Immaculate Heart Academy

Immaculate Heart Academy is an all-girls college preparatory private Roman Catholic high school located in Washington Township, in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Immaculate Heart Academy has been accredited by the Commission on Secondary Schools of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools since 1971 and is accredited until January 2034. The school is also accredited by the New Jersey Association of Independent Schools.
As of the 2023–24 school year, the school had an enrollment of 638 students and 62.5 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 10.2:1.
The school colors are blue and white, and the school's athletes are known as the Blue Eagles.

History

The school was founded in 1960 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace as the first regional high school for girls in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark. From 1990 to 2008, administration shifted to the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The school opened in 1960 with 180 students in ninth grade in an interim site at a church in Paramus, having received approval to build a Permanent facility on almost in Washington Township that would accommodate a maximum enrollment of one thousand students.
For the 1996–97 school year, Immaculate Heart Academy was recognized with the National Blue Ribbon Award of Excellence from the United States Department of Education, the highest honor that an American school can achieve.

Consultative Board

The Immaculate Heart Academy Consultative Board began its duties on July 1, 2009. In prior years, a Finance Committee had been established and was effectively providing financial advice and direction to the school.

Athletics

The Immaculate Heart Academy Blue Eagles play in the Big North Conference, a super conference that includes 40 public and private high schools in Northern New Jersey and operates under the supervision of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Before the realignment in 2010, IHA played as a member of the North Jersey Tri-County Conference, an interim conference created to facilitate the realignment. Until the NJSIAA's 2009 realignment, the school had participated in Division C of the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League, which included high schools located in Bergen County, Essex County and Passaic County, and was separated into three divisions based on NJSIAA size classification. With 1,062 students in grades 10-12, the school was classified by the NJSIAA for the 2019–20 school year as Non-Public A for most athletic competition purposes, which included schools with an enrollment of 381 to 1,454 students in that grade range.
Immaculate Heart Academy has a longstanding rivalry with Academy of the Holy Angels.
Immaculate Heart Academy currently has 17 athletic teams which include basketball, bowling, cross country, dance, field hockey, flag football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, ski racing, soccer, softball, spring track & field, swimming, tennis, volleyball, and winter track & field. IHA added a varsity flag football team to its roster for the 2025–26 season.

Softball

The softball team won the Non-Public A state title in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017. The program's 12 state titles are the most of any school in the state.
NJ.com / The Star-Ledger ranked Immaculate Heart as their number-one softball team in the state in 1999, 2000, 2009 and 2012. The team earned recognition as the top-ranked team in the state on the inaugural "NJ.com Top 50".
The 2017 team won the Non-Public A state title with a victory against Donovan Catholic in the finals. In the inaugural softball Tournament of Champions, the team won the first ToC title with a 5–4 victory in extra innings against Immaculate Conception High School of Lodi to finish the season with a record of 30-4. For the second straight year, Immaculate Heart was recognized as the number-one softball team in the state on the "NJ.com Top 50".

Swimming

The swimming team won the Division A state championship in 1994 and won the Non-Public A title in 1995-2005 and 2008-2020. The program's 24 state titles are the most of any school in New Jersey. The streaks of 13 consecutive titles from 2008 to 2020 and of 12 straight wins from 1994 to 2005 are the longest such streaks in the state.
The 2000 team finished the season with an 11-0 record after winning the program's seventh title in a row with a 114-56 win in the Parochial A final against Bishop Ahr High School.
The 2011 team scored 386 1/2 points at the Bergen Meet of Champions to win its 12th straight County title by a 177-point margin. Later, the team, seeded #2 in the New Jersey Non-Public Group A Tournament, defeated Holy Spirit High School in the state quarterfinals 118-52, Red Bank Catholic in the state semi-finals 107-63 and top-seeded Bishop Eustace High School 108-62 in the finals to win its fourth straight, and a record 16th, state championship.

