Three school districts in Passaic County are taking a fresh look at a possible merger — seven decades after they first formed a regional high school to serve their towns.
Ringwood and Wanaque already send their high school students to Lakeland Regional High School, which is its own school district with more than 800 students from both towns.
But both Ringwood and Wanaque continue to operate separate school districts for grades K-8.
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The three school districts each have a superintendent and separate administrations.
The districts will use a $150,000 state grant to study the feasibility of combining all three districts or other potential cost-saving measures, local officials said.
The grant was awarded last month to Ringwood, but officials in the other two districts said they are cooperating with the review. The $3,240 cost to apply for the grant, which was approved by the Ringwood school board at its March 18 meeting, is being equally shared by all three, according to the meeting minutes.
“One district has to take the lead. We took the lead on this,” Ringwood Superintendent Kevin Brentnall told NJ.com.
The review in Passaic County is funded by one of three state grants totaling $402,250 awarded in July under a 2022 state law that provides financial incentives for school districts to study mergers or consolidations, the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs said.
The other two grants went to North Hunterdon-Voorhees Regional High School District in Hunterdon County, which received $174,250, and Guttenberg School District in Hudson County, which received $78,000.
North Hunterdon-Voorhees has two high schools enrolling students from 12 of the 26 municipalities in Hunterdon County. Guttenberg has one school for kindergarten through eighth grade and sends older students to North Bergen High School.
Districts that accept the state grants are required only to do studies. They are not required to merge or make any other changes.
Merger talks between the Cape May City and West Cape May school districts stalled in June. A team of consultants, hired through a $50,000 state grant, had evaluated several scenarios. The study found that all of the possible merger plans would raise school taxes in Cape May City, though taxes in West Cape May would decline.
In Ringwood, the superintendent said the school districts are trying to find ways to cut costs.
“We are looking at any and all options to support any kind of financial savings. At the very least, even if we don’t up having a merger, that we come up with recommendations on shared services,” Brentnall said.
New Jersey has about 600 public school districts, with most serving individual towns instead of regions.
The state has awarded 18 grants to study possible mergers since the School Regionalization Efficiency Program began in 2023, state Department of Community Affairs spokesperson Lisa Ryan said.
Only one merger — the formation of the Henry Hudson Regional School District in Monmouth County — has occurred since the 2022 law was adopted.
Brentnall discussed some of the challenges involved in merging the three Passaic County school districts. The challenges range from absorbing debt in other districts to revising teachers’ contracts.
“We know the importance people put on local control,” Brentnall said.
Lakeland Regional High School was established in 1956 and has had declining enrollment in recent years. It had 804 students during the 2024-25 academic year, down from 927 four years earlier, according to the state’s most recent annual school performance reports.
Officials from Lakeland Regional High School and the Wanaque school district did not immediately respond to requests for comment.