Wayne Hills High School

Awards, recognition and rankings

In its listing of "America's Best High Schools 2016", the school was ranked 222nd out of 500 best high schools in the country; it was ranked 35th among all high schools in New Jersey and 18th among the state's non-magnet schools.

In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 64th in New Jersey and 1,902nd nationwide. In Newsweek's May 22, 2007 issue, ranking the country's top high schools, Wayne Hills High School was listed in 1102nd place, the 34th-highest ranked school in New Jersey.

The school was the 65th-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 35th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 51st in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 60th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 70th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state.

Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 61st out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (an increase of 18 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (91.4%) and language arts literacy (96.4%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

Sports

The Wayne Hills High School Patriots compete in the Big North Conference, following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. In the 2009-10 school year, the school competed in the North Jersey Tri-County Conference, which was established on an interim basis to facilitate the realignment. Before the realignment, Wayne Hills had competed in the North Bergen Interscholastic Athletic League (NBIAL) as the only team outside Bergen County participating in the league. With 1,015 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.

Wayne Hills interscholastic sports teams include: volleyball, soccer, tennis, football, marching band, field hockey, basketball, cheerleading, bowling, wrestling, skiing, fencing, ice hockey, track and field, swimming, cross country running, lacrosse, gymnastics, baseball, softball and golf.

The boys' track team were 2003 County, League, and State Champions.

The boys' golf team won the county tournament in 2008, 2013 and 2015.

The girls' fencing team won the Passaic County championships in 2009.

In 2007, Wayne Hills was county champions in boys and girls tennis. In 2012, the boys tennis team won the Passaic County Tournament for the eighth consecutive year.

The 2008 boys' volleyball team was undefeated and went on to winning the Passaic County championship.

In 2009, the boys' swim team won the Passaic County championship, the second tournament ever held. In 2010, the girls and boys won the Passaic County championship. In the same season, both teams won their division of the Tri-County league. The boys finished with an undefeated regular season. Both teams competed in and lost in the first round of the state tournament.

The varsity baseball team won county championships in both 2000 and in 2009.

The girls' ski team won back-to-back state championships in 2011 and 2012 by some of the widest margins ever in state competition.

Field hockey

The field hockey team won the North I Group IV state sectional title in 1978, 1980, 1982, 1983, 2008 and 2009. The team won the Group IV state championship in 1982, defeating Shawnee High School in the tournament final.

Football

The Wayne Hills football team has been led by Coach Chris Olsen, winning eight state sectional championships in ten years through 2011, reigning as the two-time defending champs of North I Group III. The team accumulated a 65-6 record during the seven seasons through 2008.

In 2002, the varsity team won their first North Jersey I Group III title in the school's history by defeating Ramapo High School 19-0. This was also the first undefeated football season. Additionally, several members of this senior class became professional athletes. Tight end Greg Olsen went on to play college and professional football.

From 2004 to 2009, the team won 55 consecutive games. During the winning streak, the team won five championships, including four perfect 12-0 seasons. The Wayne Hills 55-game win streak came to an end with a 17-15 loss to Saint Joseph Regional High School on October 2. The streak is the second longest in New Jersey high school football history, behind only to Paulsboro High School's 63-game win streak.

The football team was in the 2005 playoffs as the top seed in the North I, Group III bracket, and won the first two rounds, beating #8-seed Teaneck High School 40-6 and number-four Ramapo High School 41-13, and then crushing third-seeded Parsippany Hills High School 46-0 in the sectional finals.

In 2006, the Patriots came in seeded second in the North I, Group III bracket, and won the first two rounds, beating 7th-seed Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan 37-7 and 6th-seed Passaic Valley Regional High School 33-0. In the state finals, played at Rutgers University on December 2, 2006, Wayne Hills defeated fourth-seeded Parsippany Hills High School 23-12, the second consecutive year the two faced each other in the finals. The football team was ranked 3rd behind #1 Don Bosco Prep and #2 St.Peter's Prep in New Jersey. The team was ranked 7th in the East region by USA Today in their final 2006 Super 25 prep football regional rankings.

Wayne Hill's football team finished 12-0 in the 2007 season, defeating Wayne Valley High School in the North I Group III state sectional championship game played at Giants Stadium by a final score of 27-7. The win was team's 40th consecutive win, and its fourth consecutive sectional title.

In 2008, Wayne Hills played Lakeland Regional High School at Giants Stadium and won with a final score of 35-6, making them 52-0 in the previous four seasons, and giving them their fifth consecutive sectional title. As of December 9, 2008, Wayne Hills was ranked 81st on the Rivals.com list of the top 100 high school football teams in the nation. The only other New Jersey teams then on the list were Shawnee High School (88th) and Don Bosco Prep (17th).

In 2009, Wayne Hills lost to their longtime rival, Ramapo High School, in the North I, Group III state sectional championship at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford. The team's 17 consecutive playoff victories extending from the first round of the 2004 playoffs through the 2009 semifinal game is tied for the second-longest in playoff history.

In 2010, Wayne Hills won the North I Group III state championship against Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan in what has been called the "Miracle in the Meadowlands", taking a lateral pass on a kickoff to win the state title by a score of 24-21. The team ended this year ranked 3rd in the top 25 best high school teams in North Jersey by The Record and its national ranking according to Max Preps was 289.

In December 2011, the New Jersey Commissioner of Education upheld the suspension of nine Wayne Hills football players who been alleged to have been involved in an October fight outside of a house party in which two students from Wayne Valley High School had been assaulted, including one who was beaten and left unconscious in a street. Though the students had been allowed to play in the first two rounds of the football playoffs, they were ruled ineligible to participate in that year's final against Old Tappan. Despite the absence of the nine from the championship game, Wayne Hills defeated Old Tappan for the second consecutive year, by a score of 15-12, the team's second consecutive North I, Group III title and its eighth title in ten years.

The Wayne Hills football program was featured in the documentary series titled Traditions, which airs on SNY. The production team followed the team around for the first week of October and attended practices and conducted interviews to showcase what the program, at its core, is about.

In Spring of 2012, head coach Chris Olsen announced that he will step down as the athletic director for the 2012-13 school year and serve as head coach for the last year. The team finished with a 6-5 record and did not make an appearance in the finals, losing to Pascack Valley High School in the semi-finals by a score of 20-11, marking the first year in nine years that the Wayne Hills Patriots did not make it to the state finals.

The team won the 2016 North I, Group IV state sectional championship with a 31-24 overtime win in the tournament final against Wayne Valley High School, under head coach Wayne Demikoff.

Administration

Core members of the school's administration are:

Notable alumni