The teachers and other staff members at École Alberni Elementary are back with another viral video—this time singing a Christmas song to their students.
When the idea of making a lip sync video for Christmas came up during conversations about the annual Christmas concert, Grade 6/7 and literacy support staffer Brittney Bordal hip-hopped at the chance to take the lead. She riffed her own version of hip hop group Run-D.M.C.’s ‘Christmas in Hollis,’ changing the words to include all the adults from École Alberni Elementary.
“I volunteered to make a video. I’d always kind of wanted to do that song,” said Bordal, who once taught music at Gill Elementary School in Port Alberni before it closed. She and her husband Jeff, who teaches Grade 6/7 French Immersion at École Alberni Elementary, worked on the video together. It took about a month to put everything together.
“I re-wrote the lyrics in early November and we shot (video) at school and after school, recording in the living room in the evening,” Brittney Bordal said.
“I’m more about performance and (Jeff) is the technical side of things. COVID…had us go online and use more of the video aspect.”
The Bordals and staff members had fun with the video. “Everybody got involved, our whole staff. We have 18 divisions plus all support staff, so we have 40–50 people…everybody is in the video.”
It didn’t take long for Bordal’s video to go viral. “People liked it and it got shared extensively,” she said. A Vancouver Island television station even picked it up for one of its newscasts. It has been viewed well over 13,000 times.
“It’s been positive for our school and school community.”
RELATED: Teachers in Port Alberni show the love for their students
This isn’t the first time a message from teachers to students at École Alberni Elementary School has gone viral. In March 2020, shortly after COVID-19 restrictions locked down schools in British Columbia, Mme. Meghan Paterson created a photo layout of teachers holding up selfies with encouraging messages to students.
