The Montclair High School football season opener is Saturday, and the team is not the only thing coming back better than it left off. The renovated MHS auditorium reopened this month too, and school starts in a week, making this the busiest stretch at MHS before the year has even begun.
When Is the Montclair High School Football Season Opener?
The Mounties open their season Saturday, August 29 at 1 p.m., at home against the Ridgewood Maroons at Woodman Field. It is the first game of a season the MHS Gridiron Club, the football program’s booster group, wants to turn into a homecoming for everyone who ever wore blue and white.
The club is building a Mountie Alumni Section this year, inviting former players, coaches and longtime fans back to the stands, organized by graduating class where alumni can manage it. Alumni are encouraged to gather their old teammates and wear their blue and white before kickoff Saturday.
Football is not the only comeback story at MHS this month.
Montclair High School’s Auditorium Renovation Is Officially Done
The renovated auditorium reopened at MHS this month with a ribbon cutting attended by Superintendent Ruth B. Turner and MHS Principal Jeffrey Freeman, closing out a project that took longer than the district planned.
The work traces back to Montclair’s November 2022 bond referendum, the voter-approved measure that set aside $187.7 million for construction across 11 district schools. The Montclair Board of Education awarded the construction contract to Grove Contracting Inc. of Verona for $6,652,000 in May 2025, with completion originally required by January 2026.
The project missed that mark. Auditorium work was still underway early summer, and MHS held its June 2026 graduation ceremony at the school’s outdoor amphitheater instead. Principal Jeffrey Freeman told that graduating class the renovation “went way beyond the scheduled date for reopening.” Now, ahead of a new school year, the space is back in service for concerts, assemblies and the big moments MHS students have been missing.
That overrun is one more thing families are weighing as the new year approaches, right alongside a phone policy still being finalized at the building level.
What Else Is Changing as MHS Heads Back to School
New Jersey’s bell-to-bell cell phone law takes effect this school year, and Montclair has already rolled out its version of the policy. Superintendent Ruth Turner has laid out the districtwide K-8 rule, which requires students to keep phones, smart watches and earbuds off and stored in a designated spot for the entire instructional day. Montclair High School has not released its building-level details yet; principal Jeffrey Freeman told the Pod the rules there will look different given the school’s open campus.
The phone ban is not the only change shaping the year ahead for MHS. The school also climbed five spots in this year’s U.S. News rankings, landing at 90th in New Jersey, a gain tied to rising AP and IB exam participation rather than improved test scores.
School starts Thursday, September 3, the first time in years Montclair students head back before Labor Day. For the tax bill breakdown, busing changes and where the phone policy stands building by building, read the Pod’s full back-to-school guide.
Photo Source: Montclair Athletics Blue and White Club
