of the 2016-17 school year; Pascack Hills is the host school for a joint gymnastics program.

The school has had considerable success in basketball and football. The girls' basketball team, led since 1972 by New Jersey's winningest girls basketball coach, Jeff Jasper, has won 30 consecutive league titles (1979 through 2008), and seven county championships to go along with multiple state titles. The girls' basketball team won the Group III state championship in 1981 (vs. Camden Catholic High School), 19882 (vs. North Hunterdon High School) and 1989 (vs. Mainland Regional High School), and the Group II title in 2005 and 2008 (vs. Rumson-Fair Haven High School in both years). In 2008, the Indians won the Group II State title with a 58–52 win against Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School, qualifying for the state Tournament of Champions, and giving Jasper the 800th coaching victory. Jasper was inducted by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association into its Bollinger High School Hall of Fame in 2006. The 2010 girls' basketball team was NBIL champions and won the North I, Group III state sectional title, defeating top-seed Teaneck High School 51-47. Jasper earned his 900th win in January 2013, joining Bob Hurley as the only other coach in state history to reach that mark.

The football team, coached by Craig Nielsen, has made 14 NJ state playoff appearances all-time, including seven sectional final appearances, and three sectional titles (1990, 2013, and 2014):

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The girls' soccer team won the Group II state championship in 2005 as co-champion with Haddonfield High School.

The Pascack Valley Regional gymnastics team won state titles in 2008 and 2009, and was selected by the Record as Team of the Year in 2009.

The Pascack Valley Regional Dance Team has been the National Grand Champions for the past two years at the National Dance Alliance Championship. In 2007 they were state champions as well. The Pascack Valley Regional Dance Team was on the cover of the February 2008 issue of The Record's Sports Magazine. In 2008 they took home two first-place trophies in the Large Pom & Small Team Performance categories at the NDA National Championship. They were state champions in 2008 and 2014 as well.

Student government

The Pascack Valley High School Student Government Association consists of five councils. Each grade has a class council, and the PVHS Executive Council governs the entire student body. Each council consists of a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and eight elected and appointed representatives. In 1996, two district students, Matt Kracinovich of Pascack Hills, and Ryan Shell of Pascack Valley, successfully lobbied the Board of Education to accept a special student representative from each school to sit on the board. In the following year, the 1997–1998 school year, Kracinovich and Shell became the first students to occupy the new positions officially known as the Non-Voting Student Members of the Board of Education.

The Executive Council recommends appropriation of funds for student activities, with the approval of the Board, for the school. It is also very deeply involved in organizing activities and events for the school. The next step down the ladder of the student government consists of the four class councils, which participate in the running and operations of the school with the Executive Council, but represent and are responsible to the electing class.

Elections to the class councils are held at the end of every year for various positions, and in the fall for the freshman class. There are two positions to which candidates must be appointed. The Executive Council, which is separate from the constituent class councils, holds elections in the spring.

Administration

Core members of the school's administration are:

Demographics and curriculum

Notable alumni