McGavock Comprehensive High School, located at the corner of Two Rivers Parkway and McGavock Pike, opened in 1971. Initially comprised of students in grades ten through twelve who had previously attended Cameron, Donelson and Two Rivers High Schools, McGavock added ninth grade in 1977.

McGavock is a part of the Metro-Nashville Public School System. It sits on a part of the McGavock plantation that was purchased by Metro Parks in 1968 for $68,000. The land is still the property of the park service. The school was named for the antebellum Two Rivers Mansion built by David H. McGavock.

McGavock was the first truly comprehensive high school built in Nashville. Planning for the school took place during the administration of Superintendent Dr. John Harris. Dr. James Burns, the resident consultant for secondary development for Metro-Nashville Public Schools, developed a structure that would serve as a model for other comprehensive high schools.

A leadership team, consisting of Chester LaFever, Executive Principal, Charles Hailey, Coordinator of Program and Staff Development, and Charles Adwell, Coordinator for Vocational and Technical Education, was formed in the fall of 1970. The team incorporated many comprehensive programs including theater, horticulture, library learning center, astronomy, music and twenty-three vocational labs. McGavock was the first high school in Nashville that combined the academic program with extensive vocational training.

McGavock has four softball fields, a baseball diamond, six tennis courts, a football stadium and a track. The fourteen-acre building houses eighty-two classrooms, fourteen science labs, four family and consumer science labs, nine vocational shop/classroom areas, seven business educational labs, two gymnasiums, two cafeterias, a five hundred eighty-six seat auditorium, and a one-story library with fiction, audio-visuals, materials and equipment on one level, and non-fiction and computers on the other. It also has a green room, a planetarium, a CTE Computer Lab equipped with 60 computers and a CTE Presentation room equipped with state of the art projection capabilities.

McGavock has had only four executive principals in its thirty-four years: Chester LaFever (1971 – 1981), Howard Baltimore (1981-1998), Steve Young (1998-2002), and Michael Tribue (2002 – present).