Brockton High School

Brockton High School, established in 1870, is a high school located in Brockton, Massachusetts. It is a part of Brockton Public Schools. As of 2016 Brockton High School, with 4,029 students, is one of the largest high schools in the United States and the largest high school in Massachusetts. Brockton High School's colors are Black & Red and their mascot is the Boxers, which is a reference to the storied boxing history of the city, and also a tribute to hall-of-fame boxers Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler, who are both from Brockton and alumni of Brockton High School. History When Brockton High was founded, it could house only 125 students. As the population of Brockton grew, there was increasing demand for a larger building. In 1906, a new high school was constructed, consisting of an "A" building and a "B" building. By the 1960s, student numbers exceeded capacity, causing split sessions; upperclassmen and sophomores attended school at different times of the day. The sophomores attended in the afternoon while the upperclassmen took their classes in the morning. In 1965, the City Council Finance Committee approved an $8 million proposal to construct a new high school to accommodate the swelling student body. In 1965, the ground for the new building was broken and in 1970, the school was complete. The "A" building has since been torn down, and the "B" building housed a pre-K center and then charter and alternative school programs, and was torn down in fall 2023 to make way for a new public safety center. The current high school campus comprises nine buildings and is approximately the size of an aircraft carrier (1/3 mile long) and has of floor space, about half the size of the Prudential Center in Boston. At one time, the highest number of students housed in the school was 4,250. Nahyo M. Kim of The New York Times wrote that in a period around 10 years before 2010, Brockton High "was a case study in failure". At that time the school's unofficial motto was "students have a right to fail if they want". Around 1999 the school set up a reform plan, using the skill areas of reading, reasoning, speaking, and writing and using them in the school's curriculum. By 2001 student performance improved. Susan Szachowicz, the former principal, said that the school culture and large size was crucial to the school's turnaround.