About Us

Built in 1976, and named after Maurice James McDonough, McDonough High School offers a varied curriculum to serve a diverse student population.  When the school was built, the "Open Spaces" concept was popular in education.  For this reason, McDonough High School was built with "pods" rather than classrooms.  The pods housed departments, like Social Studies, English or Science.  Classes were conducted in open spaces within the departmental pods. As you tour McDonough High School today, you can still see the pods, but walls have been re-introduced to create rooms.

There are 130 administration, teachers and support staff working with over 1300 students enrolled at McDonough. The school has had trailers added to accommodate our growing student population.

The school's Latin motto, "Docere Cognoscere et Excellere," means "To Teach, To Learn, To Excel."

The regular school day consists of 8 periods, with 3 different lunch shifts. The school day begins at 7:30am and ends at 2:15 pm.  There are also schedules for a 2-hour early dismissal days and for 2-hour late arrival days.

There are many different extra curricular and co-curricular activities that are offered at McDonough. They include a variety of sports and academic activities. For all of these activities, there is a Charles County eligibility requirement that participants meet a minimum Grade Point Average of 2.0, and be absent no more than 4.5 days in a quarter.