Lights, Camera, Action! – School Television News

I found the morning announcement videos of both Orenco Elementary and Eisenhower Middle School quite impressive.  My school, Mt. Carmel Elementary, has a daily morning closed circuit broadcast that is presented live.  In comparison to our morning news broadcasts, they have some pretty original content. I like that the broadcasts are made available online.

Our news crew is called the WRAM crew (We are the Mt. Carmel Rams.) and is made up of six fifth graders who share responsibilities for a semester.  They must submit an application along with two teacher referrals based on academic achievement and good behavior. Students try out at the end of each school year (for the following year). The twelve fourth graders who make the WRAM crew will shadow the current members for a couple of weeks before school is out for the summer.

The school news is broadcast each morning from the media production room in the media center under the supervision of the media specialist and/or media clerk.  It is distributed throughout the school via closed circuit television on channel 80.  The morning news broadcast is presented through a combination of PowerPoint slides and live presentations.  Each afternoon at 2:15pm the WRAM crew meets in the media center to prepare the slides for the following day’s news show.  They meet each morning at 7:30am to make any last minute changes and to run through the scripts before going on air at 8:00am.

The content of the announcements is fairly basic.  It follows this consistent format each day/week:

ü  Welcome

ü  Character Trait of the Week stated.

ü  Moment of Silence – Slide usually shows a famous person in history that will be discussed later in the show.

ü  Pledge of Allegiance

ü  Star Spangled Banner is played each Tuesday. [Kindergarten standard is meet with this presentation.]

ü  P.R.I.D.E. Pledge

ü  Lunch menu is presented.

ü  Announcements/School News

ü  Weather

ü  Discussion of earlier slide from history.

ü  Birthdays of the Day are shown on the last slide and remain the screensaver for the day.

ü  Each Friday, our counselor is a guest speaker to recognize one RAM student from each grade level who has displayed good character.

ü  Student of the Month is recognized on air at the end of each month.

I discussed problems and concerns that have developed along the way with the media clerk.  Most problems that occur with the school television news are technical difficulties.  On occasion, the show has been presented over the intercom system in the office.  

While the content list above looks long, the entire broadcast only lasts about 7-8 minutes.  The length of the broadcast was a concern a couple of years ago.  Most teachers felt that it was too lengthy and began to interfere with morning procedures and take away valuable instructional time.  Focusing only on the highlights of the day scaled the news show down.

If I could suggest ways to improve our current school television news, I would recommend adding some ways to stimulate reading such as booktalks.  I would also encourage more interaction with students of the school like those displayed in the videos we viewed.

Taking on a project such as school television news is a huge commitment; however, it promotes a sense of school community that makes it worthwhile.