Lakewood High School (New Jersey)
Lakewood High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Lakewood Township, Ocean County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as the lone secondary school of the Lakewood School District. As of the 2021–22 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,458 students and 87.5 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 16.7:1. There were 1,106 students (75.9% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 47 (3.2% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch. History Students from Manchester Township had attended Lakewood High School as part of a sending/receiving relationship, though by June 1964 overcrowding led the Lakewood School District to try to end the agreement under which 150 students from Manchester Township attended the Lakewood school. The students left in September 1976 when Manchester Township High School opened. Awards, recognition and rankings The school was the 324th-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 also been ranked 324th in the state of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 316th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 288th in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. Athletics The Lakewood High School Piners compete in Division B South of the Shore Conference, an athletic conference comprised of public and private high schools in Monmouth and Ocean counties along the Jersey Shore. The league operates under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA). With 916 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Group III for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 761 to 1,058 students in that grade range. The school was classified by the NJSIAA as Group IV South for football for 2022–2024, which included schools with 893 to 1,296 students. The school competes in the C-Central Division of the Shore Conference, in football, tennis, bowling, cheerleading, softball, baseball, wrestling, basketball, volleyball, track, cross country, and field hockey, with the most success over previous years coming in boys' basketball, boys soccer, and girls' and boys' track. The boys' basketball team won the Group III state championships in 1967 (defeating West New York Memorial High School in the tournament final) and in 1975 (vs. East Orange High School). The team won the Group III title in 1967 with a 74–51 win against Weehawken in the championship game played at Atlantic City Convention Hall, becoming the first Ocean County program to win a state title. The 1975 team finished the season with a record of 28–1 after winning the Group III title in front of 4,000 spectators at Brookdale Community College with a 71–70 championship game victory on two last-second free