When Rebecca (Ashby) Heady accepted a job at Henry County Middle School a few years after she graduated high school, she had no idea she’d still be working with the school district three decades later. After over 30 years with Henry County Public Schools, Heady will be retiring at the end of this month.

“It was time to focus on my health, my family and my home. There is just something inside of you that tells you when it is time to make a change and I finally listened,” Heady said. “I feel like I have given a great deal of myself over the years to this school system through love, sweat and tears, literally.  Being a graduate of Henry County, I feel proud to have been an employee of HCPS of 30-plus years.”

Becky, who graduated from Henry County High School in 1988, began her career with Henry County Public Schools in 1991 as a library aide at Henry County Middle School. After two years in that position and one year in the computer lab, she settled into her role as the attendance clerk at HCMS. After a couple of years working with the special education department at HCMS, she assumed the role of school secretary for the school. Seven years later and with a change in school leadership, she moved back to being the attendance clerk at HCMS, a position she held for eight years before moving the Board of Education to serve the district’s special education department as its administrative assistant; the position she currently holds.

Commonwealth Credit Union (CCU) supplies Henry County High School with its financial literacy curriculum for seniors. Last Wednesday, they also provided a donation to the school of eight outdoor picnic tables and four trash cans that will be used to create seating in the courtyard as one of its 70 Acts of Service.

“Henry County High School is one of the top schools in our financial education program and we thought this was a great way to acknowledge their efforts to provide their students with the financial knowledge they need as they transition into adulthood,” said Mary Handiboe, CCU Financial Education Supervisor. “We are excited that we are able to make this donation to reward them for fostering financial literacy in their young adults.”

Pictured from left to right are: Michelle Robinson, CCU Financial Education Representative; Mary Handiboe, CCU Financial Education Supervisor; Hannah Wampler, CCU Marketing Coordinator; Sarah Murphy, CCU Shelbyville Assistant Branch Manager; Shannon Sageser, HCHS Principal; Richie Robbins, HCHS Behavior Interventionist; and Kevin Webster, HCHS Assistant Principal.

Senate Bill 1 (SB1) removed the Kentucky Board of Education’s universal mask mandate for all Kentucky’s schools, meaning the decision to “mask or not” now falls to each district. At this time and in light of the high incidence rate in our community (103.6 as of Sept. 10), the Henry County Public Schools Board of Education has decided to continue to require students, staff and visitors to wear masks in our facilities and on our buses.

Since school began, we have routinely had between 150 to 200 students in quarantine on any given day, and currently have 30 positive cases among our students. We also currently have five staff members in quarantine with three positive cases. It is not prudent at this time to remove one of our primary mitigation strategies in this fight against the spread of COVID.

Because the state has handed this choice back to the districts, it means that moving forward we now also have increased flexibility to make the best decision possible for our students based on our own localized community spread and internal COVID cases and quarantines. We can choose to lift the mask requirement once our numbers have reached safer levels. We routinely review the number of positive cases and quarantines, and we believe the preventative measures we are taking, including our mask requirement and the newly implemented test-to-stay strategy, will work to reduce the spread of COVID in our district.

Thank you for partnering with us as we do all we can to keep our staff and students safe and to maintain in-person learning.

Dear HCPS Families, 

Thank you for all of your support in helping Henry County Public Schools (HCPS) keep students healthy during this time. We appreciate your willingness to work with our school nurses and health assistants in following our COVID protocols.

While we know that nothing we implement alone will be 100% effective in stopping the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we are striving to implement as many strategies as we can. We continue to encourage handwashing, vaccination to those eligible, social distancing whenever possible, disinfecting of surfaces, appropriate mask wearing and keeping your students home if they have any COVID symptoms. When layered together, each of those practices becomes more effective in reducing the spread of this virus and keeping our kids healthy and in school. 

Proactive COVID Testing: Strategies to KEEP STUDENTS in SCHOOL

Today, HCPS is introducing another strategy toward this effort. Beginning next week, Wild Health Laboratories will be providing free COVID-19 testing to our district. Please note that this testing is by parental consent only and is NOT mandatory or required. Testing will always be optional and can be refused by the student at any time, for any reason.

The COVID-19 tests will be administered using an anterior nasal swab - this means the swab would be inserted just inside the nose and will not be invasive or painful in any way. There will be two types of testing offered, rapid testing (results in about 15 minutes) and PCR (polymerase chain reaction, which has a turnaround time of 24 hours). All testing requires a signed parental consent form. Testing strategies include:

A familiar face will be the next leader of Henry County Public Schools.

Dr. Jim Masters, a former principal of Henry County High School, was named the next superintendent of HCPS at a special meeting of the Board of Education Wednesday night. Most recently, Masters filled the position of the Director of K-12 Curriculum and Instruction for Franklin County since 2012. From 2008 to 2012, Masters was the principal of HCHS.

“My fondest memories as an educator were at Henry County High School,” Masters said. “It was the most wonderful experience I’ve had in education, because we all came together as a team and improved the school so much over the span of four years and it was due to the amazing staff, students and community.”

Before leading HCHS as its principal, Masters worked with the Kentucky Department of Education as a Highly Skilled Educator, and was an assistant principal at Georgetown Middle School. Masters began his career in education in 1997 as a social studies teacher and basketball coach at Second Street Middle School, Danville High School, Tates Creek High School and Western Hills High School. The first-time superintendent brings a wealth of experience to the position.

“I bring the experience of continually improving schools, and that’s only possible through forming great relationship and building trust,” Masters said “A strong leader has the ability to listen to the needs and wants of others and bring people together for a common cause.”