Shore Regional High School


Shore Regional High School, established in 1962, is a regional public high school and school district serving students from four communities in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The high school serves students from the constituent municipalities of Monmouth Beach, Oceanport, Sea Bright and West Long Branch, where the school is located.
Students from Interlaken attend public school in the West Long Branch Public Schools for K-8 and Shore Regional High School for grades 9–12, as part of sending/receiving relationships with the districts in which students attend on a tuition basis, having ended a longstanding relationship with the Asbury Park Public Schools, as do students from Loch Arbour, New Jersey, who began attending schools in West Long Branch for K-8 and Shore Regional for 9–12 starting in the 2017–18 school year, after leaving the Ocean Township School District. Students from Deal attended the Deal School District for K-8 and then attend Shore Regional following the termination of its previous agreement with Asbury Park.
Shore Regional High School has been an IB World School since April 2007, offering students the IB Diploma Programme. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Secondary Schools since 1969.
As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 649 students and 57.2 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 11.3:1. There were 32 students eligible for free lunch and 11 eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
The district is classified by the New Jersey Department of Education as being in District Factor Group "FG", the fourth-highest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J.

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 61st-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 134th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 111th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 94th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was also ranked 94th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school 108th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics and language arts literacy components of the High School Proficiency Assessment.
In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 814th in the nation among participating public high schools and 59th among schools in New Jersey.
In 2009, six members of the Senior class were named recipients of the Edward J. Bloustein Distinguished Scholar award.

Athletics

The Shore Regional High School Blue Devils compete in the Shore Conference, an athletic conference made up of private and private and public high schools centered at the Northern Jersey Shore. All schools in this conference are located within Monmouth County and Ocean County, and the league operates under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 462 students in grades 10–12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015–16 school year as Central Jersey, Group I for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 12 to 467 students in that grade range.
The school participated in a joint ice hockey program with Ocean Township High School as the host school and lead agency, under an agreement that expired at the end of the 2017–18 school year.
The school was the winner of the 2014–15 ShopRite Cup for Group I, finishing with 68 points. The school repeated as Group I ShopRite champion in 2015–16 with first-place finishes in girls tennis, field hockey, girls soccer and football, a second-place finish in girls lacrosse plus points for having no disqualifications in the winter and spring seasons.
Shore Regional's most successful men's program has been the football team. Consistently contenders in small Group play, the football team won the NJSIAA state sectional championships in Central Jersey Group II in 1981, 1982 and 1988, and in Central Jersey Group I in 1997, 2010 and 2014. Undefeated seasons include 8-0-1 in 1964, 9–0 in both 1978 and 1984, 11–0 in 1981 and 12–0 in 2015. The team won the Central Jersey Group I state title in 2015 with a 56–28 win against Palmyra High School.
The wrestling team won its first sectional championship and 8th overall divisional championship in 2019 with a 45–19 win over rival Pt. Beach in the Central Jersey Group I finals. Nine wrestlers on that team also qualified for the region 5 tournament and four wrestlers were crowned as district champions including Jack Maida who would go on to finish 6th in the state at 106 lbs and Al De Santis who would place 7th in the state the following year at 138 lbs. The team was also ranked 8th in the Shore Conference that year, its highest ranking ever, and placed 5th in the Shore Conference Tournament. Head Coach Dave Porta, who has been the Blue Devils head coach since 2010, was named District 20 Coach of the Year, Region 5 Coach of the Year, and Shore Conference Wrestling Coach of the year by numerous media outlets including the Asbury Park Press, NJ.com, and Shoresportsnetwork.com. Assistant Coach Rich Santangelo was also named the District 20 Assistant Coach of the Year as well as the Jersey Shore Interscholastic Wrestling Association Assistant Coach of the year that season.
Since 2010 the team has crowned 12 district champions including Luke Bush, Derek Arnette, Austin Cannon, Jack Maida, Taylor Sousa, Mike McGhee and Al De Santis. All 10 of the Blue Devils 100 match winners have come from 2010 and on as well.
With the emergence of women's lacrosse in the Shore Conference, Shore Regional now has two premier state-recognized women's programs.
The women's field hockey team has enjoyed great success for decades, with Coach Nancy Williams having won 700 games in 37 years coaching, making her the winningest coach in the nation. The field hockey team won the Central Jersey Group II secional title in 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1991–1995 and 2000, won the Central Jersey Group I title in 1996–1999, 2001 and 2002, and won the South Jersey Group I title in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2014. The team won the Group II state championship in 1979, 1980, 1986, 1992–1994 and won the Group I championship in 1996, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2014. The program's 13 state championships are the fourth-most of any school in the state. In 2007, the field hockey team won the North II, Group I state sectional championship with a 2–1 win over Pingry School in the tournament final.
The baseball team won the Group II state championship in 1993, defeating Rutherford High School in the tournament final.
Shore Regional won its first state title in men's cross country during the 2001 season. That team went on to repeat as Group I state champions in 2002. The women's cross country team won their first state title in 2001 season. That team went on to repeat as state champions in 2002 in Group I, and again in both 2003 and 2004 in Group II.
The boys' track team won the Group I indoor relay state championship in 2005 and 2006.
The 2006 girls' lacrosse team made Shore Regional and Shore Conference history by winning the Group B state championship against West Essex High School. This win enabled the team to advance to the state final against Moorestown High School, the furthest any team from Shore Regional team in the history of the lacrosse program has ever advanced this far. The girls lacrosse won the 2007 South, Group I state sectional championship, edging Holy Cross High School 10–9 in the tournament final. The team moved on to win the Group I state championship with a 9–7 win vs. Mountain Lakes High School.
The girls' soccer team was Group I co-champion in 2013 with Glen Ridge High School.

