With about 70 certified staff, Breathitt County High offers a very wide range of courses leading to two separate diploma tracks.

The high school was established in 1927 in Quicksand, Kentucky, just south of the county seat of Jackson.

In 1927, it was decided that the high school would be located in the growing logging town of Quicksand which was just 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of Jackson.

The county would use the Quicksand Common Grade School building that was donated to the county school system, in 1917, by Mr. E. O. Robinson, and F. W. Mowbray, the heads of the Mowbray and Robinson Company that was a major logging company that was the major employer for the boomtown.

There were five buildings on campus: The first year of its existence, consisting of 24 students and two faculty members, was headed by L. K. Rice as principal.

Enrollment and faculty continued to grow through the end of the decade and up into the 1930s despite the effects of The Great Depression.

They gained many more extracurricular activities and classes over the years like music, boys' and girls' glee club, FFA, and much more.

By the mid-1930s, the board of education knew the buildings were becoming inefficient to contain the rapid growth of the student body and faculty.

So, in 1936, an 8-acre (32,000 m2) property was bought on Court Street and next to the North Fork of the Kentucky River in the City of Jackson.

It was a two-story red brick building that had about 40 classrooms and a separate gymnasium with an auditorium that housed around 200 people.

All this was due to the efforts from current Superintendent Marie Roberts-Turner and her fighting for better education to the children of Breathitt County.

With a growing number of students due to the paving of many roads and bus transportation, more was added throughout the years.

These buildings included: Soon, another entrance from Washington Avenue was built due to the oncoming of the new road.

In the early 1980s, the administrators, staff, and community began to notice that age was beginning to take a toll on many buildings on the campus.

It was torn down in the middle of the academic year which caused some classes to move to alternative locations.

Finally, the last remnants of the brick building would be removed and the rest of the new high school would be built.

In the early days, Breathitt County High School's mascot was preferably known as the "Owls".

Eventually (around the early 1930s), the red was dropped and the primary colors were just royal blue and white.

In 1975, it was decided that the high school would field a football team due to the ongoing popularity in the region and the rising student body.

So, most games were played during the day and people stood and watched or sat on buses or vehicles.

[4] In 1975, KHSAA revived girls' basketball and it didn't take long for the school to hire a coach and start a varsity team once more.

The girls' team has made it to the KHSAA Sweet Sixteen Finals in 1978, only to be runners-up to Laurel County H.S.

Breathitt County High School has a variety of extracurricular activities available to students including several clubs to join, of which Future Farmers of America is the oldest club in existence, founded the same year the school was opened in 1927.

Other extracurricular activities (non-sports)include: Located on the Breathitt County High School campus, Breathitt County Area Technology Center is a vocational school where students can receive college credit and work in areas such as electricity, automotive technology, health services, construction, desktop publishing, and web design.