Surrattsville was the town of Clinton's original name, taken from Mary Surratt and her family, who once owned the property on which the school now stands.

In 2009, Sheryll Cashin said in The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class are Undermining the American Dream that Surrattsville High was one of several mostly black, mostly middle class PG County public high schools that was "decidedly underachieving: fewer than half of the seniors at these schools went on to attend four-year colleges in recent years.

[citation needed] The baseball team reached the State Semifinals in 2010 before falling to Clear Spring.

Surrattsville won the Maryland State Championship in 1962 and 1965, when it competed in the AA class, the largest at that time.

[citation needed] The 1965 team defeated Allegheny HS, ranked number 3 in the nation and Parkville HS, ranked number 16 in back to back games to win the title.