Orange High School (New Jersey)

Orange High School is a three-year comprehensive public high school that serves students in tenth through twelfth grades from Orange in Essex County, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Orange Board of Education. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Secondary Schools since 1928.[4]

Orange High School
Location
Orange High School
Orange High School
Orange High School
400 Lincoln Avenue
Orange, NJ 07050

United States
Coordinates40°45′56″N 74°14′21″W
Information
TypePublic high school
Established1869
School districtOrange Board of Education
NCES School ID3412270[1]
PrincipalJason Belton[2]
Faculty85.9 FTEs[1]
Grades10-12
Enrollment960 (as of 2017-18)[1]
Student to teacher ratio11.2:1[1]
Color(s)     Orange and
     Black[3]
Athletics conferenceSuper Essex Conference
Team nameTornadoes[3]
AccreditationMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools[4]
WebsiteSchool website

As of the 2017-18 school year, the school had an enrollment of 960 students and 85.9 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.2:1. There were 487 students (50.7% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 31 (3.2% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.[1]

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 305th-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.[5] The school had been ranked 232nd in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 315th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed.[6] The magazine ranked the school 308th in 2008 out of 316 schools.[7] The school was ranked 276th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state.[8]

History

The current building housing Orange High School is the fourth site used for the school, in three different parts of the city. The first, dedicated on September 13, 1869, was located next to the First Church of Orange (Presbyterian). The second site was located at Main and Cleveland Streets. The third is now being used as Orange Middle School. The fourth, and current site, was dedicated on October 7, 1973, after opening to students on September 5 of that year.

Athletics

The Orange High School Tornadoes[3] compete in the Super Essex Conference, following a reorganization of sports leagues in Northern New Jersey by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA).[9] With 875 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2015-16 school year as North II, Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 778 to 1,062 students in that grade range.[10] Prior to the 2010 realignment, the school had been in the Skyline Division of the Northern Hills Conference, an athletic conference that had consisted of private and public high schools located in Essex, Morris and Passaic County counties.[11] The school colors are orange and black.

The boys' basketball team won the Group IV state championship in 1948 (vs. Atlantic City High School), in Group III in 1968 (vs. Emerson High School) and 1994 (vs. Camden High School), in Group II in 1977 and 1979 (vs. Pleasantville High School in both years) and 1988 (vs. Delran High School), and in Group I in 1974 (vs. Burlington Township High School) in 1976 (vs. Glassboro High School); the eight state titles are tied for third-most among public school programs.[12] In 1994, the boys' basketball team captured their first Tournament of Champions trophy by defeating Paterson Catholic High School, giving the Tornadoes a No. 1 ranking in NJ, and national rank of No. 11 in USA Today.[13] The team was coached by alumnus Al Thompson.

Music

Orange High School is home to the Mighty Marching Tornadoes marching band and award-winning elite choir, Voices in Harmony, in addition to local musical rap group by the name of the SoundBox Banditz who were noticed for writing a song about an Orange High School teacher who had been laid off due to New Jersey's educational budget cuts in 2010.[14]

Administration

The school's principal is Jason Belton. His administration team includes four assistant principals.[2]

Notable alumni

Notable faculty
  • Heinie Benkert (1901-1972), football player and coach; he taught history and coached football at Orange High School until 1971.[22]

