Ramsey High School, established in 1909, is a four-year comprehensive community public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from Ramsey, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, operating as the lone secondary school of the Ramsey Public School District. Students from Saddle River attend the district's middle school and then have the option of attending either Ramsey High School or Northern Highlands Regional High School as part of sending/receiving relationships with each of the respective districts.
As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 856 students and 85.5 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a studentâ€"teacher ratio of 10.0:1. There were 28 students (3.3% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 4 (0.5% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
Ramsey High School is accredited by the New Jersey Department of Education.
History
The first class to graduate from Ramsey was the class of 1908, and they went to school in the current Borough Hall. After that, students went to John Y. Dater School, which was a regional K-12 school at the time. The first Ramsey High School was constructed in 1912, with the first commencement held in June 1913. An addition was constructed in 1923. By 1935, additional space was needed, and a new building was proposed to take advantage of funding available through the New Deal-era Public Works Administration. Groundbreaking ceremonies for the new building were held on January 16, 1936, and the "New Ramsey High School" was dedicated in 1937.
With baby boomers filling the school beyond capacity, the school informed its sending districts of Franklin Lakes and Wyckoff that it would no longer accept students from those two communities at the high school beyond the 1956-57 school year, with the two communities joining Oakland to form the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School District, which opened its doors in 1957 at Ramapo High School.
Awards, Recognition, and Rankings
The school was the 22nd-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 30th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 33rd in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 13th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 27th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 29th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 14 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (93.2%) and language arts literacy (99.1%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 805th in the nation among participating public high schools and 58th among schools in New Jersey.
In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 61st in New Jersey and 1,743rd nationwide. Ramsey High School was recognized by Newsweek magazine as one of the top 500 high schools in the nation.
In 2010, on New Jersey's High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA), 97.2% of 2010 graduates scored at the proficient or advanced proficient level on the math section, while 98.6% of Ramsey High School students scored at the proficient or advanced proficient levels on the language arts sections of the test. 93% of Ramsey High School's 2010 graduating class took the SAT. Student scores exceeded state averages, with those taking the exam averaging 563 on the math section (vs. 520 for all test takers in New Jersey), 576 on the verbal section (vs. 515) and scored 515 on the essay portion of the exam (vs. 515 statewide).
Programs and curriculum
Programs at Ramsey High School include the following:
- College preparatory program (math, science, language arts, and social studies)
- Foreign languages (French, German, Latin, Spanish, on four and five levels, as well as two levels of Chinese in 2009)
- Honors courses
- Advanced Placement courses are available in AP Calculus, AP Statistics, and AP Computer Science; AP English Literature and Composition and AP English Language and Composition; AP Physics, AP Chemistry, and AP Biology; AP United States History and AP United States Government; AP Spanish Language, AP French Language, AP German Language, and AP Latin Literature; and AP Music Theory
- Courses designed to address the needs of students with learning disabilities
- Elective program (fine arts, practical arts, technology education, and business education)
- Wireless mobile laptop technology along with a CAD lab and large and small computer labs, all connected to the internet
- A library-media center with 27,000 print volumes along with internet connectivity at 24 research stations
- A full complement of musical, athletic, artistic, literary, social, cultural, and service activities
- Student government, leadership, character education, peer mediation, and various volunteer activities
- A Japanese exchange program established with Fukui Prefecture in Japan
- Musical programs include, the Ramsey High School Big Blue Marching Band, a world class High School Jazz Band, Wind Ensemble, Concert Band, Winter Percussion, and Winter Guard.
- A German Exchange program established with students in the Karlsruhe area of Germany.
Diploma requirements
In order to graduate with a diploma, students must complete 120 credits consisting of 4 years of English / Language Arts; 1 year of Physical Education, Health, and Safety for each year of enrollment; 2 years of United States History; 1 year of World History / Cultures; 3 years of Mathematics; 3 years of Science; 2 years of World Language; 5 credits of Fine Arts and 5 credits of Practical Arts. Cross-content workplace readiness skills, which are integrated into content areas in grades 9-12. All students, unless specifically exempted, must pass the Eleventh Grade HSPA as required by the State of New Jersey. All students must also take a state mandated Biology test when they take biology (freshman year for honors students and sophomore year for CP and MCP students).
