Student Council Creates Show For Morning Announcements
October 16, 2020
On Monday, the RMHS Student Council debuted their first episode of the “Student News” show, bringing the morning announcements back into student’s lives in a creative way amidst a virtual learning environment.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the morning announcements- a characteristic part of the usual RMHS school day- have been missing from the routines of students and staff. Usually read by a few charismatic seniors, announcements were the primary way for students to get information on clubs, school-wide activities, sports updates, and the occasional senior High-Five shoutout.
Yet with school completely online, spreading important news to the entire school has been difficult. Freshmen aren’t able to learn about clubs and activities currently available to join, and important announcements can be lost among the myriad of emails and Remind messages that students receive each day. With this challenge in mind, the RMHS Student Council came up with an idea- to create a video news show that would be easy to access, and as always, hosted by seniors.
Vice-President of the Student Council, senior Tanya Manoj was one of the main members of the group to orchestrate and develop the news show, which was created in just a few days.
“We wanted to make sure that students had a way to get school-related news, especially since we are all virtual at the moment,” Manoj said on the purpose behind the show. “The target audience is the entire school, and the overall goal is to have an effective way for clubs to reach the student body- it’s also very important for freshmen to get involved in the school community, which the show helps with.”
Presented during Monday morning’s community time, both students and staff watched the show together over a Microsoft Teams call. With a 6-minute runtime, the first episode gave out information including meeting times for various clubs like Girl Rising and Cradles to Crayons, as well as Remind codes that appeared on-screen for ease of access for interested students to join the groups.
Also included was a spotlight on the RMHS Robockets team, featuring messages from the group’s leaders.
“The focus on the Robockets club was excellent and welcoming to all students regardless of their experience,” commented Student Council staff advisor Ms. Lynch of the business department. “Having a variety of people talk about the club was also important.”
This special highlighting segment is designated to rotate on a new club or organization with each edition of the show.
Overall, the show proved to be a success, with positive reception from both student and faculty viewers alike.
“For staff members who saw the video- administration, myself, and a teacher in my department- they were very impressed,” Ms. Lynch continued.
Another positive review came from senior Molly Abruzzese, who watched the video through Youtube where it was posted to the RMHS Student News channel shortly after airing over community time.
“It was really interesting,” Abruzzese said, “And it was nice to get school information a different way. I loved the editing, and I’d watch it again to keep up to date with the happenings of RMHS.”
According to the Student Council, the show will continue to evolve and develop. Even now, anchoring is not limited to Student Council members, as any interested seniors can participate.
Manoj also reports that the future goals of the show are to include all clubs and teams at some point and possibly advance to a weekly show that would continue even after the return of full in-person education.
In a time where almost all aspects of life have been shifted to function online, the addition of the Student News show to the RMHS routine will help students get connected to the many different communities and clubs of the high school. And although students can’t hear the familiar two-toned announcement bell ring over the loudspeakers while in online learning, the show’s friendly faces advertising the latest Chipotle fundraiser are sure to make anyone feel like they are back in their classrooms.
The show can be accessed on the Youtube channel at any time, linked on the Student News Instagram account, @rmhsnews. To have announcements featured in the show, please DM the Student News account.
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