Friday, May 31, 2013
West Morris Central softball beats sister-school Mendham in 10 innings for North 2, Group 3 championship.
West Morris Central and Mendham High School softball teams were so evenly matched Friday, it took them three extra innings to decide the biggest game of the season. In the end, the top-seeded Wolfpack beat the Minutemen 5-4 in 10 innings to capture the NJSIAA North 2, Group 3 championship. Central jumped out to an early lead, 3-1, before Mendham began chipping away each inning. The Minutemen pulled to within one in the fourth inning, and tied the score in the fifth. The teams battled back and forth, and knotted the score at 4 before forcing extra innings. Central’s ace, Jamie Fesinstine, struck out 10 Minutemen in 10 innings of work, and recorded her 400th career punch out in doing so. She went 4-0 in the postseason, allowing six total …
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Chester mother wants vindication for her daughter, apology from Mendham High School.
What began with a Mendham High School junior’s quest for a varsity cheerleading letter devolved into harassment, bullying, intimidation and retaliation, according to her mother. Ellen Runyon claims her daughter Cassandra was subjected to an escalating pattern of abuse that began shortly after cheerleading tryouts in May 2012 and that school officials didn’t do enough to address the concerns when they were brought to them. School officials admitted that bullying had taken place and pledged corrective action would be taken, but Runyon questions the steps the district took. “The issues began right away after my daughter made the cheerleading team as a member of the varsity competition B squad. Immediately the competition A kids told her that…
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Newsweek releases annual standings of best public high schools in the country.
In just one year, Mendham High School’s national standings rose seven spots while West Morris Central’s rankings among public high schools dropped 309 slots. Those are the rankings, year-over-year, released by Newsweek this week, as it put the country’s top 2,000 public high schools in order for its annual compilation. Newsweek prefaced the list by saying the schools were ranked by how effective they were in turning out college-ready graduates. There are six components that factored into the listing methodology: Mendham was ranked 284 in the nation, up from 291 in 2012. By state, Mendham ranked No. 22 in New Jersey. West Morris Central went the other direction, and drastically, falling from No. 226 in 2012 to No. 535 this year. The school …
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
U.S. News & World Report releases 2013 national standings.
West Morris Central remained outside the top-50 high schools in New Jersey, and Mendham High School dropped from number 33 to number 40 in this year’s U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings, released Tuesday. The magazine’s annual report ranks all high schools in the country and marks the top 50 in each state. New Jersey had many changes, including the top spot, which went to Biotechnology High School in Freehold, ousting this year’s number two, High Technology High School. Three main factors are calculated for the rankings, including college readiness, math proficiency and language proficiency. U.S. News & World Report ranked West Morris Central and Mendham High School as indicated in the chart: 35.5 (39% AP Tested) Mendham High …
Monday, April 15, 2013
Chester doctor outfits Central, Mendham High School sports teams with dental protection.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Regional school board approves option for Mendham, Chester students to attend West Morris Central due to high enrollment.
With the attendance at Mendham and Central High schools unbalanced, a resolution was adopted to ameliorate the situation. The problem can be rectified if students residing in the Chesters and Mendhams have the option to enroll at Central. It will be on a voluntary, first-come, first-served basis with a maximum of 100 students. The West Morris Regional Board of Education unanimously approved the measure, which was formally introduced by Superintendent Mackey Pendergrast earlier this month. "Saying the Mendham and Chester residents can come (to Central) really is to mainly alleviate potential population problems that we have over at Mendham over the next couple of years," Pendergrast said. The resolution states that transportation will be …
Sunday, March 24, 2013
First annual technology summit held at Mendham High School, with progress as a main topic.
Technology is here, and it needs to be embraced. That was the central theme at the first-ever Technology Forum hosted by the West Morris Regional High School district in front of a near-capacity crowd at Mendham High School. "If Bell Edison showed up to the town today and said they were going to chop down a couple thousand or so tree trunks and spring wires from them we would not have widespread electricity or telephones based on people fighting it," Bill Davidson said. Davidson, senior vice president at Qualcomm, was the first of three guest speakers and drove home the point that technology is advancing and changing the world in which we live. "Say I get off the plane in Tokyo, I have no idea how to read Japanese and I need to get to my …
Monday, March 11, 2013
Seven members split 5-2 on spending plan's approval.
The budget for the West Morris Regional High School district in 2013-14 has been sent to the county for approval, and tentatively reached its cap of a 2-percent increase over the current year's spending plan. The tentative budget's approval, however, wasn’t a unanimous decision by the board, as Chester Township representative Marcia Asdal and Mendham Township representative James Button disapproved of the more than $50 million expenditure. Asdal and Button charged that the budget wasn’t appropriate because of its disparity in spending at each school — a roughly $1.3 million difference, tilted toward Central — and said they could not support a spending plan until per pupil costs were equal at each building. That $1.3 million disparity, …
Monday, March 4, 2013
Board will vote on giving Chester, Mendham residents ability to go to West Morris Central as enrollment packs Mendham High School's classes.
Mendham High School is “bursting at the seams,” according to West Morris Regional High School Superintendent Mackey Pendergrast, and has proposed to the board of education a measure that has never been approved in the history of the district. At its March 25 meeting, the board will decide to give Mendham High School students the option of attending West Morris Central High School if they are interested in doing so. Mendham High School currently has its largest enrollment ever, Pendergrast said, and has noticed in the past few years that the approximately 20 to 30 students who would normally go to private school after graduating eighth grade have not done so. “We’re looking at a situation where we just won’t have the classrooms to put the …
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Sister schools face off in epic semi-final game, with Minutemen winning 4-3.
Any time West Morris Central and Mendham High Schools face off in a game, there’s more than just a win on the line–it’s about pride. Seeing each other for the third time in the 2012-13 season, both ice hockey teams were looking to advance to the Halvorsen Cup title game in their semi-final contest Saturday night at Mennen Arena. It was a battle to the very end, but, as the previous two meetings this season went, the Minutemen prevailed by a score of 4-3, according to dailyrecord.com. The Wolfpack beat Mendham in this same round last season, eventually falling in the title game. Mendham will now look to win its second overall Halvorsen Cup championship–the first coming in 2009, according to dailyrecord.com. Read a full game recap here.
Tracy Tobin
8:59 am on Sunday, June 2, 2013
Great game to end a great season. Congratulations on your win. You should all be proud of the way you played this year. more ›