Which High School Do Rockaway Township and Borough Kids Attend?

Rockaway Borough and Rockaway Township each run their own schools through eighth grade. For high school, students from both towns go to the Morris Hills Regional District, which also serves Denville and Wharton. The district has two high schools, Morris Hills and Morris Knolls, and which one a Rockaway student attends depends on where the family lives.

The two high schools

Morris Hills High School, 520 West Main Street in Rockaway Borough, opened in 1953 as the district’s first building. Its teams are the Scarlet Knights. The campus is also home to the Academy for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering, a Morris County Vocational School District magnet program that any Morris County student can apply to.

Morris Knolls High School, on Knoll Drive, opened in 1964. Its teams are the Golden Eagles. The two schools are rivals on the field, but they share one district, one board of education and a common curriculum.

Which school serves your address

According to the Morris Hills Regional District:

• Morris Hills takes students from Wharton, Rockaway Borough north of Route 46, the White Meadow Lake section of Rockaway Township, and a southern slice of the Township that includes Rockaway Gardens, Swede Mine Road and Sunnyhill Road.
• Morris Knolls takes students from Denville, most of Rockaway Township (everything outside White Meadow Lake and that southern section), and most of Rockaway Borough south of Route 46.

The district lists a few street-level exceptions near Rockaway Road and Route 46, so families who live close to a boundary should confirm their assignment with the district before registering. Students must register at the school assigned to their address, and the district will bus students between buildings for classes their own school does not offer, when staff is available.

Before high school: K to 8 in each town

Rockaway Borough Public Schools run Lincoln Elementary School and Thomas Jefferson Middle School, serving pre-K through eighth grade.

Rockaway Township Public Schools run six schools for pre-K through eighth grade, including Copeland Middle School.

Who runs the regional district

Morris Hills Regional has a nine-member elected board of education, with seats split by population: four for Rockaway Township, three for Denville and one each for Rockaway Borough and Wharton. Board seats are on the November ballot each year, so Rockaway voters help decide who oversees both high schools.

Follow Rockaway school news

We cover school calendars, board decisions and student achievements for both towns in our Rockaway education news section. Eighth graders weighing a county academy can also catch the MCVSD academy information sessions this fall. New to town? Start with our Rockaway Township guide and Rockaway Borough guide. Not sure which Rockaway you live in? Our explainer on what county Rockaway NJ is in covers the Borough, the Township and their ZIP codes.