Extracurricular activities
Marching Band
Ramsey High School's Big Blue marching band was the 2005 Musical Arts Conference NJ State Champion and the 2005 Tournament of Bands Chapter 10 Group 4 Champion. The band also won 7th place in Group 4 at the Atlantic Coast Championship held in Hersheypark Stadium in November 2011. The band is under the direction of Clifford Bialkin. In 2015, Big Blue won 5th place at the Atlantic Coast Championships. The band was invited to play in the 2015-2016 New Year's Day Parade in Rome, Italy. The band represented the state of New Jersey in the 2017 Memorial Day parade in Washington, D.C.
Athletics
The Ramsey High School Rams 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 628 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. Prior to the 2010 realignment, the school participated in the North Bergen Interscholastic Athletic League (NBIL/NBIAL). Most sports have both a Varsity and a Junior Varsity team, and many sports have Freshmen teams. (Inclusion of "boys"/"girls" designates two distinct teams, even if both practice together.)
Teams marked with an asterisk (*), although technically separate teams that compete and score independently of each other, usually practice and compete alongside the opposite sex's team of the same sport. Sports offered include:
- Fall sports teams: Football, Soccer (boys), Soccer (girls), Cross country (boys), Cross country (girls), Field hockey, Tennis (girls), Volleyball (girls), Cheerleading and Marching Band
- Winter sports teams: Basketball (boys), Basketball (girls), Bowling (boys)*, Bowling (girls)*, Track (boys)*, Track (girls)*, Ice hockey, Swimming (boys)*, Swimming (girls)* Wrestling, Winter percussion, Winter guard, Fencing (individual)
- Spring sports teams: Baseball (boys), Softball (girls), Track (boys)*, Track (girls)*, Golf (boys)*, Golf (girls)*, Tennis (boys), Lacrosse (boys) and Lacrosse (girls)
The school has won the following state championships:
- Boys' basketball - Group II (1950 vs. Millburn High School)
- Field hockey - Group III (1976 co-champions with Moorestown High School)
- Boys' cross country - Group III (1978)
- Softball - Group II (1982 vs. Northern Burlington County Regional High School, 2015 vs. Robbinsville High School), Group III (1991 vs. Cumberland Regional High School)
- Girls' volleyball - Group II (1995 vs. Lyndhurst High School)
- Girls' cross country - Group II (1995-1997)
- Boys' track and field - Group II (1999)
- Girls' soccer - Group II in 2000 (vs. Delran High School), 2001 (vs. Freehold High School in double overtime) and 2011 (vs. Robbinsville High School)
- Golf - All Groups (2001), Group II (2014)
- Boys' soccer - Group II (2007)
- Ice hockey - Public B (2009, 2016)
- Football - Group II (2002, 2009)
The 2007 boys' soccer team won the North I, Group II state sectional championship with a 5-0 win over Tenafly High School in the tournament final. The team moved on to win the Group II state championship, the first ever by the program, with a 3-1 win over Cinnaminson High School.
In 2002, the Rams football team went 11-1 capturing the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) North I Group II state championship for the first time in school history, with a 7-6 win over Hoboken High School. In 2009 the Rams football team went 10-2 and won their second NJSIAA North I Group II football championship with a 36-10 victory over River Dell High School.
Notable alumni
- Jack Hewson (1924-2012), professional basketball player who played for the Boston Celtics during the 1947â€"48 season.
- Caroline Pennell (born 1995), competitor on the 2013 season of The Voice, who finished in eighth.
Fallen heroes
In a five-year span, three Ramsey High School graduates who were serving in the United States Armed Forces were killed while serving: Corporal Michael Jankiewicz (Class of 2006), Staff Sgt. Eric Christian (Class of 1993), and Staff Sgt. Timothy McGill (Class of 2001).
Administration
Core members of the school's administration are:
- Dr. Michael J. Thumm, Principal
- Ryan Esdale, Assistant Principal
References
External links
- Ramsey High School
- Ramsey High School's 2015â€"16 School Performance Report from the New Jersey Department of Education
- Data for Ramsey High School, National Center for Education Statistics
- Brief history of Ramsey High School
