This week will see the return to school for thousands of local students.
Wednesday is the first day of class for students in Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp., Columbus Christian School, St. Bartholomew Catholic School, White Creek Lutheran School, St. Peter’s Lutheran School, as well as Flat Rock-Hawcreek School Corp.
With that in mind, here are some reminders for BCSC families as the new year gets started. Complete information can be found in BCSC’s Back to School guide.
Transportation
Bus route details became available on July 29 and can be found by going to bcscschools.org, selecting the “Departments” tab, then clicking on “Transportation.”
BCSC reminds parents to check bus information regularly during the first couple weeks of school for updates or changes.
Also, it’s important to remember it’s illegal in Indiana for motorists to pass a bus that is stopped, with red lights flashing and the stop arm extended.
This applies on all roads, with the exception of highways divided by a barrier, such as a cable barrier, concrete wall or grassy median — drivers on those roads only have to stop if traveling in the same direction as the school bus.
All of BCSC’s school buses are equipped with stop arm cameras to help catch violations.
According to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, motorists should slow down and prepare to stop when they see a bus with yellow flashing lights, as this indicates that the bus is preparing to stop to load or unload children.
Calendar
The school corporation’s 2025-2026 calendar can be viewed at bcscschools.org/district-calendar.
There are four professional development days scheduled for staff, with students being out of school on those days.
The days are as follows: Oct. 10, Jan. 16, and April 6. Teachers also have a professional development day before the first day on Aug. 5.
New Diplomas
The incoming class of freshmen will be the first group required to earn the redesigned Indiana high school diploma after changes made during the 2023 legislative session were approved by state education officials in December.
All students will earn the same 42-credit base diploma, but will also have the opportunity to earn “readiness seals” that reflect their individual post-secondary goals in one of three pathways: enrollment (college), employment (career), or enlistment (military).
Each readiness seal has its own requirements, like completing dual credit courses, earning industry credentials, or achieving work-based learning hours.
The idea behind the new diploma requirements is to increase “flexibility” for students through personalized pathways and experiences.
This means more access to college courses in high school and being able to count internships, apprenticeships, military experience and other work-based learning toward graduation requirements.
Team Cohorts
This school year will be the third go-round of BCSC’s team cohort system for high-schoolers, which has already shown signs of boosting student performance.
The cohort models have the aim of making sure each student gets consistent, personalized guidance for all four years of their high school experience.
It organizes staff into grade-level teams by graduation year. Each team includes an assistant principal, guidance counselor, academic coach and administrative assistant who stays with the assigned students from freshman to senior year.
The idea behind the teams model is that as each class moves up a grade, the same student success team will stay with them in order to increase the focus on a particular set of students.
Cohort teams meet weekly to monitor academic progress, attendance and engagement. The teams proactively identify students who may be off-track and put together supports to help them course correct.
BCSC officials said the new diploma’s emphasis on personalized electives, employability skills and post secondary readiness make the interventions ingrained in the cohort models a useful tool.
BCSC graduation rates in the first year the cohort model was implemented in the 2023-2024 school year showed a 6.6% increase in graduation rates to 90.01%.
It was the district’s highest graduation rate since at least 2014-15, the last year of data available on the Indiana Department of Education website, and the first time BCSC has reached a graduation rate of at least 90% since the 2015-16 school year.
Graduation rates for the 2024-25 school year are expected to be released as early as December.
