When Kendra Henderson returned to Salem Community High School, it wasn’t just a homecoming—it was a fresh equation waiting to be solved. A Jasper County native and former math teacher in both Salem and Robinson, Kendra brought with her a spark for numbers, logic, and what she calls “that moment of click”—when students stop doubting themselves and start believing in what they can do.

“I came back in 2021,” she said. “It was a pretty good deal all around. I got my job back at Salem, I found my husband thanks to a blind date set up by a fellow teacher, and I found my way back into a school that feels like family.”

Now in her first year leading the math team, Kendra is doing more than teaching geometry and applied algebra—she’s rebuilding a culture of excellence, one competition at a time.

“I took over this year after the previous coach retired,” she said. “We didn’t have a ton of momentum at first. A lot of students didn’t see math as something they could be competitive in. But that’s started to change.”

The team competes in a variety of competitions. In the fall the math team competes in the Southwest Math Conference competitions in Belleville. In the spring we compete in Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM) competitions and Math Field Day hosted by Southern Illinois University of Carbondale. The competition the SCHS math team focuses on the most is the regional and state competitions through the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics (ICTM), where students take individual and team exams in subjects such as algebra, geometry, and pre-calculus.

It was during one of those meets that things began to turn.

On February 22nd, Kendra took eighteen students to compete at the regional ICTM competition at Eastern Illinois University. It was during this meet that things began to turn. The students started to hear their names get called for awards. The freshman-sophomore team consisting of Brenna Hays, Regan Vincent, Jean Stadler, Mia Burkett, Noah Gaston, and Steven Slininger placed 2nd place at regionals. After that award the calculator team consisting of Noah Gaston, Logan McKinley, Kurt Sullens, Dylan Crawford, Carter Lowe, Lauren Burge & Supphakrit Kongsiriwattanakul tied for 1st place with Robinson. Later came the news: the precalculus team also qualified for state based on their team score. “And once the kids saw someone from our team win, it kind of flipped a switch. They realized, ‘Oh, we can do this.’”

That spark led to more practices, held every Monday and Wednesday after school. They practiced with old tests, tracked their scores, and set their sights on state.

It worked.

The calculator team and precalculus team consisting of eleven students made the trip to Illinois State University in Bloomington on April 26, and the calculator team placed ninth in the state. “I wasn’t surprised,” Kendra said. “We had four students who came to every single practice, worked hard, and earned every bit of it.”

This year, the Salem Community High School Academic Foundation and the school district  invested in the team by purchasing 24 high-quality calculators at roughly $150 each—a nearly $3,600 show of support that helped level the playing field for Salem’s students.

For Kendra, it all loops back to what she felt in fourth grade, learning multiplication chants from her teacher, Diane Kibler. That’s where the spark started for her—and where she now hopes to pass it on.

“It’s the best feeling,” she said. “To help kids go from the mindset of I can’t to I can. That’s the real win.”