Patriot Press - Friday, May 14, 2021

CHS End of Year Testing Schedule

Audience: All Students

Re:  School Calendar for Semester 2 

With the return to full time face to face, we will be returning to our traditional school calendar which was set last spring.  Therefore, the start of semester 2, scheduled breaks, and end of the semester will follow the District calendar. 

Audience:  All students attending Face to Face

Re:  Daily attendance

Daily attendance and engagement is critical to student academic growth.  As semester 1 progressed, we witnessed a number of students enrolled in Hybrid A/B learning that began to opt out of attending in person instruction to engage in class online.  Additionally, we saw an increase in the number of students who opted to engage in class in a car on their way to a vacation destination.  Although this sounds like a vogue way to learn, we witnessed many situations where this became more of a distraction for the student and we believe classroom performance suffered as a result.  Therefore, beginning second semester, we will be changing the way in which a student gets ‘credit’ for being in attendance to the class as a face to face learner. 

During first semester, we created an attendance code ‘PO’ (stands for Present Online) to accommodate the student who was at home due to illness/possible close contact/awaiting results of COVID testing.  In many situations, students had minor or no symptoms so they were able to engage in class virtually.  When this happened, the PO code was entered and the student was considered as not being absent for class.  As mentioned above, this quickly grew into wide variety of requests which were not COVID/medical related (i.e. vacation, tired from long weekend, not feeling ‘class’ for the day,  etc.).  We will continue to use the PO code this semester for students who are awaiting designation with our COVID protocol or have a substantiated medical reason for not being able to attend in person.  If a student has a different reason for not being in attendance, they may be able to engage online to take in a portion of the class but, it will be counted as an absence (excused or unexcused depending on the reason given).

Audience:  All Students

Re:  Final exams for Semester 2 

Given we plan to offer a traditional schedule for this semester, final exams and a final exam schedule will take place during the closing days of the term.  Also in effect will be our test exemption policy.  We did make some modifications to the policy this past fall to accommodate absenteeism due to COVID/medical so take some time to review those changes(in the student handbook) if you have forgotten the details covered with you this fall.

Audience:  All students attending Face to Face

Re:  Social Distancing/Mask Wearing

Given greater than 90% of the student body will be in attendance every day, the ability to social distance in classes and hallways will be extremely limited.  Therefore, there will be limited opportunity to temporarily remove your mask as there will be few instances where you will be 6 ft. or greater socially distanced.  Another area where social distancing will be difficult is in the commons area.  We will continue to promote staggering of lunches, limits on tables, and sanitation between groups but the volume of students will create a different environment than we had in the hybrid schedule.  Therefore, we will ask students to wear masks when they are not eating/drinking and ask them to create a consistent lunch/breakfast group with other students who are socially connected outside the school day (i.e. same extra-curricular group, friends who spend time together outside the school day, etc.).

Audience:  Distance Learners

Re:  Different feel to Distance Learning

Our plan is to continue offering distance learning using the same modalities as first semester.  Even though the delivery model will be the same, the feel is going to be quite different.  In some regard, you may be the only person in a particular classroom who is doing distance learning. In this situation, it will naturally happen whereas fewer questions are asked online and fewer responses will be shared online since there will be a significant drop in the number of students engaging online.  Therefore, it will be important to continually commit to engagement in the class and maintain strong communication with the teacher if you don’t have clarity on a topic.

Audience:  Freshman

Re:  Freshman Advisement

With the return to full time face to face, we will be using our freshman advisement program as an avenue to balance and stagger lunch periods.  Since we will be attending every day of the week, freshman advisement will be every day of the week.  We do not desire to have this be a long term situation as we do not believe an advisement program maintains its effectiveness by meeting 5 days a week.  Therefore, our plan is to monitor our lunches and COVID dashboard with a long term goal to have days set aside for freshman to have extended lunches in lieu of freshman advisement.

CHS Administration

CHS School Store Hours

Periods 1-3, 5, 6

https://century-high-school-store.square.site/

Contacting CHS Tech Support: 

• Email: chs_tech@bismarckschools.org

• Ticket Repair Form

• Phone: 701-323-4925 (please leave a message) 

My Payments Plus will be open to make purchases on parking permits, planners, lunch fees, activity fees, activity passes, fine art fees, etc starting on Monday, August 3, 2020. Please login or register at www.mypaymentsplus.com. 

• 2020-2021 Athletic Registration will open July 1.  As of this date, you will be able to register your student for next year's activities.  As always, please remember to register them for all activities you believe they may participate in.  This will keep you from having to go back into the system later in the year.
• A part of athletic registtation, you must have a copy of either:
  • Your student;s physical dated after April 15 of this year.
  • NDHSAA Form B (this is used if your student had a physical during the previous school year).  Please note, all 7th graders must have a new physical from this year (after April 15).
• Either document should be in a digital format so you can upload it as a part of the registration process.
• The athletic registration sire DOES NOT take or track payments.  Please disregard any information you see on that sire regarding payment.  To make a payment for an activity fee, please use MyPayments Plus.
• If you run into any problems with a username or password, please contact Mr. Lervick.
• 2020-2021 Activity Fees - Activity fees are able to be paid through MyPayments Plus online beginning August 10th or in the school office.  Students attending a BPS school will be able to pay through MPP while any students participating through a co-op will need to pay in the school office.

The Bismarck Public Schools Foundation (BPSF) has established a BPS Family Assistance Fund.  Those that wish to donate may do so through the foundation website or by mail. To donate online, go to https://www.bpsfoundation.com/donations/bps-faf/. To donate by mail, send checks to the BPS Foundation at 806 N. Washington St., Bismarck, ND 58501 and write “BPS-FAF” in the memo line. Families seeking assistance are encouraged to reach out to their counselor or social worker who will connect them to established community resources as well as submit requests for funding needs that cannot be met within existing resources. The BPSF thanks those who have already reached out to volunteer and/or provide monetary donations to help those within our community who are struggling.

BPS summer band camp is for students entering 6th grade and will take place August 9-13 & 16-19 at Simle Middle School, 1218 Simle Dr. Choose the morning (9-11:30 am) or afternoon session (12:30-3 pm). Reminders about the camp will be sent via email by the district. For up-to-date information, go to www.bismarckschools.org/Page/162. For questions, contact Fine Arts Secretary Nicole Fitzgerald at 323-4082.

Hardcopy registration *return to music teacher by Apr. 30
ONLINE registration *due by June 1

The Band Night Parade is BACK for 2021 on Friday, May 14 starting at 6:30 pm. Make sure to get a spot and be a part of the music and cheer on local students as they play! The  parade route will start from the Capitol Grounds, go South down 6th street, West on Avenue A, and North up 4th street to finish back near the Capitol. If you are interested in having a float in the parade, contact Hannah Carlson at hannah@eckroth.com or 701-333-0282 to get your group signed up and join in on the parade.

The Bismarck School Board will meet at 5:15 pm at the City-County Building at 221 N. 5th Street. The public is invited to attend the meeting or watch it LIVE on cable channel 2.

Friday, May 28 is the last day of school for the 2020-2021 school year.

South Central High School and Adult Learning Center graduations are Friday, May 28 at the Career Academy. SCHS at 4 pm; ALC at 7 pm.