Montgomery Blair High School (MBHS) is a public high school in Four Corners, Maryland, United States, operated by Montgomery County Public Schools. Its enrollment of 3,600 makes it the largest school in Montgomery County and in the state.
The school is named for Montgomery Blair, a lawyer who represented Dred Scott in his Supreme Court case and later served as Postmaster General under President Abraham Lincoln. Opened in 1925 as Takoma Park–Silver Spring High School, the school changed its name in 1935 when it moved to 313 Wayne Avenue overlooking Sligo Creek in Silver Spring. In 1998, the school moved two miles (3 km) north to the Kay Tract, a long-vacant site just north of the Capital Beltway.
About 20% of the student body is part of one of two magnet programs: the Science, Math, and Computer Science Magnet, and the Communication Arts Program (CAP), which draw students from the Silver Spring area and across Montgomery County. The school is a member of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST).
The school sat in the Silver Spring census-designated place until the Four Corners CDP was created after the 2010 U.S. Census.
History
Philadelphia–Chicago campus era (1925–1935)
The school opened in 1925 as Takoma–Silver Spring High School with 86 students. The campus sat at the corner of Philadelphia Avenue and Chicago Avenue in suburban Takoma Park, Maryland.
By the end of the 1920s, the school had added a junior high school (8th and 9th grades) to its senior high school (10th through 12th grades). Growing along with the communities of Silver Spring and Takoma Park, it eventually encompassed kindergarten to 12th grade. By 1934, the school was over-capacity with 450 students, and so, in 1935, the 10th, 11th, and 12 grades moved to a new high school named Montgomery Blair Senior High School. For a time, students, teachers, and administrators commuted between the two campuses. The annual yearbook, Silverlogue, was created around this time.
Wayne Avenue campus era (1935–1998) When Montgomery Blair High School's Wayne Avenue campus opened in March 1935, it was the sixth high school in Montgomery County, and the first in the lower county. One of several Montgomery County schools designed during that period by Howard Wright Cutler, the facility then consisted only of the C building, overlooking Sligo Creek. In 1936, the Auxiliary Gymnasium was added, followed by the B building in 1940, and the D building in 1942. MBHS's first football team was founded in 1944, and the War Memorial Stadium opened in 1947. In 1950, the A building was constructed, containing the Blair Library/Media Center. With the addition of the Main Gymnasium/Fieldhouse in 1954, MBHS possessed one of the finest basketball and football facilities in the county. The E building was added in 1959 as an administrative section, followed by the 1969 opening of the 1200-seat auditorium, named for long-time teacher and librarian Elizabeth Stickley. The most recent addition was the automotive shop building in 1973.
During World War II, students from the University of Maryland taught several classes, and in some cases, able senior students taught sophomore classes. The Blair Library created the "Senior Corner" to honor those who died in war. Life magazine featured the school's Victory Corps close order drill team. Before to the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Blair was an all-white school. In 1955, the school began to integrate along with the rest of Montgomery County.
With Silver Spring's growth, Blair's enrollment jumped from 600 students in 1946, to 1900 by 1956, peaking at 2900 in 1965 before being reduced from 1700 to 1400 after rezoning in 1982. Enrollment was around 1,800 when the Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science Magnet program brought 80 new students in the fall of 1985. The Communication Arts Program (CAP) followed in 1987, founded by Alicia Coleman, brought 75 new students. Overcrowding became an issue for Montgomery Blair High School, as portable buildings covered what was once open land and enrollment exceeded the building's capacity of 2,000.
Blair is one of the few U.S. high schools with a .edu domain name, with its internet connection having gone live in the late 1980s.
Four Corners campus era (1998–present)
In 1994, construction began on a new campus on an empty tract of land north of the Wayne Avenue campus, at the intersection of University Boulevard, Colesville Road, and the Capital Beltway.