Photo provided BCSC Superintendent Jim Roberts tries on a backpack for the start of the school year as part of the video.
“Back to school on the first day, so confused, does it start on a Thursday?”
Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. kept the music video fun going for this year’s opening day of school with a new installment, “Ready Like,” set to the music of “Fancy Like,” a song that has gone viral on social media for the dance moves it inspired and its nod to a popular chain restaurant.
The video, which was shared on the school corporation’s Facebook page Tuesday afternoon, is set to the Walker Hayes’ hit country song.
“We were wanting to do something fun to start the school year and were thinking about different songs that might allow us to do that,” said Superintendent Jim Roberts, whose musical talents are once again featured in the video. “And that particular song is very popular. … It has a very catchy tune. It is upbeat. A lot of people, whether they are country music fans or not, have heard of that song and like it OK.”
While the original song mentions enjoying “fancy” things like a date at Applebee’s, BCSC’s lyrics focus on students and teachers doing all the little things they need to do to get ready for the first day of school.
The video shows Roberts singing as he prepares for another school year — throwing on a backpack, buying school supplies and wondering where to sit on the bus. CSA Lincoln teacher Stephen Shipley joins in, singing as he preps his classroom and reads up on teaching strategies. The video also features students and staff enjoying themselves and preparing for the first day, with some dancing accompanying the new lyrics.
Shipley and BCSC Communications Coordinator Josh Burnett put together the updated lyrics and came up with a plan for the video, said Roberts. Burnett noted that the video includes a reference to Hayes’ lyrics, with Roberts driving past an Applebee’s restaurant at the very beginning.
This isn’t the first time BCSC has gone musical in honor of the first day of school. In August of 2019, BCSC released “Old Town Pool,” a music video parodying Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.”
Earlier that same year, BCSC shared “Should We Close or Should We Go?” — a music video parodying the Clash and dramatizing the decision of whether to call a snow day or not.
Roberts said school officials typically try to choose songs for their videos that most people are familiar with. The BCSC superintendent, who has a love of music and often incorporates lyrics into graduation speeches, is also well-known portraying Elvis at the charity event Crooners For CASA.
The school corporation had actually planned to use an Elvis song for this year’s back-to-school video and had gotten new lyrics written up, but they later decided that “Fancy Like” might be a better fit and pivoted to it a week ago.
Roberts said that “Ready Like” is intended to remind families about the start of a new year, while also poking some fun at BCSC’s Thursday return, which came as a surprise to some. A previous three-year calendar had the start on Friday, but it was changed to Thursday last October.
“And it was to have some fun,” said Roberts. “The beginning of the school year is a very exciting time. … It’s my favorite time of year as an educator.”
