The NEW School News Program

Since I started at Lely Elementary School, we have done the school news in a pretty traditional way: write the announcements and read the announcements. Unfortunately, we lacked anything resembling pizzazz. Our kids' personalities really did not shine through and it became almost robotic. We were in desperate need of a change. 

Earlier this year, our news room equipment pooped out. Within a few weeks, our district replaced almost all of our newsroom equipment. We had brand new technology and it was also a good time to come up with a brand new news program. Thus, the NEW news.

One of the things that we had to do was get more of the kids' personalities and interests into our news program. When kids asked to do the news in costume, we said, "Of course." When kids asked to work different "jobs" on the news, we trained them in those jobs. This news program is entirely student-run. They do the production, anchoring, sound board, slideshow, and script. We brainstormed different news segments based on the kids' interests, so like the real news, we cut away to kids who talked about things they were interested in. These "segments" have become something that the entire school population looks forward to seeing. 

How do kids figure out what segment they want to do? It's pretty easy and informal. Basically a student comes to me and pitches an idea. We talk it through until we have a firm idea. We create a catchy name and produce a slide for the news program, and then from time to time, that student will appear on the news to do their segment. 

Where on Earth is Binky Hackensack is a ripoff of the Carmen San Diego show. One of our kiddos created the character of Binky Hackensack and has a trivia show each week, giving clues about the place he has "visited". The kids look forward to seeing his show every week and we always have participants in this trivia game. 

Ruby pitched an idea about an animal show, but not just any ordinary animal show. She wanted to search out some of the more obscure, strange animals, and talk about them. Her show has been a hit and she is pursuing her interest. 

Terrence is a big football fan and so each Friday, he has a segment where he predicts a few of the NFL games each weekend, a la ESPN. He has a pretty good record and he really likes what he is doing.

One of the things about our news crew is that they have all kinds of ideas. We have a workshop mentality on news crew, meaning that any idea is welcome and we will try to tweak it and refine it and get it on the news. Hopefully the kids feel the freedom to explore their interests and incorporate those interests on the news program. But these are baby steps. We still have a long way to go in order to make this news program even better. We have the equipment to go around campus and interview kids, profile some of our students who do amazing things outside of school, and create features that will be interesting to our entire school population. 

We are at the beginning of this journey, but the future is in good hands. These kids are really coming into their own and are always thinking of ways to improve the show. They often ask, "Why can't we...?" and the answer is always, "Let's see if we can!" That is the attitude that we live by and it is really paying off!