In years past the Brave community has filed into the gym for the excitement of the annual “Back to School” assembly. The freshmen file into their new rows for the excitement of their first ever high school assembly. In contrast to the Seniors, who have waited years to be marked the oldest in the school, the low roar of noise from the student body echoes through the gym. The Back to School assembly has always been a great way to kick off the school year.

This fall Braves opened their laptops, clicked a Zoom link, and watched the technicolor glow of Bishop Blanchet in solitude.

The theme song for the hit show “Outerbanks” played as students and faculty watched the birds eye view of our school while being introduced to the brand new ASB. Patrick Kane, Rowan Rathbun, Mae Skokan, Tyler Korman, and Meg Cunningham appeared on the screen masked up and six feet apart in the grotto prepared to find the missing “B” around the building. The ASB video is an annual tradition and a great way to introduce the officers who had won the election this past spring. 

ASB officer Meg Cunningham mentioned regarding the video production, “It was a little difficult communicating and running through the video all with a mask on in the heat, but I was just happy and fortunate that we still got to film the video!” Considering the school has been almost desolate since March, this year’s ASB was in fact very fortunate to get to film their video in the building.

While everyone else in the school has been able to experience the Back to School assembly before, the class of 2024 has not had the luxury. During the assembly, the virtual Freshman Welcome was recapped. This freshman class did a fabulous job of learning their class dance to “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus through a screen. The work of Ms. Boyd and Brave Connection have been pivotal in order to create a community within the freshman class virtually, yet it is hard to truly come together through a screen. I asked freshman Pauline Jaculewicz what she thought of the Back to School assembly and she said 

“For the first time, I got to experience what it would be like to be a true BBHS student.” 

Hopefully Pauline and the rest of the freshman class will be able to experience high school in person at some point during their freshman year.

Throughout the virtual experience students were introduced to Brave groups like the Cheer team and Theater representatives, exposing students to the many different teams and clubs BBHS has to offer. Not only was this exciting for students to watch, Blanchet teachers were excited to see what the assembly was going to look like this year through a screen. In regards to the virtual assembly, Mr. McGill said

“It inspired me, seeing the leaders and the new class of freshmen. It also made me miss my students, but even more excited to get back into the building.” 

For every single member of the Brave community, this school year may seem daunting, monotonous, weird, or even sad. But everyone is in it together, and there could not be a stronger group of students and staff to get through the period of COVID-19.