Morristown High School


Morristown High School is a four-year public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from three communities in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Morris School District. The school serves students from Morristown and Morris Township, along with students from Morris Plains, who attend the district's high school as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Morris Plains Schools. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Secondary Schools since 1952.
As of the 2017-18 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,793 students and 131.5 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 13.6:1. There were 384 students eligible for free lunch and 89 eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
MHS receives students from Frelinghuysen Middle School, Morris Plains Borough School, and several private and parochial middle schools.

History

Morristown High School was opened on December 13, 1869 on Maple Avenue, four years after Morristown had seceded from Morris Township. It accepted students from both the town and the township. The first graduates were the class of 1874, consisting of eight students, five girls and three boys.
Morristown High School played its first football game on September 28, 1901, against Port Oram high school.
The cornerstone of the current MHS building was laid on September 9, 1916. Classes at the current building began on September 4, 1918.
In May 1974, the Harding Township School District was given permission by the State Commissioner of Education to end their sending / receiving relationship with the Morris School District and begin sending their students to Madison High School starting with the 1975-76 school year, ruling that the withdrawal of the mostly white students from Harding Township would not "cause a disproportionate change in the racial composition of Morristown High School".
In 2005, Linda D. Murphy, an assistant principal at Morristown High School, was promoted to principal of Morristown High School, becoming the first Morristown High School graduate to fill the position.
In 2009, year-round rotating block schedule replaced the semester-based block scheduling.
In 2013, A/B block scheduling replaced the year-round rotating block schedule.
In 2018, Homeroom was abolished in exchange for a later starting time.

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 116th-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 75th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 66th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 78th in 2008 out of 316 schools.
In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 69th in New Jersey and 2,029th nationwide.

Academics

Morristown High School provides 285 courses to its students. Out of the 285 courses, 28 are offered as AP courses and range from AP Calculus BC to AP Music Theory. College Prep level courses are also offered to students as a step down from Honors level courses. AP tests along with SAT and ACT exams are conducted onsite.
Morristown High School also offers "STEM Academy," an enrichment program for students grades 9-12. STEM Academy offers pathways in Biomedicine, Engineering, Architecture, Environmental Sustainability, Research Science, Computer Science, Mathematics and General STEM.

Athletics

The Morristown High School Colonials participate in the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference, an athletic conference made up of high schools located in Morris County, Sussex County and Warren County in New Jersey, operating under the auspices of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 1,325 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as North I, Group IV for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 1,090 to 2,568 students in that grade range. Prior to the NJSIAA's 2010 realignment, the school had competed as part of the Iron Hills Conference, which was made up of public and private high schools in Essex County, Morris County and Union County.
The football team won the North II Group III title in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999. The team had also won state titles in 1974 in North II, Group IV, and in both 1993 and 2010 in North II Group III.
The boys' track team won the Group IV indoor relay state championship in 1987 and 1988, and won the Group III title in 2010.
The field hockey team won the North II Group IV state sectional championship in 1987, 1989 and 1991, won the North I Group IV title in 2002, and won the North I Group III title in 2005 and 2006.
The baseball team won the Group III state championship in 1993 and 2006. The team won the Group III state championship in 2006 with wins over Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan in the semifinals and Ocean Township High School in the finals, by scores of 3-1 and 11-7, respectively. They finished the season ranked third in the state in The Star Ledgers Top 20.
The hockey team won the Public B state championship in 2014, beating Ramsey High School by a score of 1-0 in the tournament final, with the game-winning goal scored with less than a minute left in the game to break a scoreless tie and earn Morristown the program's first championship. In 2016, the team won their second title, this time in the Public A division, against Randolph High School by a final score of 2-0.
There are currently two certified athletic trainers providing sports medicine coverage to all levels of athletics for all three seasons.

Administration

Core members of the school's administration are:

Alumni