The original building at 655 South Rampart Street was destroyed when Hurricane Betsy struck New Orleans in 1965, and for the next four years the school was temporarily located in the former United States Federal Court House Building at 600 Camp Street.

According to Philip White, the principal, initially the administration had plans to accommodate 800 students but found fewer due to the effects of the hurricane.

[4] The current facility which opened on August 20, 2015 is located on 16 acres in the Bayou District at 4000 Cadillac Street, the former Phillips/Waters school site.

[3] The Louisiana Recovery School District allocated $55 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency recovery funds tied to this site to construct the new state of the art McDonogh 35 College Preparatory High School.

[5] A "Roneagle" or "Ironeagle" is a mythical bird fashioned after the American bald eagle however because of its solid iron constitution, it was stronger, swifter, larger and more resourceful than all other birds—a symbol of strength and courage meant to inspire the students of the school.

Christine Woyshner and Chara Haeussler Bohan, editors of Histories of Social Studies and Race: 1865-2000, said that "Despite the pressures of a state-mandated standardized curriculum and a corresponding accountability policy, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, McDonogh 35 retained a strong academic curriculum that placed social justice and students at its center.