You live in Brentwood.  You see it every day.  Maybe you’re even a student there.  Maybe you were in the past.  What am  I talking about ? Brentwood High School.  You probably think that good old BHS has been around forever.  Well guess what?  It hasn’t.  Here’s an interesting little story.  For many years, there was no Brentwood High School.  Once students finished elementary school here, they had to be bused to Bay Shore High School.  But with tremendous population growth in Brentwood during the 1950s, the community decided to build its own high school. The Ross High School, as it was originally called, opened in 1955.  The first graduating senior class was in 1957.

The school is split into two buildings, the Ross and Sonderling Centers.  During the 1970s and 1980s the student body was so large that they were treated as two separate schools.  Students from North and West Junior Highs were sent to Sonderling , while those from East and South Junior Highs went  to Ross. 

BHS was also the home of the Maslow-Toffler School of Futuristic Education, an alternative program in the 1970s and 1980s that caused some controversy (many people from the regular high school felt that M-Ters were given unfair advantages and preferential treatment.)  BHS is also the home of WXBA, a popular Long Island radio station run entirely by students. 

Among the school’s notable alumni are actor Jack Scalia, boxers James “ Buddy” McGirt and his son James McGirt, Jr., and former Villanova star and NBA player Chuck Everson.  Michael H. Waye, a 1981 graduate, was killed in 9/11 World Trade Center attack.  He was a newly appointed Vice-President at Marsh and McLennan at the time.    

-N. Ziino, Local History Room Newsletter,   October 2006