Leonia High School

Leonia High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grade from the Borough of Leonia in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Leonia Public Schools. Students from Edgewater attend the school as part of a sending/receiving relationship with the Edgewater Public Schools.[3][4]

Leonia High School
Address
100 Christie Heights Street

Leonia
,
Bergen County
,
New Jersey
07605

United States
Coordinates40.869355°N 73.987778°W / 40.869355; -73.987778
Information
TypePublic high school
Established1912
School districtLeonia Public Schools
NCES School ID3408520[1]
PrincipalCharles Kalender
Faculty62.6 FTEs[1]
Grades9–12
Enrollment740 (as of 2018–19)[1]
Student to teacher ratio11.8:1[1]
Color(s)  Maroon and
  gray[2]
Athletics conferenceNorth Jersey Interscholastic Conference
Team nameLions[2]
YearbookLion's Pride
AlumniLHS Alumni website
Websitelhs.leoniaschools.org

As of the 2018–19 school year, the school had an enrollment of 740 students and 62.6 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.8:1. There were 77 students (10.4% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 26 (3.5% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.[1]

History

The school opened at its current location in January 1977, after multiple issues with subcontractors led to several delays from the original planned opening in September at the start of the school year. Constructed at a cost of $4.5 million and offering 50% more space than its predecessor, the building served 650 students, including 140 from Edgewater.[5]

Awards, recognition and rankings

In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 14th in New Jersey and 657th nationwide.[6]

The school was the 94th-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.[7] The school had been ranked 52nd in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 49th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed.[8] The magazine ranked the school 51st in 2008 out of 316 schools.[9] The school was ranked 67th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state.[10]

Schooldigger.com ranked the school as 174th out of 376 public high schools statewide in its 2010 rankings (a decrease of 4 positions from the 2009 rank) 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).[11]

Extracurricular activities

In 1957, the school's chess team was the New Jersey high school team champion, winning the Father Casimir J. Finley Trophy.[12]

Academic Competition

Leonia has had an active quiz bowl team for decades. In April 2017, Leonia won the Junior Varsity National Championship title for the Small School Division of the National History Bowl, led by Nathan Finn, who was the 2016 Junior Varsity New Jersey History Bee State Champion.[13]

Athletics

The Leonia High School Lions[2] participate in the North Jersey Interscholastic Conference, which is comprised of small-enrollment schools in Bergen, Hudson, Morris and Passaic counties, and was created following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA).[14][15][16] Prior to the realignment that took effect in the fall of 2010, Leonia was a member of the Bergen County Scholastic League Olympic Division.[17] With With 505 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Group II for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 486 to 758 students in that grade range.[18]

The school participates as the host school / lead agency for joint cooperative girls soccer, boys / girls swimming and wrestling teams with Palisades Park High School, while Palisades Park is the host school for a co-op football team. These co-op programs operate under agreements scheduled to expire at the end of the 2023–24 school year.[19][20]

The boys track team won the Group II spring track state championship in 1961.[21]

The 1967 boys basketball team defeated Burlington Township High School in the Group I tournament final.[22][23]

The girls tennis team won the Group I state championship in 2002 (defeating New Providence High School in the tournament final) and 2019 (vs. Glen Rock High School).[24] The 2019 team used wins in all three singles matches to win the Group I finals against Glen Rock.[25]

Leonia football, which is a co-op program with Palisades Park High School, became the first cooperative program to have reached a finals game in state history when the team made the North Jersey II Group III state championship game in 2012, falling to Summit High School by a 30–0 final score.[26][27] The team finished 9–3 which was the most wins in Leonia school history, and Head Coach David Schuman was awarded NJIC coach of the year and The Record ranked the team 12th in North Jersey.

