Type Public high school Faculty 94.0 FTEs Phone +1 201-440-1440 Colors White, Scarlet | Principal James Donohue Grades 7-12 Lowest grade Seventh grade | |
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Asst. principals Michael KilmurrayMichael Raimondi District | ||
Ridgefield park high school 2015 winter concert
Ridgefield Park High School is a six-year comprehensive community public high school that serves students in seventh through twelfth grade from Ridgefield Park, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school of the Ridgefield Park Public Schools. Students from Little Ferry attend the district's high school as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Little Ferry Public Schools that has been in place since 1953. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Secondary Schools since 1930.
Contents
- Ridgefield park high school 2015 winter concert
- Awards recognition and rankings
- Athletics
- History
- Popular culture
- Administration
- Notable alumni
- References
As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,258 students and 94.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 13.4:1. There were 379 students (30.1% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 118 (9.4% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
Awards, recognition and rankings
For the 2005-06 school year, Ridgefield Park High School was one of 22 schools statewide selected as Governor's School of Excellence Winners, an award given to schools that have demonstrated significant academic improvement over the previous two academic years.
A team of students was one of five finalists in the 2004 New Jersey Business Idea Competition Winners at Fairleigh Dickinson University representing the Northern Region, which covers Bergen, Essex, Morris, Passaic, Sussex and Warren Counties. Three other RPHS teams were semi-finalists.
The school was the 209th-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 237th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 207th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 180th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 161st 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 (a decrease of 25 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (81.3%) and language arts literacy (96.7%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
Athletics
The Ridgefield Park High School Scarlets compete in the Big North Conference, following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJISAA). With 738 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as North II, Group II for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 508 to 770 students in that grade range. Prior to the 2010 realignment, the school had competed in the Bergen County Scholastic League (BCSL) American Conference, which included private and public high schools located in Bergen County and Hudson County.
The boys' basketball team won the Group III state championship in 1924 (defeating Glen Ridge High School in the tournament final), 1926 (vs. Princeton High School), 1927 (vs. Roselle Park High School), 1934 (vs. Woodbury High School), 1944 (vs. Rahway High School), and won the Group II title in 1960 (vs. Riverside High School).
The baseball team won the Group III state championship in 1974 (defeating Franklin High School in the final game of the tournament) and 1977 (vs. Rancocas Valley Regional High School).
The football team won the NJSIAA North I Group III state sectional championships in both 1975 and 1976, and won the North I Group II state titles in 1995 and 1996.
The cross country team won both the Big North Division Championship and the County Group C Championship in the 2011 fall cross country season. The team hadn't won a division championship since 1985 and had never won a county championship title. The team finished off their 2011 season with an undefeated dual meet record and several championship titles, including the Group 1-2 Maroon Invitational, the program's first invitational championship.
History
In 1916, Ridgefield Park High School was the subject of a groundbreaking ruling by the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, who ruled that teachers could remove their jackets while in class. A principal and teacher at the high school had been removed from his duties, based on charges against him that included 'conduct unbecoming a teacher' related to the removal of his coat while teaching one day. The charges were dismissed and the teacher was reinstated.
In March 2006, alumnus Gregory Olsen (RPHS '62), an entrepreneur who paid $20 million to become the world's third paying space tourist visited his alma mater to share his experiences in space.
Popular culture
13 of the 17 students featured in the 1978 documentary film Scared Straight! were from Ridgefield Park High School. Over 300 students, nearly a quarter of the school's enrollment, had voluntarily participated in the program at Rahway State Prison (now formally known as East Jersey State Prison), in which the students were given a hard look at the "physical and psychological brutality of prison life." The program was credited with contributing to a sharp drop in teen-aged crime in Ridgefield Park from 1976 to 1978.
Ridgefield Park High School was featured on TruTV's The Principal's Office in 2009.
Administration
Core members of the school's administration are: