The regional district was formed after 93% of voters approved the passage of a referendum in September 1955 by residents of the original seven constituent municipalities—Evesham, Medford, Mount Laurel, Shamong, Southampton and Tabernacle Townships, along with Medford Lakes—to cover the cost of a $2 million (equivalent to $ million in ) facility that would serve 1,000 students. Delaware Township (since renamed as
Cherry Hill),
Maple Shade Township and
Woodland Township townships had considered—and turned down—the opportunity to join the nascent regional district. Lenape High School opened in September 1958 with 548 students in 9th and 10th grades only, before which students from Medford, Medford Lakes and Tabernacle Township had attended
Rancocas Valley Regional High School. By the 1961–62 school year, Lenape was on double sessions with approximately 1,500 students. In July 1961, an addition to the original building was started, with a second addition dedicated on January 17, 1965. Shawnee High School opened in 1970 as the second of the district's four high schools. With overcrowding at both Lenape (with 2,400 students) and Shawnee (1,600) high schools requiring split sessions, voters approved a December 1972 referendum to construct a third high school that would have a capacity of 1,500 students and be constructed 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. Cherokee High School opened in September 1975 with 750 students in grades 9 and 10, by which time district enrollment had grown to nearly 5,000. The school was constructed at a cost of $7 million (equivalent to $ million in ) on a site in Evesham Township covering . In 1996, legislation introduced by State Senator
C. William Haines and signed into law by
Governor of New Jersey Christine Todd Whitman would allow the
Woodland Township School District to sever its
sending/receiving relationship with the
Pemberton Township School District and join the Lenape Regional District; Pemberton would not be required to give permission for Woodland Township to leave, but Lenape Regional would have to agree to accept the township's students. Woodland Township had been sending about 30 students a year—and nearly $300,000 in tuition payments—to attend the 1,350-student
Pemberton Township High School as part of a relationship that dated back to the 1920s. For years, the Pemberton district had refused Woodland Township's repeated requests to terminate the relationship. In May 1997, the Lenape district agreed to start accepting students from Woodland Township at Lenape High School starting with the 1997–98 school year and to add Woodland Township as the regional district's eight constituent municipality. A Cherokee High School South "school-within-a-school" opened 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. Approved by voters in 1997, the Seneca High School was expected to be completed by 2000, to be constructed on a site designed to accommodate an enrollment of 2,000. The school opened in September 2007 with 860 students from Shamong, Southampton, Tabernacle and Woodland Townships and was completed at a cost of $45.7 million (equivalent to $ million in ). Delays caused by lawsuits related to the building site in the Pinelands resulted in budget overruns of $8.7 million. The district had been classified by the
New Jersey Department of Education as being in
District Factor Group "GH", the third-highest of eight groupings. District Factor Groups organize districts statewide to allow comparison by common
socioeconomic characteristics of the local districts. From lowest socioeconomic status to highest, the categories are A, B, CD, DE, FG, GH, I and J. ==Schools==