By KATIE HURST/Lifestyles Editor

Shelby County Schools is interviewing candidates for the high school coordinator position after current coordinator Larry Headrick announced his resignation.

Headrick’s resignation was approved during the regularly scheduled board meeting Jan. 20 and will be effective April 1. Cindy Warner, Shelby County Schools spokesperson, said the district has been interviewing candidates for his replacement and plans to present a recommendation for hire to the board at the Feb. 17 meeting.

Headrick said after a 36-year career, he is retiring and moving to the beach with his wife.

“I was never able to give her a lot, but the only thing she ever asked of me, she said ‘I’d love to be able to retire to the beach,'” Headrick said.

Headrick said they are moving to Panama City Beach, Fla., just four blocks from where they spent their honeymoon 42 years ago.

Headrick was employed with the Shelby County Schools district for 12 years and was the principal at Shelby County High School before taking the position as high school coordinator.

During his time in that position, he helped align the high school curriculum across the district and put in place teacher-designed benchmark tests as assessment tools.

“We wanted to standardize what we were teaching and when we taught it,” he said.

Headrick said he is also proud to have helped the district train teachers in formatted learning styles. Formatted learning takes into account each student’s learning style and provides strategies for reaching each student, he said.

“Formatted learning styles is left and right brain strategies,” he said. “It’s asking, ‘How does learning take place?’ We want to make sure when kids leave a class, they actually learned something and retain the material.”

Headrick said he’s enjoyed working with Shelby County Schools and is appreciative of the opportunities he’s had there. He said he hopes his successor will continue to build on the work he’s done.

“I have accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish and I think we’re better now for it,” he said. “I hope my successor will do the same. Hopefully they’ll take it even further than I have.”