[3] The school is named for Montgomery Blair, a lawyer who represented Dred Scott in his Supreme Court case and later served as Postmaster General under President Abraham Lincoln.

[6] One of several Montgomery County schools designed during that period by Howard Wright Cutler, the facility then consisted only of the C building, overlooking Sligo Creek.

[8] The E building was added in 1959 as an administrative section, followed by the 1969 opening of the 1200-seat auditorium, named for long-time teacher and librarian Elizabeth Stickley.

Life magazine featured the school's Victory Corps close order drill team.

[12] With Silver Spring's growth, Blair's enrollment jumped from 600 students in 1946, to 1900 by 1956, peaking at 2900 in 1965 before being reduced from 1700 to 1400 after rezoning in 1982.

Several local politicians and leaders, including former Maryland state senator Ida Ruben, current U.S. representative Jamie Raskin and former U.S.

Some notable visits include: On June 23, 2005, President George W. Bush held a town-hall-style event at the school on short notice to promote his plan to partially privatize Social Security.

Congressmen Jamie Raskin and Ted Deutch brought survivors of the Parkland high school shooting to meet with Blair students.

The victim was taken to the hospital and recovered from his wounds; the perpetrator was charged with attempted second-degree murder, first-degree assault, and reckless endangerment.

[33] In October 2023, three school days were delayed or disrupted by phoned-in bomb threats that were discovered to be hoaxes by a 12-year-old child.

The main hallway of the school, "Blair Boulevard", displays flags from many countries, representing its diverse student body.

[42] At the time, Blair had the highest minority population among the high schools in the county and the lowest standardized test scores.

[42] The school board conducted a survey to decide that a specialized science magnet program would attract high-achieving white and Asian students to Blair.

In their senior year, Magnet students complete research projects and may enter the Science Talent Search, in which the program has a long history of success.

[48] The Blair Magnet is open to students from the southern and eastern areas of Montgomery County, who are selected through a competitive application and testing process.

(A program at Poolesville High School provides a similar curriculum for students in the northern and western areas of Montgomery County.

[54] It strives to provide a comprehensive educational approach to the humanities by offering accelerated, interdisciplinary courses in English, social studies, and media for participating students.

CAP is open to students in the Downcounty Consortium and admission is competitive by application including a short essay.

[55] CAP offers courses in drama, photography, video production, history, government, English literature, writing composition, journalism and research.

The curriculum frequently builds off of existing Advanced Placement courses but uses the program's resources to add interdisciplinary experiences, such as a simulated presidential election that occurs over the course of a week at end of 10th grade, in which some students serve as candidates and others as campaign staff and reporters.

CAP students also maintain portfolios of their work throughout the four years, which must include independent and service-based projects done outside of school.

In 12th grade, they must successfully defend the portfolio's contents to a faculty committee in order to complete the program and graduate with a CAP Diploma.

In addition, the music program also contains a marching band and a theatrical pit orchestra, as well as an audio library and a professional recording studio.

In 2014, MBHS's Chamber Orchestra hosted British Composer Paul Lewis as a Composer-in-Residence funded by the Wolf Trap Foundation.

The Foreign Language Department offers classes up to AP-level in Spanish and French, and up to honors-level in Japanese and Arabic.

The team also delves into other miscellaneous theoretical computer science topics including turing machines, nondeterministic polynomial time, random number generation, assembly language, lambda calculus, and relational databases.

[74] Blair has many notable alumni in public service, the entertainment industry, sports, media, business, and academics.