Kids put on live newscasts at school

Students from Seminole Live on the set of News 10 WTSP

My daughter Graci is in fifth grade and part of the news team at her elementary school called Seminole Live! It's made up of about 10 kids who work together every weekday morning before school begins to put on a five minute newscast for the entire school at the beginning of the school day. Their newscast includes: activities going on at the school that day, the weather, sports, a word of the day, students birthdays and the school breakfast and lunch menu. Each student has a job and they work together to put on the live newscast each morning.

One student is the main anchor, a few of the students report on the different segments of the news and the others are behind the scenes running the teleprompter, camera and making the graphics.

Graci was one of the main anchors.
 This photo taken on her birthday.

I have had the pleasure of watching several of the students newscasts this past year and I am so impressed by this group of kids. They do have a wonderful teacher, Jarnae Pope, who is in charge of the kids and the newscast.  She's there to oversea everything and help with any technical issues that may come up, but other than that the kids are doing it all themselves.

As a person with a background in television news, it's incredible to see this opportunity for students. It brings me back to my days of being a reporter and anchor at a television station. I wish we had a morning news crew when I was in school. It's way for students to get first-hand experience in a possible career.

Seminole Live crew!

Students outside
News 10 WTSP

Recently the students were able to go on a field trip to one of the local television stations News 10 WTSP.  A friend of mine who is a manager and has a community segment on the news at WTSP, Kathryn Bursch, gave the kids a tour of  the station. It was a  great experience for the kids because most had never been to a real television station. They were able to go behind the scenes of the station including the newsroom and the studio. They even watched the noon news live in the studio, which was their favorite part of the tour.

Graci interviewing
Meteorologist Ric Kearbey.

They also meet the anchor  and several of the weathermen working that day. It gave the kids a better understanding of what a real studio was like and how things worked in front of the camera and behind the camera.

Here is anchor Ian Reitz in front of the
green screen reading the news.

 Having experiences like this at such a young age can help influence kids in career directions and give students something to strive for as they get older. I know most schools today in the Tampa Bay area do have newscasts for their schools put on and run by students.

At my daughter's school, at the end of the school year the kids in fourth grade who have good grades get to choose between being a patrol at the school or being part of the news for their fifth grade year . It's something the kids have to look forward to when they go back to school in the fall for fifth grade. It not only motivates the students to do well in school, but is giving them  tools for possible careers in the future.  Who knows one of these kids may be the next big anchor for the national news! 

**More photos from WTSP and the field trip.

Students practicing in front of the green screen.

Randi on the news desk of News 10 WTSP

Making a difference in your community

Recently, my husband made a comment to me about how I seem to be able to get things done at our daughter’s school and in the community that most people wouldn’t know they could do. I thought about what he said and decided that maybe I could give some of you a little inspiration to make a difference in your child’s school and in the community.

City of Seminole Citizens Academy

It’s all too often we see things and complain, but don’t take action to try and do something about it.

Like most of you, I am your every day citizen. I try to be active in my kid’s school and in the community. I volunteer at the school and am on the PTA.  I am also  involved in the chamber of commerce for my work and recently have taken part in the city’s citizen academy.  I want our schools and community to be a great place to live, work and play for me and my family.

My instinct is when I see something that I think can be improved or needs to be fixed, I call whoever is in charge and try to get something done. Maybe it’s the reporter in me or that I worked for city government and know basically how things work. I know usually, I can at least get a response.

I’ll give you a few examples. When I moved to my house several years ago, there weren’t sidewalks on one of the main roads that I would take my kids for a wagon ride. It was very dangerous because part of the road had sidewalks and part of it didn’t. I decided to take some pictures and write our city officials about why I thought there needed to be sidewalks. The city looked at what I showed them and said they had money in their sidewalk improvement fund and put in the sidewalks. I was delighted.

Recently there was a lot of rain the fields where my daughter’s play their softball games and they were covered with mosquitoes. After playing two games and having the kids eaten by mosquitoes, I looked up mosquito control and emailed them about the problem. The officials emailed me back and had the fields sprayed within a day. Thank you mosquito control!

Another example is the school my girls go to. Like most schools in Pinellas County there are lots of portables that are used as classrooms. Last year, my daughter who was in third grade at the time lost almost a month of learning because of being in a portable. When it rains, the kids are doubled up with classes in the regular buildings. When this happens, teachers can’t teach and the children aren’t learning. A big problem especially when your school goes down a letter grade because of lower test scores. I was able to bring this to the attention of our school superintendent at an education forum and now school officials are looking into this.

I think sometimes we just need to take action and find out who we need to ask, so we can get things done. A lot of times people don’t know there’s a problem, unless we bring it to their attention.

Don’t be afraid to call your city, county and school officials to help you. I am not saying that every time I try and do something, it gets done. There are times when things don’t get done. To me it’s important to at least try, so you can feel at least you’ve done your part.