Students at Bethlehem Catholic High School are starting the new school year nearly a month after a fire damaged dozens of portable classrooms and displaced roughly half the school’s population. For Grade 12 student Johanna Dayapan, the start of her senior year looks a little different. “Classes are shorter, 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,” Dayapan told reporters Wednesday. Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools says 26 portable classrooms were damaged by either the fire or water used to put out the flames during the Aug. 7 blaze, displacing about 780 students, or roughly half the school’s population of about 1,500. Michelle Horner’s classroom was among those that sustained significant water damage. The teacher said she and her colleagues were emotional when they saw their classrooms and belongings had been destroyed. “For me personally, I had a lot of student projects that I had kept over the years, and a lot of those were destroyed and that was sad,” Horner said. Saskatoon police have called the fire suspicious, and an arson investigator is investigating. The school is now adapting to the disruption, with meeting rooms and multi-purpose spaces at the Shaw Centre serving as temporary classrooms through the end of December. Students are also following a split-day schedule, with Grades 9 and 10 attending in the morning and Grades 11 and 12 in the afternoon. Classes are shorter, with students expected to make up the remaining instructional time outside the classroom. Some students have said the new schedule has left them uncertain about the year ahead. “Some people are happy because less school time, but some are also really concerned because the question is how much education are we really getting,” Dayapan said. Grade 11 student Jerlad Lintag said the new schedule will be a challenge, especially during final exams. “I’m not really disciplined with studying, so it’s going to be hard for me to manage everything, especially in the new environment,” Lintag said. Tom Hickey, superintendent of education for Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, said keeping students on track will be a priority. “We have space available to support them and can assign time really to make sure that people are staying on top of their studies and aren’t falling behind and struggling,” Hickey said. He said it’s still too early to know when things will return to normal, but the school division hopes to have a clearer timeline in the coming weeks. For Dayapan, it’s not the start she expected, but she’s ready to adapt. “It’s something new and no one’s really prepared for something new, but I know I’ll work my way through it,” she said.
