Bethlehem Catholic High School adapts after devastating fire

The first day back to school is bringing new firsts for students at Bethlehem Catholic High School this year.

According to Tom Hickey, superintendent of learning services with Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, the school is operating with fewer classrooms, revised timetables and shorter in-class time to account for damage sustained during a fire last month.

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Some classes are being hosted for the foreseeable future at the Shaw Centre, with students trekking over to the nearby building. A split schedule has also been implemented, splitting students into either a morning or afternoon of in-class instruction, with the other half of the day designated for supported learning time outside the classroom.

“Until more classrooms are available, we feel it’s the best option,” Hickey explained, adding that other options such as off-site learning were also explored and discarded because of concerns over complexity and logistics.

“It preserves that face-to-face instruction, and really allows us to stay together as a Bethlehem community.”

Hickey said a fire of this size and severity at a school is a first for him in his career. He said 26 classrooms were impacted, displacing about 780 students from one part of the school to another and affecting countless classes that use those classrooms.

“It’s like one of our largest elementary schools not being there and having to find a home for all those students,” Hickey explained.

“I’m excited to see the kids back today. It was great seeing them walk around the hallways. They’re smiling. They’re excited for the year,” he said.

Michelle Horner, the English teacher for Grades 10 and 12 at Bethlehem, saw the flames travel toward her classroom.

Horner lives near the school and, after hearing from her sister that the school was on fire last month, walked over to survey the scene.

Bethlehem Catholic High School english teacher, Michelle Horner, said teachers will be glad to be back in their own classrooms when construction is completed. For now, she said staff, students and teachers are all adapting to start the school year. (Libby Gray/650 CKOM)

“That was a very uncomfortable feeling for me, worried that I was going to watch my classroom burn,” Horner said.

She was grateful to see firefighters put the fire out but didn’t realize the extent of the water damage to her classroom until later.

“I think that teachers, you know, we have a lot of emotions when we see that,” Horner said. “Teachers tend to spend a lot of time and energy and money putting themselves into their classroom to make a space that is warm and welcoming for students. So certainly, I witnessed not just myself, but my colleagues have a lot of emotions when they saw that their rooms were destroyed and the things in their rooms were destroyed.”

Horner says she had personal things, like student projects she had kept over the years, that were destroyed.

“It’s sad to see that,” she said.

The disruption to the order of the school, with students moving to other locations for classes, shortening class time and reorganizing timetables to maximize students’ time with teachers, has contributed to disorder at the start of the new school year, according to the teacher.

“It’s not just the one wing that was disrupted,” she said. “So many of us were displaced that now … the entire school has been disrupted.”

She commented, however, on the “amazing” flexibility of the school’s staff and how working together has created workable solutions to get students back into the available classrooms for now.

“There were a few of us that found a small little storage space in one of the wings, and we brought some tables in and brought some chairs in, so that’s our prep space now,” Horner said. She noted it’s not an ideal setup, but teachers are “finding ways to make it work.”

There’s no estimated date yet for when the 26 damaged and destroyed classrooms will be available for use once again.

“We love having our own personal space in our classroom for our prep. We love that,” Horner emphasized. “Everyone has to really adapt and be flexible. And we now have different teachers in our spaces that usually aren’t there, and we’ve got to make sure we’re making room for people.”

She said teachers will be glad to have their classrooms back and see the entire student body back together again.

At present, students at Bethlehem are seeing revised schedules, with some starting the school day around 8 a.m. and others around noon. Classes have been shortened to 42 minutes, with teachers focusing on in-class instruction and other classroom-specific instruction while students are in class, and more time for independent learning given outside of the classroom.

Once the classrooms are repaired and usable once again, Hickey said the school will be able to return to its normal schedule.

Jerald Lintag started his Grade 11 year on Wednesday. He said he’s feeling confused, scared and surprised over the fire that is disrupting his junior year.

“When I saw the images, I just knew that my school year was going to look different from last year,” Lintag said.

Jerald Lintag is going into grade 11 at Bethlehem Catholic High School this year and said he’s nervous about studying more on his own with less time in the classroom, thanks to a tighter class schedule, made to accommodate the reduced classrooms the school is starting the year with. (Libby Gray/650 CKOM)

He said he’d rather attend school in the morning, so he’s upset with the revised schedule that is in place until the classrooms have been repaired.

“I’m not really disciplined with studying, so it’s going to be hard for me to manage everything, especially in a new environment with a new grade,” Lintag explained.

“I have to deal with finals this semester, so having to do finals with 30 minutes of learning time would be really hard.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this year.”

To better prepare, Lintag said he cleaned his room before classes resumed for the year to give himself a clear space for thinking outside of school because he knows he won’t be able to focus well during independent learning time in a public space.

While he remains uncertain about the year, he said it’s nice to see everyone back in the school smiling and staying positive. He also credited his teachers for staying positive, reflecting on union strikes in previous years.

“I hope it stays like this. I hope no one gets mad or angry. They have been doing amazing,” Lintag said.

Senior Johanna Dayapan is “kind of scared” about the newness coming in her final year of high school.

“I know I’ll work my way through it,” she said, “even though classes are shorter and there’s less room in here, and you don’t really get to be with the whole school all at one time because it’s separated.”

Bethlehem Catholic High School senior, Johanna Dayapan, said she’s nervous starting this year, with the school separating students into different timeslots and areas to accommodate learning while 26 classrooms are being rebuilt after a recent fire. (Libby Gray/650 CKOM)

She said her classmates are mixed on the changes to the start of the school year, with some happier about the later start times for classes and others worried about shorter time in the classroom.

“Some are also really concerned because the question is how much education are we really getting, and is it going to affect our future?”

While Dayapan said she works well by herself, she also recognized the importance of in-class time.

“I’ll just make the most out of it as much as I can because, of course, the last year is so so important,” Dayapan said.