Central Now Accepting Mendham High Students

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 the responsibility of the family of the student exercising this option.

Mendham High School currently has its largest enrollment ever, Pendergrast said at the school board meeting in March, 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 kids in,” Pendergrast said of the students at Mendham. “We could be faced with not having enough room.”

"We've always had this, but it had to come through me and I had to approve it," Pendergrast said. "But now I'm going to be actively promoting it. It's really just because there's a pattern [in Mendham] that it's increasing in size."

Also, every effort will be made, the resolution said, to ensure that once a student is enrolled at a high school he or she will remain at that school until graduation.