When it comes to school pride, a crew of high school students is owning it by getting behind the camera to film and celebrate Kelloggsville Rocket news.
“Fellow Rockets! Let’s go! 2015 is a dream! Senior class is bringing you the mean, lean team!” goes the crew introduction on the new student broadcast Rocket Review. Filmmakers include students Veronica Aguire, Marcus Dumas, Hasani Hayden, Kevin Rufino, Jaqueline Lopez, Danira Stanojevic and Richard Nguyen.
The students are enrolled in the leadership-based “Raising Students Voices and Participation” class (with Richard recruited for his tech-editing skills). For each show, they chat with students and teachers on camera to produce a news program where everyone can hear the word about Kelloggsville.
“Some students didn’t know what was happening around the school,” said senior Jacqueline Lopez, who proposed Rocket Review last year as a leadership project.
“I just thought it would be good for them to be able to know what is going on. I thought students might meet each other and be like, ‘Oh, you do this? I do this, too’ and they can become friends.”
“It ties together the students as one,” added Danira. “It’s an entertaining way to show them what’s going on.”
Gathering the News
Taking turns as reporters, announcers, and producers, crew members rehash and look ahead to big events like the annual Community Pride festival, Homecoming and holidays, They also interview students about activities with questions like, “What is your favorite part of Homecoming?” to energize the student body.
Bringing everybody together is part of leadership, they explained.
“When you are on the Rocket Review the whole school watches you and they become very familiar with what you are doing,” Hasani said. “They see that you take school seriously and you take all the extracurricular activities seriously.”
That builds a sense of culture, and prompts students to think, “OK, it’s something I want to be a part of. They love it, so now I have a responsibility to love it,'” Hasani said
Rocket News and the leadership class are working to set an example for the school and community.
“In the years past, it’s been a struggle to get students to care about the school and take pride in the school, so this year we’ve had a really big pride push,” Hasani said. “We’ve been really trying to engage students in the extracurricular activities the school has, getting them involved and appreciative of all of the different aspects, not just the football team but also theater and band and dance, celebrating all our achievements.”
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