Cherokee High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades as one of four high schools of the Lenape Regional High School District in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The communities in the district are Evesham Township, Medford Lakes, Medford, Mount Laurel Township, Shamong Township, Southampton Township, Tabernacle Township and Woodland Township. Cherokee serves students from Evesham Township. The school, located in the Marlton section of Evesham Township, has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commissions on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1978 and is accredited until July 2028. As of the 2022–23 school year, the school had an enrollment of 2,179 students and 177.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 12.3:1. There were 153 students (7.0% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 74 (3.4% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

History

With overcrowding at both Lenape High School (with 2,400 students) and Shawnee High School (1,600) requiring split sessions, voters approved a December 1972 referendum to construct a third high school with a capacity of 1,500 students that would be built on the same model as Shawnee. The ballot item was approved by a 55-45% margin, with voters in favor in Evesham, Medford and Mount Laurel Townships, while it was rejected in Medford Lakes and Shamong, Southampton and Tabernacle Townships. With district enrollment up to nearly 5,000, Cherokee High School opened in September 1975 with 750 students in grades 9 and 10. The school was constructed at a cost of $7 million (equivalent to $ million in ) on a site in Evesham Township covering 71 acres. The school was known as simply Cherokee High School until the opening of the 210000 sqft "South" building in September 2001 for 1,150 students in grades 9–10, which was constructed at a cost of $26.4 million (equivalent to $ million in ), at which time the original building was renamed as "Cherokee High School North." In 2018, with the retirement of the South principal, Leonard Iannelli, Cherokee eliminated the position, effectively merging the North and South building into one school.

Awards, recognition and rankings

The school was the 80th-ranked public high school in New Jersey out of 339 schools statewide in New Jersey Monthly magazine's September 2014 cover story on the state's "Top Public High Schools", using a new ranking methodology. The school had been ranked 157th in the state out of 328 schools in 2012, after being ranked 134th in 2010 out of 322 schools listed. The magazine ranked the school 152nd in 2008 out of 316 schools. The school was ranked 131st in the magazine's September 2006 issue, which surveyed 316 schools across the state. Schooldigger.com ranked the school tied for 86th out of 381 public high schools statewide in its 2011 rankings (an increase of 30 positions from the 2010 ranking) which were based on the combined percentage of students classified as proficient or above proficient on the mathematics (87.9%) and language arts literacy (97.0%) components of the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA).

Athletics

The Cherokee High School Chiefs participate in the Olympic Conference, which is comprised of public and private high schools located in Burlington and Camden counties, and operates under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. With 1,616 students in grades 10–12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Group IV for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 1,060 to 5,049 students in that grade range. The football team competes in the Continental Division of the 94-team West Jersey Football League superconference and was classified by the NJSIAA as Group V South for football for 2024–2026, which included schools with 1,333 to 2,324 students. The football team has a rivalry with Shawnee High School that was listed at 22nd on NJ.com's 2017 list "Ranking the 31 fiercest rivalries in N.J. HS football". Cherokee leads the rivalry with a 28-17-1 record as of 2017. Girls Boys

Administration

The school's principal is Donna Charlesworth. Her core administration team includes eight assistant principals.

Notable alumni

Other schools in the district

Other schools in the district (with 2022–23 enrollment data from the National Center for Education Statistics ) are: