Berea Community High School

Berea Community High School (also known as Berea Community or Berea High) is located in Berea, Kentucky. Current attendance is approximately 350-400 students for grades 9 through 12. Despite its small size, BCHS is able to offer many sports and after-school activities to its students. Some of which include Varsity American football, Soccer, Basketball, Tennis, Track and Field, and Golf. The school also offers many clubs for students. Some include National Beta Club, Student Council, National Honor's Society, FCA, FCCLA, FBLA, FEA, and Spanish Club.

History

In the late 1960's, the city of Berea and Berea College worked together to build a new school to replace the city system schools, Berea Elementary and High School (nicknamed "Fruitjar High") and the college owned schools, Knapp Hall and Berea Foundation School. College owned property along Walnut Meadow road was chosen as the site for the new school. Construction of the high school (and, concurrently, the elementary school) began in 1969 and was completed in time for the 1969-1970 school year. The design of the new school incorporated revolutionary space age design elements (prompting some to remark that it looked like a spaceship) consisting of three circles placed in a triangle formation. One circle was reserved for the high school, another for the elementary school, and the third was designated for the gymnasium. In the center of the triangles was the cafeteria, named the commons. The school was built following the open-space school format with no internal walls, with the exception, at least on the high school side of the structure, of rooms set aside for lab sciences. In keeping with the revolutionary design of the school, the school's approach to students was revolutionary as well. For example, the school adopted an open lunch policy, since discontinued, for 9th through 12th graders which allowed students in these grades to leave campus during lunch.

The Berea School System was, by most measures, a very successful system. It benefits from its close proximity to Berea College and Eastern Kentucky University (in Richmond, Kentucky) and Lexington, Kentucky, the second largest city in the Commonwealth. These factors allow it to continuously attract dedicated and highly-skilled teachers as well as draw upon a rich pool of motivated and curious students. For these reasons, it became one of the most prestigious schools in the state of Kentucky.

The Present

Berea Communitiy has undergone several changes since its inception. Despite the protests of students, the open lunch policy was ended in 2005. Also in the same school year, Berea College decided to pull out of Berea Community and leave the school on its own. Some speculate that Berea Community prompted Berea College to pull out by letting go long time art teacher Chris Pierce, who was actually an employee of Berea College and not Berea Community.

In the summer of 2007, the administration saw fit to install actual walls to divide the classrooms. Other construction projects involve the addition of a second gym, mainly for the use of the elementary, to compliment the current Berea gym, Singlton Gym. During the same year, the proposal was made to implement random student drug testing. The status of that proposal is unknown as of now.

Quick Facts

Berea Community has only one original teacher from the 1969-1970 school year whose name is Mrs. Brenda Lambert. She began her teaching the first year of Berea Community.

The 1998 Lady Pirate basketball team finished the year placing 3rd in the state championship competition. The head coach was Greg Todd, who currently is the head basketball coach at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. On January 19, 2008, the team was reunited, for the first time ever, for their 10th year anniversary at the halftime of Berea vs. Madison Central.

More to come later.

References

I interviewed various alumni, teachers, and current students to find out any information about our school that I was not aware of.

External links

* [http://berea.kyschools.us District home page]
* [http://berea.kyschools.us/BCHS/index.html Berea Community High School subpage]