The 500-seat Performing Arts Center is more than meets the eye. It will be, first and foremost, a state-of-the-art high school theater, concert hall, and art gallery. Second, due to its retractable seat design, the Performing Arts Center auditorium will have multiple uses, including lectures, student meetings, new extracurricular activities, retreats, ceremonies, alumni events, other group gatherings, enhanced instructional opportunities, and summer camps for future Trojans.

The Performing Arts Center will also serve the North Deanery community as a venue for parish school musical and theatrical performances, which will support our parish communities and the long-term enrollment vitality of Bishop Chatard.

With the addition of a new chapel, accommodating an entire class of students, Bishop Chatard can more effectively provide for the spiritual formation of our students and enrichment of our faculty and staff, further enhancing our commitment to the primary pillar of our mission. The chapel will be located in the heart of the school directly adjacent to the new Performing Arts Center.

We are repurposing the cafeteria to also serve as the new Student Life Center. This will provide students with a comfortable space to socialize and “study” before and after school, and will also accommodate student organization meetings and teachers and staff looking for an alternate creative project or presentation venue.

The addition of a new music classroom/studio provides many benefits to not only our music students but our entire student body. Acoustically superior and soundproof to the surrounding classrooms, the new space is almost 50% larger than the current room, providing for the needs of a growing music program.

It is estimated that enrollment at Bishop Chatard will grow from 695 in 2022/2023 to an estimated 800 in 2025/2026. The three new classrooms we gain as a by-product of the new spaces being constructed allow us to keep pace with growing enrollment while maintaining the student-to-teacher ratio and small class sizes that have helped our students thrive academically. Plans for adding additional classrooms, if needed, are a key component of the BCHS Master Plan.