Holy Cross Regional High School

   Red and SilverMascotCrusaderTeam nameHoly Cross CrusadersWebsitewww.holycross.bc.ca

Holy Cross Regional High School, or "HCRHS", is a Catholic school, under the administration of CISVA (Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese) school board^[1] located in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Holy Cross is the largest Catholic high school in the province with enrollment of students in grades 8 through 12 exceeding over 800 students (as of 2023).

Robert Dejulius (March 12, 1943) served 28 years as principal from the high school's opening in 1982 to his retirement at the end of school season in 2010. Ex-BC Lions linebacker Glen Jackson retired as a social studies, business ed, and athletics teacher.

Independent school status

Holy Cross Regional High School is classified as a Group 1 school under British Columbia's Independent School Act. It receives 50% funding from the Ministry of Education. The school receives religious donations.^[2] It is under charge of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver.

School uniforms

The uniform is an important part of Holy Cross Regional High School standards as it seeks to promote unity in faith. It also helps to remove discrimination. Students are expected to wear their uniform to, from and at school. The uniform includes grey pants for boys, skirts for girls, black cardigan for both and polo and oxford shirts for both along with all black shoes.

Departments

Academics

Holy Cross was ranked by the Fraser Institute in 2014 as 43 out of 289 British Columbian Secondary Schools.^[3] In 2008, 100% of the students graduated^[4] and 85%+ of those students went on to study at colleges and universities.

The academic departments are Business Education, Drama, English, Food, Information Communication Technology, Languages, Math, Music, Physical Education, Religion, Sciences, Social Studies, and Visual Arts.

Athletics

Athletic programs offered in Holy Cross include Basketball, Volleyball, Track and Field, Soccer, Cross Country, Swimming, Golf, Football, Tennis, Cheerleading, Ultimate Frisbee, and Dance Squad.

Sports events are held at Holy Cross like the BC Catholic Basketball Championship, rated the BC's best sporting atmosphere, which features rivalries between all BC Catholic high schools. All sport teams play in the AA classification except the boys basketball program who play at the AAAA classification. The basketball program is consistently ranked in the top 10 in both boys and girls and has placed provincially countless times in volleyball, track and field, basketball, football and swimming. Holy Cross has won 3 provincial titles in basketball and football and over 20 Fraser Valley Regional Championships in many sports. Holy Cross Athletic have had countless athletes receive post secondary athletic scholarships as well as go on to play professionally. Some notable athletes include: Andrea Frustaci (volleyball), Jonathan Kongbo (football), Shawn Olson (football), Megan Schaufele (basketball) and Taylor Browne (basketball). The Holy Cross Athletics program has over 400 student-athletes participating on various teams throughout the year. There is an Athletics Media Leadership Team that runs events, social media accounts, clothing line designing, pep rallies, dances and photography/videography for our teams. The AML Team is student led and provides student leadership opportunities to over 30 members.

Holy Cross's facilities include a full-sized wood floor gymnasium, a track oval, weight room and a football and soccer field.

Music

Holy Cross has the largest music program out of all schools within the CISVA, with over 300 students, spanning over many different types of ensembles. The school has a Juno award-winning music program that includes three concert bands (Senior Wind Ensemble, Junior Wind Ensemble, and Grade 8 Concert Band) as well as two choral ensembles (Senior Concert Choir: ViBE and Junior Concert Choir: Tonic!). The Holy Cross Music Program also has a strong jazz program in the school featuring 3 jazz bands (Jazz One (senior level), Simply Jazz (junior level), and Jazz-Do-It (grade 8 level)) and two jazz choirs (Avenue 88 (senior level) and 160th Street (junior level)). Holy Cross music also has many small combos (mainly jazz) at every grade level, that are student led and perform for many live events and local recitals. Holy Cross also has a drumline which performs during pep rallies and sports game days (football and basketball) as well as a percussion ensemble which plays arranges of various composers for percussion. The music program also has a small strings ensembles which features students that play violin, viola, cello, and string bass. They accompany our liturgical choir during school masses, as well as perform for our in school concerts and recitals.

All music ensembles compete in local music festivals such as the Kiwanis Music Festival, Cantando Music Festival, and Surrey (Envision) Jazz Festival. The music program also tries to have to music trips each year, allowing all music students to experience competing in a music festival away from home, across all grade levels. Along with theses ensembles, all students are required to participate in our liturgical choir in which they sing for our monthly masses taking place in the neighbouring church St. Matthew's. For those interested in music composition and production, Holy Cross also offers a music composition and production course offered to students in grade 11 and 12.

With such a large music program, Holy Cross has a Music Student Leadership Team, also known as MSL, to help run and coordinate all the events and social aspects of the music program. MSL is one of the first leadership teams to appear in a music program and was formed in September 2013. Now leadership teams in music programs have become more common in many high schools with music programs. ^[5]

Advanced Placement

Current Advanced Placement Class that is offered in Holy Cross is Physics.

Extracurricular activities

Holy Cross offers many clubs including:

• JEL Club
• Student Leadership Team
• Yearbook
• Campus Ministry
• Music Student Leadership
• Athletic Media Leadership
• WebTeam (Audio Visual Club)
• Chess Club
• Business club
• Apologetics club

Many Holy Cross senior students take part in a biannual Mission Trip where they work in underprivileged communities.

Religious education

Holy Cross provides mandatory religious education. The course curriculum is organized by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver.

Current plans

Work is underway to replace the original 1982 school building in its entirety.^[6] Currently, phase one of the new school building is taking place (projected to take two to three years to complete). The entire new building projected to take 10 to 15 years to complete, involves the outright replacement of the existing school with another the new building.

The current phase involves building a larger gymnasium, two music rooms, a flex space multipurpose room, seven new classrooms, and an overall updated building.

Notable alumni

• Jean-Luc Bilodeau – Actor
• Elise Estrada – Singer
• Emmalyn Estrada – Singer
• Dario Zanatta – Soccer player^[7]
• Jonathan Kongbo – 2019 Grey Cup Champion for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and former 2019 CFL first-round pick
• Zach Verhoven – Soccer midfielder for Atlético Ottawa of the Canadian Premier League^[8][9]

References

External links

• Holy Cross High School
• Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese
• The Fraser Institute School Performance Report Cards
• BC High School Football