Administration

The principal is Charles Kalender. His administration team includes the vice principal and athletic director.[28]

Notable alumni

References
  1. School data for Leonia High School, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed April 1, 2020.
  2. Leonia High School, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed October 20, 2020.
  3. Leonia Public Schools 2015 School Report Card Narrative, New Jersey Department of Education. Accessed May 29, 2016. "The high school continues to increase in numbers as now approximately 725 students from both Edgewater and Leonia are enrolled in grades 9-12 at Leonia High School."
  4. Leonia Schools at a glance Archived April 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, Leonia Public Schools. Accessed May 29, 2016. "Enrollment is 1835. Of this, 380 are Edgewater students in grades 7-12."
  5. Staff. "Leonia's New High School Opens Following Several Postponements", The New York Times, January 5, 1977. Accessed December 22, 2016.
  6. Mathews, Jay. "The High School Challenge 2011: Leonia High School", The Washington Post. Accessed July 27, 2011.
  7. Staff. "Top Schools Alphabetical List 2014", New Jersey Monthly, September 2, 2014. Accessed September 5, 2014.
  8. Staff. "The Top New Jersey High Schools: Alphabetical", New Jersey Monthly, August 16, 2012. Accessed December 2, 2012.
  9. Staff. "2010 Top High Schools", New Jersey Monthly, August 16, 2010. Accessed June 16, 2011.
  10. "Top New Jersey High Schools 2008: By Rank", New Jersey Monthly, September 2008, posted August 7, 2008. Accessed August 19, 2008.
  11. New Jersey High School Rankings: 11th Grade HSPA Language Arts Literacy & HSPA Math 2009-2010, Schooldigger.com. Accessed February 16, 2012.
  12. N. J. High School Team Champions 1956 – Present, New Jersey State Chess Federation. Accessed August 13, 2013.
  13. Past Champions, National History Bee and Bowl. Accessed June 4, 2017.
  14. Mattura, Greg. "Small-school NJIC may debut its own league championship", The Record, January 9, 2017.Accessed August 30, 2020. "The small-school North Jersey Interscholastic Conference may debut its own boys basketball tournament this season, one season after introducing its girls hoops championship. The NJIC is comprised of schools from Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties and the event offered to the 36 boys teams would serve as an alternative to likely competing against larger programs in a county tournament."
  15. Member Schools, North Jersey Interscholastic Conference. Accessed August 30, 2020.
  16. League & Conference Officers/Affiliated Schools 2020-2021, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed October 20, 2020.
  17. League Memberships - 2009-1010, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, backed up by the Internet Archive as of July 24, 2011. Accessed September 16, 2014.
  18. NJSIAA General Public School Classifications 2019–2020, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed November 20, 2020.
  19. NJSIAA Fall Cooperative Sports Programs, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed December 1, 2020.
  20. NJSIAA Winter Cooperative Sports Programs, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed December 1, 2020.
  21. NJSIAA Spring Track Summary of Group Titles Boys, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed December 1, 2020.
  22. Klapisch, Bob. "March Magnificence: Remembering the Leonia High School 1967 boys basketball championship", (201) magazine, November 7, 2012. Accessed March 14, 2014. "Coach Lee Clark of the 1967 State champion Leonia Lions at Leonia High School.... In fact, 45 seasons later, Leonians still revere Clark for bringing them the only state championship in the program's history."
  23. NJSIAA Boys Basketball Championship History, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed November 20, 2020.
  24. History of NJSIAA Girls Team Tennis Championships, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed October 20, 2020.
  25. Borders, Andrew. "Leonia beats Glen Rock for first Group 1 girls tennis title since 2002 (VIDEO)", NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, October 18, 2019. Accessed January 18, 2021. "With a singles sweep, the Leonia girls tennis team did something it had only done once before, and 17 years in waiting. Aryu Ramalingan, Maya Naik and Reanna Radu won their matches to deliver an NJSIAA Group 1 title over Glen Rock, 3-2 on Friday at the Mercer County Tennis Center in West Windsor."
