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Hackensack High School

Hackensack High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in Hackensack, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as part of the Hackensack Public Schools. Hackensack High School serves students from the Bergen County, New Jersey, communities of Hackensack, South Hackensack (80 students in 2011–12), and Rochelle Park (120 students).

As of the 2023–24 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,726 students and 138.3 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.5:1. There were 555 students (32.2% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 162 (9.4% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

In March 2020, the Maywood Public Schools received approval from the New Jersey Department of Education to end the relationship it had established with Hackensack in 1969 and began transitioning incoming ninth graders to Henry P. Becton Regional High School starting with the 2020–21 school year.

The school was the 242nd-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 206th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 198th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 184th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 203rd in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school 266th out of 367 public high schools statewide in its 2009–10 rankings which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the language arts literacy and mathematics components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

Hackensack High School's graduates date from the 1880s, and include Warren Terhune and William J. Snow. The district's first formal high school program began in 1894, with the first building for Hackensack High School constructed in 1897 at First and High streets. The cornerstone for its present location at First and Beech Streets in Hackensack was laid on December 2, 1916. The new building opened to students in March 1918. By 1920, twenty-two Bergen County towns sent their students to Hackensack High School. New wings were built in the 1950s. The 1966 expansion of Hackensack High School encompassed neighboring Beech Street School and extended a two-story bridge over First Street and in 1967 the Beech Street elementary school became the "east wing" of the high school as it stands today.

Students from Emerson had attended the high school as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Emerson School District that was ended with the completion of Emerson Junior-Senior High School in March 1963. Those students already enrolled in Hackensack completed their attendance in Hackensack through their graduation.

Students from Maywood began attending Hackensack High School in September 1966, after the district ended a longstanding sending relationship under which students attended Bogota High School.

The Hackensack High School Comets compete in the Big North Conference, which is comprised of public and private high schools in Bergen and Passaic counties, and was established following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA). In the 2009–10 school year the school's athletic teams competed in the North Jersey Tri-County Conference, a conference established on an interim basis to facilitate realignment. Hackensack had been a founding member of the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League. Hackensack High and Ridgewood High School were the only founding members of the NNJIL to remain in the league, though Hackensack was the only school to remain continuously in the league. With 1,431 students in grades 10–12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Group IV for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 1,060 to 5,049 students in that grade range. The football team competes in the Freedom Red division of the North Jersey Super Football Conference, which includes 112 schools competing in 20 divisions, making it the nation's biggest football-only high school sports league. The school was classified by the NJSIAA as Group IV North for football for 2024–2026, which included schools with 893 to 1,315 students. Since the 1912 visit of Halley's Comet, Hackensack's athletic teams have been known as the Comets; the teams were known as the "Colts" before 1912.[citation needed]

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