Founded by the Brothers of the Holy Cross in 1959, and named in honor of the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, Thomas Francis Hendricken, the school's faculty was long composed of both lay and religious individuals.

Hendricken's academic departments include: English, Fine Arts, Health/Physical Education, Mathematics, Modern Language, Science, Social Studies, Technology, and Theology.

[3] In 2008–2009, Hendricken launched the Brother Thomas R. Leto Options Program aimed at providing a Catholic high school education for students with mild to moderate developmental disabilities.

"[6] The program expanded the school's daily schedule to include additional space and opportunity for students to take a range of elective courses in Arts, Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM.

[7] The program offers the opportunity for students to write, develop, direct, design, and produce their own one-act productions for an annual play festival.

Bands have performed at the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City, Meyerhoff Hall in Baltimore, and Walt Disney World.

Hendricken's Football program has more Rhode Island Super Bowl appearances than any other school in the state, and boasts 18 championships since 1968.

[15] The team travels to tournaments around New England for competition, and plays a full Spring season against schools from Massachusetts and Connecticut.

When it was discovered that Walderman had then been reassigned to another all-boys' high school in Harlem, New York, he became a notable figure in the sexual abuse scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers.

At age 39, Sheldon was sentenced to five years probation and was forced to surrender his state teaching certificate and was ordered to complete sex offender counseling.

[22] Jackson attracted criticism after writing a letter to the editor of The Providence Journal titled "Obama's immoral position on gay marriage".

[26] Former principal Joseph "Jay" Brennan resigned from his position on January 17, 2018, after a video depicting him using racial profanity to refer to African Americans and followers of Judaism was anonymously sent to WPRI.

[30] Prior to the lawsuit, in 2017, the Department of Labor and Training ruled that the school did not have a policy covering the reason for termination, qualifying Marsocci to receive unemployment benefits.