Highland County Public Schools

🎓📖 HHS Senior Yearbook Ads – Celebrate Your Senior! 🎉 Did your senior have a memorable year? Honor their achievements with a personal yearbook ad! 💙✨ 📌 Order here: https://plicbooks.com/go/RZLPWK 📅 Deadline: March 7th Follow the prompts to create a special tribute that will last a lifetime! 🎓📸 Don’t miss this chance to celebrate your senior’s journey! 🎉 For questions, contact Rain Hupman at 📧 rhupman@highland.k12.va.us

💖✨ Sweetheart Dance – Join Us! ✨💖 Hey 2nd-5th grade students—grab a loved one and come dance the night away at our Sweetheart Dance! 💃🕺 📅 Date: February 14th ⏰ Time: 6:00–8:00 PM 📍 Location: HCPS Cafeteria 🍿🎶 Enjoy snacks, music, and dancing! This event is proudly sponsored by the Highland Parent Teacher Partnership. We can’t wait to see you there! ❤️🎉

We're looking for volunteers to help during this year's Maple Festival! If you're interested in signing up, please contact Candace at 📞 540-468-6360 or 📧 crlightner@highland.k12.va.us. Your support makes a difference—all proceeds directly benefit HCPS students! 🙌🏼🍁 Thank you!

📢 Join Us for the Highland Parent Teacher Partnership Meeting TOMORROW! 📅 Date: TOMORROW, January 28, 2025 🕖 Time: 7:00 PM 📍 Location: HES Library The Highland Parent Teacher Partnership invites all Highland County Public Schools parents, guardians, grandparents, and community members to join us. This is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate, share ideas, and support our schools and students. We hope to see you there! 💙

Dr. Maerz had an exciting morning spent recruiting teacher candidates for Highland County Public Schools!

🌮🍋 Wrapping Up Culinary Arts 1 in Delicious Style! 🍋🌮 Today we celebrated the end of another semester of Culinary Arts 1 by creating two types of tacos and enjoying our homemade lemon meringue pies! 😋 We divided the work into sections: one student made homemade flour tortillas, another prepared taco seasoning from scratch, and someone tackled the fish tacos. As each part was completed, we kept the momentum going—prepping toppings, browning and seasoning burger, rolling and frying tortillas, and whipping up delicious sauces. Once everything was ready, we crafted our perfect tacos and enjoyed the fruits (or tacos!) of our labor. 🌮✨ 👏 Thank you, Jorden, Zach, Hunter, Jade, and Wyatt, for a fantastic class! What a way to end the semester! 🎉🍴

Highland County Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delay tomorrow, Thursday, January 23, due to frigid temperatures and wind chill.

🍓 Support the FFA Strawberry Fundraiser! 🍓 Our annual FFA Strawberry Fundraiser is happening now through February 20, 2025! Don’t miss your chance to enjoy fresh, delicious strawberries while supporting a great cause. Pricing: 🍓 1 Flat: $27 🍓 1/2 Flat: $16 🍓 1 lb. Container: $5 To place your order, reach out to any FFA member or contact Mrs. Neil at jcneil@highland.k12.va.us. Thank you for supporting our FFA program! 💙💛

Highland County Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delay tomorrow, Wednesday, January 22, due to extremely cold temperatures and wind chill.

📢 Join Us for the Highland Parent Teacher Partnership Meeting! 📅 Date: January 28, 2025 🕖 Time: 7:00 PM 📍 Location: HES Library The Highland Parent Teacher Partnership invites all Highland County Public Schools parents, guardians, grandparents, and community members to join us. This is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate, share ideas, and support our schools and students. We hope to see you there! 💙

📢 Attention HHS Students: Exciting Opportunity! Highland Telephone Cooperative (HTC) invites you to apply for the Foundation for Rural Service Youth Tour in Washington, D.C., happening June 2–6, 2025! 🇺🇸 Details: ✨ HTC covers the program cost! 🚗 Students are responsible for transportation to/from D.C., but HTC will reimburse mileage. 🎓 Open to students aged 15, 16, or 17 at the time of the tour. 👥 Up to two students may be selected. How to Apply: Write two essays (250–500 words each) on the following topics: 📜 Qualities of a Good Citizen 🌐 Telecommunications in Rural Communities 📧 Send essays as attachments to Denise Waybright at waybrightd@htcnet.org. 📅 Deadline: March 15, 2025. Don’t miss this incredible opportunity to explore our nation’s capital and represent your community! 🌟

Highland County Public Schools will operate on a two-hour delay tomorrow, January 21, due to extremely low temperatures and wind chill.

National PowerSchool Incident January 7, 2025, PowerSchool, an international provider of education administration software, announced that it had suffered a cybersecurity incident in late December. Although security of PowerSchool’s systems has been restored, data pertaining to students and educators at hundreds of school systems around the country were subjected to unauthorized access. The breach was limited to PowerSchool’s internal systems, and security of individual school system networks was not disturbed. Highland County Public Schools utilize some PowerSchool tools. PowerSchool has assured us that they are investigating the matter. PowerSchool has now posted an informational FAQ page about the incident to their website. It can be accessed at https://www.powerschool.com/security/sis-incident/. PowerSchool has advised that it has taken steps to prevent further access or misuse of the information; does not anticipate data being shared or made public; and believes that the threat actor did delete or terminate its access to information without further replication or dissemination. Highland County Public Schools takes the privacy of our students’ and employees’ information very seriously. We are committed to holding PowerSchool accountable. PowerSchool has advised us that they will directly notify any impacted individuals with details of the information pertaining to him or her that was affected. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we await additional information from PowerSchool in order to work diligently to address this situation.  As always, the safety and security of our students, staff, and families remain our highest priority.

Highland County Public Schools’ furnaces are operational, and the odor has lessened but has not been fully resolved. Additionally, due to the forecasted snow in the western parts of the county, schools will be closed on Friday, January 17. Students are encouraged to complete any unfinished assignments before returning to school next week.

🏀 All basketball games, both home and away, as well as practices scheduled for this evening, January 16, have been postponed.

Highland County Public Schools has made significant progress in repairing our furnaces; however, a residual odor of burnt fuel persists in our buildings. As we continue efforts to eliminate this odor, we will need an additional virtual learning day on Thursday, January 16. SOL testing will be postponed until next week. JV & V basketball will still travel to Pocahontas. 🏀

🎉 Preschool Family Fun Event! 🎉 Preschool families, join us on January 24th at 11:45 AM in the Elementary School Library for a fun and educational event! 📚✨ We’ll be highlighting budgeting and financial literacy with a special representative from Blue Grass Valley Bank 💰🏦, followed by a teacher-led activity where you can join your child in the classroom! 👩‍🏫🧸 Don’t miss this opportunity to learn and have fun together! 🙌

🏀 Attention Middle School Basketball Families: Middle school teams traveling to Perry McCluer tomorrow should plan to depart from school by 2:45 PM. 🚌 For JV and Varsity athletes, please stay tuned for notifications from your coaches regarding practices. 📢

Due to ongoing issues with the school heating systems and the forecast for extremely cold temperatures and wind chills overnight, Highland County Public Schools will transition to a virtual learning day on Wednesday, January 15. Efforts to repair the heating systems will continue today and tomorrow to ensure a safe and comfortable environment for our students and staff.

🚨 Newly Scheduled Game Alert! 🚨 Our Varsity Boys and JV Girls Basketball teams will be heading to Eastern Montgomery High School today for a game starting at 5:30 PM! 🏀💥 They will be departing from Highland High School at 2:45 PM.