Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest is a comprehensive four-year public high school serving students from several municipalities in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. The high school serves students from the suburban communities of Closter, Demarest, and Haworth. The school is one of two high schools that are part of the Northern Valley Regional High School District, the other being Northern Valley Regional High School at Old Tappan, which serves students from Harrington Park, Northvale, Norwood, and Old Tappan, along with students from Rockleigh, who attend as part of a sending/receiving relationship.
As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 974 students and 91.3 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 10.7:1. There were 3 students (0.3% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 3 (0.3% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
The high school is overseen by the New Jersey Department of Education and has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1959.
History
The school opened in September 1955, serving all seven constituent municipalities, before which students attended Closter High School, Dumont High School or Tenafly High School.
Awards, recognition and rankings
During the 1994-96 school years, Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest was awarded the Blue Ribbon School Award of Excellence by the United States Department of Education, the highest award an American school can receive.
The school was the 42nd-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 34th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 14th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 9th in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 16th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which included 316 schools across the state.
Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 23rd out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (a decrease of 3 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (96.4%) and language arts literacy (98.2%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).
In its listing of "America's Best High Schools 2016", the school was ranked 234th out of 500 best high schools in the country; it was ranked 39th among all high schools in New Jersey and 22nd among the state's non-magnet schools.
In its 2013 report on "America's Best High Schools", The Daily Beast ranked the school 351st in the nation among participating public high schools and 28th among schools in New Jersey.
In the 2011 "Ranking America's High Schools" issue by The Washington Post, the school was ranked 21st in New Jersey and 755th nationwide. The school was ranked 378th in Newsweek's 2009 ranking of the top 1,500 high schools in the United States and was the seventh-ranked school in New Jersey, with 2.364 AP tests taken in 2008 per graduating senior and 35% of all graduating seniors passing at least one AP exam; The school was ranked 1,166th nationwide in 2008. In Newsweek's 2007 rankings of the country's top 1,200 high schools, Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest was listed in 1045th place, the 32nd-highest ranked school in New Jersey.