  26. Moore, Roger. "H.S. football: North 2, Group 3 battle between Palisades Park/Leonia and Summit" , The Record, December 7, 2012. Accessed December 26, 2016. "The Tigers are a true Cinderella story as they are the first co-op school in New Jersey to play for a sectional title."
  27. Doviak, Cory K. "Pal Park/Leonia's improbable run ends in section final", NorthJerseySports.com, December 9, 2012. Accessed December 26, 2016.
  28. Administration, Leonia High School. Accessed April 28, 2020.
  29. "Shift to Peacetime Issues Theme of Leonia Graduation", East Bergen Record, June 22, 1945. Accessed January 6, 2021, via Newspapers.com. "Gertrude Elizabeth Urey, valedictorian, developed the subject 'The Center', by discussing the need for a civic center for Leonia young people."
  30. Corcoran, Barbara; and Littlefield, Bruce. Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 Into a Billion Dollar Business, p. 64. Penguin Books, 2011. ISBN 1-59184-418-5. Accessed June 16, 2011. "I looked up at the notice posted on the big bulletin board outside the Leonia High School gym:"
  31. Feibel, Carolyn. "Baltic president has N.J. roots", The Record, November 29, 2006. Accessed January 2, 2008. "Toomas 'Tom' Ilves grew up in Leonia, which not only rhymes with Estonia, but was the perfect nursery for his foreign political ambitions, his 79-year-old mother said.... The irony of the whole thing was that Toomas clearly had no problem expressing independent thought, and his later success in life reflects well on Leonia High School."
  32. Staff. "LHS Korean Superstars Nearly Make it to Final Round" Archived March 14, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, The Leonian, November 6, 2011. Accessed March 14, 2014. "Denny Do and Lim Kim, Leonia High School students, nearly made it to the final round of Superstar K 3, the Korean version of American Idol."
  33. Bob Klapisch profile, The Record, backed up by the Internet Archive as of December 15, 2007. Accessed March 26, 2015. "Robert Salvador Klapisch was born in New York City and grew up in Leonia. He is a graduate of Leonia H.S., where he played baseball, and Columbia University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science."
  34. Gallo, Donald R. Ultimate Sports, p. 298. Random House Children's Books, 2009. ISBN 9780307568434. Accessed November 13, 2017. "As a teenager David Klass played baseball and soccer at Leonia Public High School and went on to do the same at Yale University, from which he graduated."
  35. Jackson, Kenneth T.; Markoe, Karen; and Markoe, Arnie. The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives: 1994-1996, p. 352. Charles Scribner's Sons, 2000. ISBN 0-684-80644-4. Accessed September 19, 2011. "She attended Leonia High School in New Jersey for one year, then entered the Metropolitan Opera School of Ballet in New York City."
  36. Gray, Michael. The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p. 449. Continuum, 2006. ISBN 0-8264-6933-7. Accessed February 16, 2012. "Mansfield, David [c. 1956 –] David Mansfield is very coy about his birth date but he was born around 1956 in Leonia, New Jersey, where he grew up to be a multi-instrumentalist, playing mostly violin, mandolin and guitar."
  37. Filichia, Peter. "N.J. STAGE; Actress singing for joy at the Paper Mill.", The Star-Ledger, April 14, 2000. p. 23. "For Christiane Noll, performing in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of 'The Student Prince' is a homecoming beyond the usual definition. Growing up in Bergen County, she played Mrs. Barnum in a Leonia Middle School production of 'Barnum' and was a Jet girl in a Leonia High School staging of 'West Side Story.'"
  38. Nick Prisco Stats, Pro-Football-Reference.com. Accessed March 11, 2018.
  39. Ivory Sully Stats, Pro-Football-Reference.com. Accessed March 11, 2018.
  40. Caldera, Pete. "Where are they now? Ivory Sully of Leonia", The Record, February 6, 2012. Accessed February 16, 2012. "Sully now resides in the University of Delaware Hall of Fame. But his professional road from Leonia High School to a nine-year NFL career, with stops in Tampa Bay and Detroit, began as an undrafted free agent."
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