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

Audience:  All Students

Re:  Final Week of Semester 1

Due to the current hybrid and distance learning delivery models, CHS will not have our typical ‘final exam’ schedule to end the term.  Teachers have revamped their approach to semester ending assessment to create closure to the term which matches the preparedness of their classes. Therefore, the end of term assessment will look differently between classes.  In some regards, a class may have a final project, a final paper, a unit exam, a skills assessment, an assessment spread amongst multiple days, or a traditional final exam for our courses which lead to college credit.  We also have some instances where classes are in the middle of a unit and instead of plowing through/skipping content to get it done before the end of the term, they have decided to move the assessment of that content into the first week of the 2^nd semester. 

Given the multiple combinations of semester ending assessment described above, it will be important for students to have full clarity of semester ending expectations.  This will be communicated by individual teachers so if students have any confusion regarding exactly what is expected of them next week, they need to connect with their classroom teachers to ensure they complete all expectations.  Simply put… Your teachers have a plan so make sure you organize your week to complete that plan. 

Audience:  All Students

Re: Friday, January 15^th

Friday, January 15^th, is listed in the school calendar as a ‘C’ day.  With that said, the schedule and intent of the day will be different than our past ‘C’ days.  Due to it being the last day of the term, no new instruction will take place and the day will be reserved as a make-up/final assessment/material return day.  As mentioned above, this will look differently depending on the class for the student so it will be important for students to be well informed by their teacher about how this day will operate for them.  We will not have blocks of time in the morning and afternoon for tutorial like we have been doing.  Rather, we will be running our normal 50 minute period schedule like is run on A and B days (Period 1 beginning at 8:20 am and Period 8 ending at 3:28 pm).  Subsequently, every student will have, at minimum, 50 minutes of defined time with their teachers to take care of any necessary semester ending tasks.  Busses will run their normally scheduled times including our bus runs to the Career Academy for blocks A – blocks D.

CHS Administration

Patriot Press - Wednesday, January 20, 2021

CHS School Store Hours

A days - 10:08am-10:58am and 11:56am-12:46pm

B days - 9:14am-10:04am

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.

Dec. 1: Bob Wenger, Tioga, $40
Dec. 2: Iris Stenerson, Bismarck, $40
Dec. 3: Karen Jundt, Bismarck, $40
Dec. 4: Colin Entringer, Bismarck, $40 & Jed Geer, Bismarck, $100
Dec. 7: Randy Love, Bismarck, $40
Dec. 8: Elsie Sheldon, Bismarck $40 & Blake Hanson, Bismarck, $80
Dec. 9: Josh Wenger, Bismarck, $40
Dec. 10: Bobby Weiland, California, $40
Dec. 11: Rick Hanson, Bismarck, $40 & Garrett Langerud, Bismarck, $100
Dec. 14: Ashley Woehl, Mandan, $40
Dec. 15: Kelly Myhra, Bismarck, $40 & Jeff Tweten, Bismarck, $40
Dec. 16: Justin Sackman, Bismarck, $80
Dec. 17: Mark Kadrmas, Bismarck, $100
Dec. 18: Dar Wixcey, Lincoln, $100
Dec. 21: Kirsten McIntyre, Bismarck, $125
Dec. 22: Kathy Johnson, Hazen, $300
Jan. 4: Laurie McMerty, Bismarck, $40
Jan. 5: Amy Mazigian, Bismarck, $40 & Lee Gullingsrud, Bismarck, $40
Jan. 6: Tana Schafer, Flasher, $50
Jan. 7: Michele Paul, Bismarck, $50
Jan. 8: Pat Weinberg, Bismarck, $500
Jan. 11: Nicole Fehr, Bismarck, $50
Jan. 12: Melissa Schmitcke, Bismarck, $50
Jan. 13: Sharon Goldade, Bismarck, $250
Jan. 14: Sharon Kosiak, Bismarck, $40
Jan. 19: Renae Kondos, Bismarck, $50

We are asking for donations of diapers, wipes, tampons, and feminine pads. These donations will help serve children 0-18 that receive support from the BPS Students in Transition program, BECEP, South Central High School, all BPS social workers working with families in need, Healthy Families of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, and the Adopt-A-Block program.

We have seen an evident need to help people in our community with basic items such as diapers, wipes, and feminine hygiene products. This underlying need in our community is now exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting rising unemployment. WIC and SNAP benefits help with food, but do not help with these items or other personal hygiene items for children and families in our community. A group of organizations along with faith leaders are working with families and have come together with the goal of meeting the current above-mentioned needs and building relationships between churches and organizations to continue and increase the scope of support into the future.

Our first goal is to collect and build resources so the above organizations can distribute to families in need. Donations can be dropped off at:

Century Baptist Church (205 Colt Dr.) Monday & Thursday 11:00 am-1:00 pm.

Evangel Church (3225 N 14th St.) Wednesday 12:00-1:00 pm.

J&R Vacuum (223 E Main Ave) Monday-Friday 9:00 am-6:00 pm. Drop off at loading dock and call 258-5619 at time of delivery.

To have donations picked up, call Becky Matthews at 701-220-5271. To learn more about the Needs Nook, contact her at rebecca239@bis.midco.net or 701-220-5271.

Donate to Student Cold-Weather Efforts
BPS social workers have identified the need for snow boots, snow pants and water-repellent gloves for students in need.  If you would like to make a monetary donation to help purchase these items, please go to https://www.bpsfoundation.com/donations/kidskicks/.

Donate to Family Assistance Fund
The Bismarck Public Schools Foundation (BPSF) has established a COVID-19 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/cv19bps-faf/. To donate by mail, send checks to the BPS Foundation at 806 N. Washington St., Bismarck, ND 58501 and write “COVID-19” 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.

Donate to Student Feeding Efforts
BPS has had many kind offers to help with student feeding. If you want to make a monetary donation to help feed students in need, go to www.bpsfoundation.com/meals. 

Fall kindergarten registration runs from Thursday, January 14 to Friday, March 12 for children who will be 5 years old on or before July 31. Go to www.bismarckschools.org/Page/3781 to get information to complete your child’s registration. If you don’t have access to a computer, you can visit any public elementary school to use one or stop by Central Registration at 806 N. Washington St., door #2. If you need assistance, email registrar@bismarckschools.org or call 701-323-4110. Students who attend BECEP can be registered for kindergarten at BECEP by March 12. NOTE: Parents who do not register any student, grades K-5, by August 1 may not be assured a spot in their neighborhood school due to lack of space, so register early!

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.

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.

Bismarck Public Schools will not have classes Friday, February 12 due to Staff Development Day. Classes resume Tuesday, February 16.