Centennial High School is a

secondary school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...

Ellicott City, Maryland Ellicott City is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place in, and the county seat of, Howard County, Maryland, Howard County, Maryland, United States. Part of the Baltimore metropolitan area, its ...

, United States, that opened in 1977. The school is based in Howard County and is part of the

Howard County Public School System The Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) is the school district that manages and runs the Public school (government funded), public schools of Howard County, Maryland. It operates under the supervision of an elected, eight-member Board of ...

. The school is named after its road frontage on Centennial Lane, built in 1876 as a shortcut through Denton Hammond's slave plantation Burleigh Manor between Clarksville and Ellicott City. In 1984–85, the school was recognized as one of the top 100 high schools in the country through the USDE Secondary School Recognition Program. In 1996, Centennial High School was the first high school within Maryland to achieve the excellence standard in all categories of the Maryland State Performance Assessment Program's (MSPAP) report card. The school maintained these standards throughout 2000 and 2001. In 2008, the school was nominated by '' U.S. News & World Report'' as a "silver medal" school, placing in the top 505 high schools nationwide. In a 2012 joint study by ''Newsweek'' and ''The Daily Beast'', Centennial was ranked the second-best public high school in Maryland and number 111 in the nation. In 2014, Centennial was ranked as the best public school in Maryland and the United States. In 2017 the school was awarded "gold medal" by ''US News & World Report'' which ranked it as the best school nationwide. In 2015, the Centennial men's basketball team bested Westlake for the Maryland 3A state title. Centennial High School Sign

The school has a maximum capacity of 1,360 students, but through the addition of nine portable classrooms currently (as of 2022) enrolls over 1,614 students. Of those in attendance, 41.7% are Asian, 38.6% are White, 8.9% are African American, 5.6% are Hispanic, 0.3% are Native American, 0.2% are Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 5.1% are two or more races.

Notable alumni

Suzanne Malveaux Suzanne Maria Malveaux (; born December 4, 1966) is an American broadcast journalist. After joining CNN from NBC News in 2002, she co-anchored the CNN international news program ''Around the World'' and editions of ''CNN Newsroom'' and also se ...

–

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

anchor * Andrew Marshall – professional soccer player * Jan W. Rivkin – economist,

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professor *

Aaron Russell Aaron Joseph Russell (born June 4, 1993) is an American professional volleyball player who plays as an outside hitter for Aluron CMC Warta Zawiercie and the U.S. national team. He was a bronze medalist at the Olympic Games Rio 2016, Paris 20 ...

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Ken Ulman Kenneth Samuel Ulman (born May 4, 1974) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the chair of the Maryland Democratic Party from 2023 to 2025. He was the county executive of Howard County, Maryland from 2006 to 2014, and ...

– Former Howard County Executive

References and notes

External links

Centennial High School websiteCentennial High School Sporting RecordsCentennial High School Facebook
{{authority control Public schools in Howard County, Maryland Public high schools in Maryland Educational institutions established in 1977 Buildings and structures in Ellicott City, Maryland 1977 establishments in Maryland