Tennis

The tennis team won the Non-Public A state championship in 1995, 1996, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008
In 2006, the team won the Non-Public A title after defeating Red Bank Catholic 4–1 in the finals at Mercer County Park.
The 2008 team won the program's fourth consecutive Non-Public A title with a 3–2 win against Holy Spirit in the finals.

Basketball

The basketball team on the Non-Public A state championship in 2002, 2014 and 2023.
The 2004 basketball team won the North Parochial A state championship, defeating Paramus Catholic High School by 36-21 in the tournament final.
In 2005, the NJSIAA stripped the IHA basketball team of 22 of its victories and eliminated the team from the North Non-Public A girls basketball tournament for the use of an ineligible player. The athlete in question had played high school-level basketball at a New York State high school as an eighth grader, a practice that would allow the student to participate in all four years of high school sports in New York, but is not permitted in New Jersey.

2003-08 academic years

In 2003, the IHA cross-country team was disqualified from the Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League C championship for violating High School Federation Rules limiting the number of runners each team could enter in its varsity race to seven, while the coaches had entered nine runners into the race.
In 2007, the soccer team won the Non-Public North Group A sectional championship with a 3–1 win over Morris Catholic High School in the tournament final, the team's first sectional title in four years.

2009-10 academic year

During the 2009-10 academic year, Immaculate Heart Academy won the Non-Public Group A state championship in soccer, swimming, winter track and volleyball, where the team also won the New Jersey State Tournament of Champions, gaining the title of best volleyball team in New Jersey by defeating Bridgewater-Raritan High School 25-14, 25-15 in the tournament final The Blue Eagles also won the Non-Public North A sectional titles in basketball and spring track
The IHA bowling team won the New Jersey Tri-County Conference championship and eventually finished 3rd overall in the state.

2010-11 academic year

The soccer team won its fourth straight Bergen County championship, only the second team in the county to win in four consecutive years. In the state tournament, the Blue Eagles defeated The Pingry School for the Non-Public Group A North sectional championship in double overtime by a score of 1-0. The team advanced shared the Non-Public Group A state title with Red Bank Catholic after a 1–1 tie, giving IHA a third straight state title. With this championship, the 2010-11 Blue Eagles Senior Class won 11 out of a possible 12 titles in their four-year career at IHA.
In volleyball, despite losing in the Bergen County tournament, the Blue Eagles won the Non-Public Group A state championship for the fourth straight year. The team defeated Union Catholic in the state tournament, the third straight year IHA defeated Union Catholic for the state crown. The team advanced to the Tournament of Champions, where they lost in the semifinal round to Ramapo High School.
The basketball team finished the season with a 27-1 record, winning the championship at the Joe Poli Tournament and Bergen County Championship and earning the top spot in the final Bergen Record Top 25 poll.
By the end of the 2010-11 academic year, Blue Eagles squads were named by the Bergen Record as the North Jersey Team of the Year in Girls Soccer, Bowling, Basketball, and Softball, while The Star-Ledger named the IHA Swimming team the North Jersey Team of the Year.
Student-athletes have were named Athletes of the Year by The Record in Soccer, Basketball, Golf, and Track and Field, and by The Star-Ledger in Bowling. Both The Record and The Star-Ledger named IHA senior Danielle Romain as their Swimmer of the Year.

2011-12 academic year

In cross country, IHA won the Big North Conference United Division championship, finished third in the Bergen County Championships, third in the North Non-Public Group A sectional meet, and fifth in the Non-Public Group A state meet to champion Mount Saint Dominic Academy.
The soccer team finished the season 15-3-2 with losses to Ramapo High School in the BCWCA Girls' Soccer Championship semifinals, and to The Pingry School in the North Non-Public Group A sectional championship game.
In volleyball, IHA won the BCWCA Bergen County tournament by defeating Bogota High School and also won the Non-Public Group A state championship for the fifth straight year, defeating Union Catholic in the state tournament for the fourth consecutive time. The team later won the school's fourth Tournament of Champions title by defeating River Dell High School in the semifinals and Demarest High School in the championship round.