Charger Connects

Friday, Sep 17, 2021

Principal's Message

Welcome back to the Charger Connects for the 2021.22 school year. We are just concluding our first full week of school. it feels good to be back in rhythm. Thank you for your support and cooperation as we have got the year going. Please read below for a few reminders of what is new in the life of BCHS.

1. Construction, construction, construction
Over the summer, we were fortunate to have our lighting in the school switched over to LED as well as flooring replaced on our main floor. The work continues with two bathroom renovations and 8 portable additions. Patience is required as we work through these projects. We are not sure when the portables will be operational but the progress on the east side of our campus has been promising.

2. Why do we need the portables?
Well, our enrolment numbers continue to climb with our school population at 1210 students in gr. 9 - 12. The distribution is gr. 9 - 308, gr. 10 - 347, gr. 11 - 283, gr. 12 - 266; this indicates that if our gr. 9 population remains similar next year, we will naturally grow by another 40 - 60 kids again in 2022.23. By the time our current gr. 10 class is in gr. 12, our population could over 1300 students. We are grateful for the space and the opportunities that come with a growing school.

3. Health protocols
As everyone is aware, the government of Alberta has declared a public state of emergency due to the critical situation in our hospitals and ICUs. As of this writing, there are 896 Albertans in hospital and 222 in ICU due to illness from COVID-19. The sweeping health measures announced did have some impact on schools so I encourage you to read RVS' Return to School Plan to ensure you are up to date.

For our purposes at school, we framed it for our students that there are some have to do's so that we continued to have get to do's. We have to wear our masks diligently in the school so we get to continue with activities and a normal learning environment. We have to work to physically distance ourselves wherever possible so we get to participate in extracurricular. We are still running many activities in our school, as you see on our Twitter feed and in our newsletter, but there are some extra layers of public health protocols we have to follow. The students once again showed their adaptability and have been great to work within this way.

We are excited for what the year holds and know that we can support each other to have a great year of teaching and learning at BCHS. Thank you for your continued support and have a great weekend.

Ryan Reed
Principal | Bert Church High School

Upcoming Events

For everything going on at BCHS, please keep an eye on our school calendar.

Tuesday, Sep 21st is the final day for students to purchase BCHS Swag. Please contact the office or Mr. Jones (rjones@rockyview.ab.ca) if interested!

Monday, Sep 20th is the first day for our cafeteria service! Students may purchase Chicken Fingers and Fries on Monday and a variety of items after that.

Thursday, Sep 23rd is Tacky Tourist Day

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Thanks to our Social Studies department for promoting and running our student vote. Students at BCHS get to vote today and learn more about the democratic process! We'll publish the results in next week's Charger Connects.

Our BCHS Chargers football team takes on the cross town rival George McDougall Mustangs today at 3:30 at Ed Eggerer Park. Looking forward to the annual Airdrie Bowl! Good luck kids!

Volleyball took centre stage in the gym this week with all four of our high school teams holding tryouts. The JV Girls are off to High River this weekend while the other three teams are competing at WH Croxford. Good luck to all involved and thanks coaches!

Bert Church was well represented at the divisional golf tournament. With less than ideal conditions, many of our students were able to show off their talents. Mya Foord placed first in the grade 9 female individual category. In the senior girls individual race, Taylor Foord took home top honours, with Bailee Selent finishing close behind in third. Our senior boys team placed second overall, while Dalen Morrison took 3rd in the senior boys' individual category.