References
  1. School data for Orange High School, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed November 1, 2019.
  2. Administration, Orange High School. Accessed October 8, 2017.
  3. Orange High School, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed May 31, 2016.
  4. Orange High School, Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools. Accessed February 8, 2018.
  5. Staff. "Top Schools Alphabetical List 2014", New Jersey Monthly, September 2, 2014. Accessed September 5, 2014.
  6. Staff. "The Top New Jersey High Schools: Alphabetical", New Jersey Monthly, August 16, 2012. Accessed August 27, 2012.
  7. Staff. "2010 Top High Schools", New Jersey Monthly, August 16, 2010. Accessed March 30, 2011.
  8. "Top New Jersey High Schools 2008: By Rank", New Jersey Monthly, September 2008, posted August 7, 2008. Accessed August 19, 2008.
  9. League & Conference Affiliations 2016-2017 Archived 2012-11-09 at the Wayback Machine, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed May 31, 2016.
  10. General Public School Classifications 2015-2016, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association, as of December 15, 2015. Accessed December 12, 2016.
  11. Home Page, Northern Hills Conference, backed up by the Internet Archive as of May 9, 2009. Accessed November 23, 2014.
  12. Public Past State Champions, New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Accessed January 11, 2017.
  13. Narducci, Marc. "Orange Drops Paterson Catholic To Win Tournament Of Champions The Tornadoes Prevailed, 64-55. The State Group 3 Champions Went Home With The Overall Title.", The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 21, 1994. Accessed August 30, 2011. "The Tornadoes became the first team not seeded first or second to win the Tournament of Champions boys' title, defeating top-seeded Paterson Catholic, 64-55, yesterday at Princeton University. Orange finished 25-3, losing all three games to Clifford Scott, a team the Tornadoes also beat once this season. Paterson Catholic, which hadn't lost to a New Jersey team all season, finished 26-3."
  14. Bondy, Halley. "Students record tribute to Orange teacher being laid off", The Star-Ledger, May 13, 2009. Accessed August 30, 2011.
  15. Giants Select Penn State DT Jay Alford in Third Round, New York Giants, April 28, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2007.
  16. Cory Boyd profile Archived 2007-11-13 at the Wayback Machine, South Carolina Gamecocks. Accessed October 30, 2007.
  17. Pete D'Alonzo, profootballarchives.com. Accessed March 28, 2015.
  18. Zedalis, Joe. "After time away from game, football head coach comes home to lead TCNJ", NJ Advance Media for NJ.com, August 3, 2013, updated March 30, 2019. Accessed December 16, 2019. "Wayne Dickens wrestled with the traffic in the all-too-frequent construction zones on the Pennsylvania Turnpike Wednesday night then survived a night on a sciatica-irritating dormitory mattress in his first full day on The College of New Jersey campus Thursday.... The 62-year-old graduate of Orange High School and Rutgers College had an office, his new, full-time assistant coach was evaluating players on videotape and he had accidentally discovered the Starbucks just north of the school on Route 31."
  19. Wilson, James Grant; and Fiske, John. "Hartford, Edward Vassallo", Appleton's cyclopædia of American biography, Volume 8, p. 493 ff. D. Appleton and company, 1918. Accessed November 13, 2017. "Hartford Edward Vassallo, engineer and inventor, b. in Orange N. J., 28 May 1870, son of George Huntington and Josephine (Ludlum) Hartford.... acquirement of an education in the Orange high school, Seton Academy, and Stevens Institute claimed the attention of Edward V. Hartford until he reached the age of nineteen, when, owing to poor health, he abandoned his studies and entered upon his business career in the office of The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company."
  20. Beatrice Alice Hicks, 1919-1979, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Accessed December 18, 2007. "After graduating from Orange High School in 1935, she enrolled in Newark College of Engineering, later renamed the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)."
  21. "Obit for Carolyn Marie Plaskett Barrow", Episcopal Diocese of Newark via Ancestry.com, August 20, 2002. Accessed July 23, 2018. "Born Jan. 31, 1917 and raised in Orange, Carolyn Marie Plaskett was the daughter of the late Rev. Dr. George M. Plaskett, who was originally from Frederiksted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and Mrs. Carrie Davenport Plaskett of Orange.... Growing up in the Church of the Epiphany, Mrs. Barrow attended and was graduated from Orange High School in 1934."
  22. Staff. "Heinie Benkert, 71, Played Halfback for Giants in 20's", The New York Times, July 17, 1972. Accessed January 17, 2018. "From professional football, Mr. Benkert went into teaching history at Orange High School, also coaching the football team. He retired in 1971."
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