Original Research by School Decision on Teaneck High School
Teaneck High School serves grades nine through twelve as the sole comprehensive public high school for the township of Teaneck. With an enrollment that places it among the larger high schools in Bergen County, the school draws from a community that describes itself as a bedroom suburb of New York City, with a notably diverse population that includes large Jewish and African American communities and growing Hispanic and Asian representation. The student body itself reflects that diversity: about two-fifths of students are Hispanic, one-third are Black, roughly one in eight is white, and modest shares are Asian, multiracial, or Native American. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that gives the school a moderate level of economic diversity for the county.
Teaneck is not a town with a single downtown. Instead, four commercial corridors—Cedar Lane, Teaneck Road, DeGraw Avenue, and the West Englewood Avenue area known as The Plaza—anchor different neighborhoods. The high school sits within the residential fabric rather than on a segregated campus, and major institutions such as Holy Name Medical Center and Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Metropolitan Campus are embedded in the township as well. The community has invested in its commercial districts; Cedar Lane underwent a major streetscape project not long ago, and the 2024 Master Plan prioritizes commercial revitalization and pedestrian-friendly streets. Route 4, Interstate 95, and Interstate 80 run through or near Teaneck, shaping the street network, and NJ Transit bus routes connect the township to New York City. The population has grown modestly over recent decades, and the housing market reflects a high-cost area. Homes are priced well above the national median, and rents are also elevated, which is consistent with the wider Bergen County market and proximity to the metropolitan region.
Academic performance data for Teaneck High School was not available in the records reviewed. State testing results, which for a high school would typically cover end-of-course assessments, were absent from the data. Because of this gap, it is not possible to characterize how the school’s proficiency compares to other high schools in Bergen County or across New Jersey. A parent seeking a clear picture of academic outcomes would want to look into this directly with the school or district. The comparison analysis, which attempted to place Teaneck relative to other districts in Bergen County, flagged that proficiency data was missing, and the same was true for the graduation rate and chronic absenteeism rate. This does not necessarily signal a problem; the data may not have been reported or compiled into the source used here. But for a family making a school choice, the absence of these common benchmarks makes it harder to assess the school against its peers without gathering information elsewhere.
The district made a recent infrastructure change with the opening of Theodora Smiley Lacey Elementary School in 2020, a new PreK–Kindergarten building that expanded early childhood capacity. For families entering the Teaneck schools with a young child, this affects attendance boundaries for the district’s youngest students, but for those focused on the high school, the direct impact is limited.
In the absence of testing and graduation data, what is known about Teaneck High School is its setting and composition. Families move into Teaneck for a suburban community with strong transit access to New York, a diverse population by multiple measures, and a high school that draws from that same mix. The school is a regular public high school of a substantial size, and its economic profile places it above the county median in terms of the share of students qualifying for meal assistance. The next step for anyone seriously considering the school is to speak with administrators or visit to obtain the academic data that was not available in this profile.
See more original research from School Decision →