SHS Broadcast Class Gets Green Light To Film Events

By Naomi Hatch
   Snowflake High School broadcast class instructors Denice Westover and Andy Wood made a proposal to the Snowflake School District Governing Board last week that would allow their students to earn money as a student based enterprise filming athletic events, concerts and other public activities in the district. They would broadcast them on the Internet through Skills USA, an organization at SHS that teaches students to develop leadership and work skills.
   “We’re proposing to be able to film sporting events or other events, and live stream that off the Internet,” said Westover. She explained that these would be pay-for-view programs that would cost $6 each, with the broadcasting class receiving $3. Westover explained that she has contacted a company that requires a 60/40 split, but was able to get that down to 50/50.
   The broadcast class travels to California each year, and this would raise money for that purpose. She said that the Arizona Interscholastic Association is going to do a similar thing, noting that they had been kicking around this idea, so they felt they should fund it and get the funds for that. “Snowflake, we’re the leaders,” said Westover.
   She further explained that their proposal is to live stream the away games so those who don’t travel to the games can watch them. In previous years they recorded the games and sold DVDs, but found that they only sold if parents were attending or if a student played in the game.
   Westover demonstrated the YouCastr site that they would be working with. She also noted that the programs could be downloaded. “We potentially could do graduation and concerts in other schools,” said Westover, adding that anywhere they are invited legally, they can take pictures, except playoff games.
   Superintendent Hollis Merrill said, “I think it’s an excellent idea. Snowflake is out on the cutting edge on this…Every CTE (Career and Technical Education) program is required to have a student based enterprise.”
   In response to a question posed by board member Jonni Lewis, Westover explained that for multi-cam filming they would have to take eight to 10 students. Wood said, “I don’t think we’ll do a multi-cam shoot,” noting if they did, they would use broadcasting money. He further commented that if they see this is not profitable, they won’t continue the fund-raiser.
   Merrill reported that Snowflake High School Principal Larry Titus had approved the fund-raiser.
   Board President Travis Tenney asked, “Has anyone thought about giving a small portion back to the football and basketball programs? The reason I say that is I think that would be a jump start to get a lot of people on board, especially people who can’t travel to that game.”
   Tenney asked Wood, who is also a coach, how he felt about it and Wood responded, “I feel extremely opposite to that. Our students work their tails off and they have a greater means in the end,” referring to the fact that they raise money to go on trips. “I work my tail off in the classroom and work my tail off as a basketball coach, and to me, I don’t see the correlation there.”
   Westover noted, “Our state competency requires we do remote shoots.”
   The broadcast program has grown from seven students the first year to 12 last year and 20 students this year. Wood said, “If this makes us a ton of money, we’ll be glad to donate.”
   The board unanimously approved district fund-raisers for 2009-10.
   In other action Sept. 10, the board:
   * Unanimously approved the administrators of each school as qualified evaluators in the district.
   * Unanimously approved the Capital Plan, as requested by the School Facilities Board.
   Business Manager Mark Ollerton explained that this report is required annually, noting they took a different approach this year regarding forecasting enrollment for 10 years in that they kept within the scope of what enrollment has been historically.
   * Held the second reading of the sick leave policy.
   Board member John Stewart pointed out that the policy infers that employees couldn’t take leave before vacation or a holiday, but said he felt it should be specific.
   Merrill said that they would clarify it, noting that this is the current policy.
   * Unanimously approved the district’s 2009-10 curricular and instructional alignment.
   Each year the Department of Education requires officials of every public school to confirm that they have adopted a curriculum that is aligned with the Arizona Academic Standards and adopted an evaluation system that assesses whether teachers are integrating the standards into their instruction practices.
   * Unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement with the Maricopa County College District to continue with duel enrollment for the 2009-10 school year.
   Courses offered are Networking for Home and Small Business, Working in a Small to Medium Business or ISP, Introducing Routing and Switching in the Enterprise, and Designing and Supporting Computer Network. Each of these classes carries four credits.
   * Unanimously approved an intergovernmental agreement with Northland Pioneer College to provide college level courses to high school students that may be counted toward both high school and college graduation, pending attorney approval.