With almost a week under its belt, Catholic High School is the first in the parish to start a new school year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and so far administrators are happy with the results.

CHS Principal Stella Arabie, PH.D, along with several other administrators, said Thursday that the start of the year came with much preparation and help from the community but all the work paid off with a successful start.

“We knew pretty early on from the diocese the parameters we had to have in place,” Arabie said Thursday afternoon. “We were able to start planning in the summer, and we planned that if we could have everything in place even with Phase II, that we would still be able to start.”

Because of the spacious nature of the campus, planning for a school year in the midst of a pandemic has been less challenging than other schools may see. Iberia Parish public schools delayed the start of the school year in the wake of increased COVID-19 cases locally, but Arabie said the school was prepared.

According to the principal, the school has been able to “meet and excel” the preparation and safety guidelines for students and faculty at CHS. Students and faculty are being careful to social distance, and mask usage throughout the day has been implemented.

“We’ve actually been very blessed,” Arabie said. “We have a great student body and community, our students are following the rules and we haven’t had to deal with any cases of not wearing masks. We’ve also been blessed that we haven’t had to deal with positive cases.”

Unlike public schools, CHS has not altered their academic calendar for the year, save a one-day orientation schedule that was broken up into two days. Students are mostly dealing with face-to-face education as well, apart from students with special needs who are using virtual education.

The preparation came from a summer of meetings with faculty and staff, as well as input from parents and those invested in CHS.

Because CHS has a shared leadership structure, Arabie said different teachers were involved in different parts of the planning process over the summer, but an effort was made to keep all faculty and staff up to date with the latest information about the pandemic and emerging learning strategies.

“Many of our teachers were already experts but we did add virtual training even with COVID restrictions to understand safety and instructional opportunities,” Arabie said.

“We have a tight knit community with our faculty and staff, and a relationship with the diocese where we were getting the latest information from the bishop,” Arabie said. “We were able to do prior planning and it made for a successful start.”