Shore Players

Shore Players, the Shore Regional theatre department, has focused mainly on musicals and has performed productions such as West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, Seussical, Evita, one of their largest productions yet, Beauty and the Beast, "Over Here!", and "Gypsy". For the past 3 years, alumnus Todd Aikens has taken the director's chair, taking things back to the days when Shore Players performed numerous mainstage productions per year. In 2011–2012, for the first time in 30 years, Shore Players did more than just one mainstage musical, after producing a Comedy: "Grandma's Getting Married;" A Musical Comedy: "Annie Get Your Gun;" and a commemorative performance: "Celebrating 50 Years of Shore Players." Their 2013 performance of "Grease" will be performed for the second time in Shore Regional's history, since it debuted in 2000.

Band program

In the band program there are several subdivisions such as jazz band, concert band and marching band.

Budget issues

The $12.1 million budget for the 2006–07 school year failed to pass after it was turned down by voters in Oceanport and Sea Bright. By a more than 5–2 margin, voters in all four districts rejected a $49.8 million bond referendum that would have been used for renovations to the school building. Officials from all four sending districts agreed to $300,000 in cuts from the district's $11.65 million budget for the 2004–05 school year after it was rejected by voters. Voters rejected the district's $11.1 million budget for 2003–04, which was ultimately cut by $161,000 by the New Jersey Commissioner of Education.

Construction

The district approved construction to replace the heating, renovate rooms, and install new air conditioning to the rooms. Due to the construction the rear cafeteria parking lot is blocked off as it is currently being used to store supplies. Only those with deliveries or workers are allowed beyond the blockades.

Notable alumni

The district's board of education, with nine members, sets policy and oversees the fiscal and educational operation of the district through its administration. As a Type II school district, the board's trustees are elected directly by voters to serve three-year terms of office on a staggered basis, with three seats up for election each year held as part of the November general election. The board appoints a superintendent to oversee the day-to-day operation of the district. Seats on the board of education are allocated based on the population of the constituent municipalities, with four assigned to West Long Branch, three to Oceanport, and one each from Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright.