Western Branch High School is a comprehensive high school of over 2200 students in grades 9 through 12. The school is located in Chesapeake, Virginia, a rapidly growing suburban community in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. Over 91% of the graduating classes in the preceding four years have continued their educations after high school. The faculty is both highly educated and well-experienced with 68% having a masters degree or higher and 72% having more than ten years of teaching experience.

Advanced placement courses and examinations are offered in seventeen content areas. Work study programs are also available to students in marketing, industrial trades, and business. Chesapeake's Center for Science and Technology is also an option for students during part of the school day to study in any of twenty-two specialities such as cosmetology, biotechnology, radio and television, and welding.

Since fall of 1995, 4 X 4 classes at WBHS have been conducted on a term or semester basis, with each term lasting eighteen weeks or approximately ninety instructional days for one unit of credit.

Fine Arts programs at WBHS include art, award winning orchestras and bands, and choral music programs.

Student activities programs are popular at WBHS. The athletic, forensic, and drama programs have been particularly successful. The athletic program includes twenty varsity sports for young women and men at an extremely high level of competition. The forensics program and the one act play competitions produce winners annually. Bruin Productions recreate major Broadway productions annually.

WBHS students are leaders in the United Way campaigns, Red Cross blood drives, and other community programs such as walk-a-thons and the Special Olympics.

Western Branch High School's facilities have been renovated to accomodate student body growth and to meet the needs of the community which the staff and the facilities themselves serve.

Education in the Western Branch area has had a long and vibrant history.

Heeding Thomas Jefferson's pleas for public education in Virginia, the 1799 Virginia Assembly established four schools in the state, two of which were in Tidewater. One of these, the Craney Island School was the direct ancestor of Western Branch High School. The local name of "Churchland" was given to a school in 1854. This Churchland School, consisting of grades one through eleven, moved in 1922 to a three-story brick structure. By 1950, the area's truck farms had given way to housing developments, and the present Churchland High School was built to accommodate the expanding school population.

In 1961, the City of Portsmouth initiated annexation proceedings for the entire area, then under the jurisdiction of Norfolk County. Concurrently, negotiations began for a merger of Norfolk County with the City of South Norfolk to form the new corporate City of Chesapeake.

This area became the City of Chesapeake by popular vote in January, 1963. When the final distribution of the area took place in 1968, Chesapeake received the building which was to become the first Western Branch High School. Thus, Western Branch High School, comprised of 1,200 students in grades six through twelve, began in the new city of Chesapeake on September 3, 1968.

Further community growth resulted in the need for a larger high school building; the present Western Branch High School building was first occupied in September, 1972. In 1988, an addition was constructed to the school adding twelve classrooms in order to accommodate the growth of the community. In 1995, a second addition and renovation of the original building was initiated and completed shortly thereafter.

Mr. Arthur V. Brandriff, Jr. was appointed as Principal of Western Branch High School in 1968 and has remained in that capacity since then. During those years, the administration, faculty, and staff at Western Branch High School have remained cognizant of their responsibilities to provide an environment that encourages personal growth, self-respect, pride in work and achievement, and the appreciation of learning. High standards within our school extend to our community and society. Western Branch High is envisioned as part of a cohesive school community, one that recognizes the importance of the individual and of the larger society of which each person is a part, that provides for personal enrichment, and that assumes a vital role in education.