Sep 9, 2007
SCHOOLS:
Should Board of Education be on TV?
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An aspiring starlet in a skimpy dress doing the tango with a 300-pound ex-NFL lineman — people will watch that. But would anyone with an functional clicker within reach spend more than nine seconds tuned in to a Ridgefield Board of Education meeting?
What if RHS football games were on, like in the old days of Tiger TV?
An online survey is attempting to gauge Ridgefielders’ interest in having school board meetings shown on cable television. At the same time, a group of local education supporters is trying to raise private money to re-equip Ridgefield High School’s TV studio, which pre-dates television’s digital revolution.
Some board members have mixed feelings about spending tax dollars that could otherwise go to education to put themselves on television — especially when the high school’s TV studio has gone begging.
“I just want to hear from the public that this is something we should be doing,” board member Katherine McGerald said of televised board meetings. “I think it’s something we should be doing. But when you’re spending school money to do something — I’m just more comfortable hearing from the public that this is something they want us to do.”
Board Chairman Keith Miller said there is demand for having school board the meetings on cable TV — he’s not sure how much.
“A number of community people have come to me and said that they’d be interested in that. It’s just difficult, to them, to get to the meetings. And they’d like the opportunity to see them,” he said. “They could TiVo them ... They could record them.
“I think you’ll get a cadre of people who might watch most of the board meetings,” Mr. Miller said. “But when there’s an item of interest — something about the football team, or kindergarten, or maybe the budget season — there might be a larger group who’d look at those specific meetings.”
Board member Bob Cox helped organize the survey, but he’s skeptical about spending money to televise meetings. “I don’t think we should be worried about TV,” he said. “Let’s do the survey. Let’s see what people say.”
Mr. Cox said he could be enthusiastic about the idea as a means of reviving the high school’s discontinued television production course and Tiger TV as an after-school activity of kids.
“If we want to spend money to broadcast board meetings, let’s spend the money, and a little more of it, to reopen Tiger TV and create a really dynamic and vital learning experience for our students again,” he said.
Putting school board meetings up on cable television was one of things done by Tiger TV back before it was cut.
That range of opinions among board members is one reason for the survey, which any Ridgefielder may participate in. It’s just six questions. Ridgefielders may register their opinions by going to the school board’s Web site at www.ridgefield.org. and clicking the “take survey” link.
People who’d prefer taking the survey on paper may request one from Cheryl Cook at 431-2800, ext. 2014. Deadline for responses is Sept. 21.
The idea isn’t that vast numbers of Ridgefielders will watch every meeting, but that they should be available for those who do want to watch.
Selectmen’s meetings are already on cable.
Republican Town Committee Chairman Tom Watson recently sent out an e-mail to party members.
“As part of the RTC’s ‘transparency’ effort we have been campaigning to televise the meetings of the Board of Finance, Board of Education and Planning and Zoning in addition to the Board of Selectmen. Our initial focus has and continues to be on the BOE because there is nothing more important to Ridgefield than the quality and cost of education,” Mr. Watson said.
“I’m all for broadcasting them,” said Mary Pat Devine, a Democrat and former school board member who is part of the educational foundation trying to raise money for the RHS television studio. “But if it’s going to cost money to do it, it’s hard to say it’s worth the money in lieu of other things that are needed for the students.”
The idea appeals to Mary Miller, who has supported the schools in a variety of roles — she’s co-president of the high school PTA, served several years on the school board, and her husband Rob Miller was among the founders of the pro-education lobbying group READ.
“It can only help if people see,” she said. “...I just know the kind of work that went into all these discussions, and I think it would be terrific for the community to see all of that.”
But that’s not to say it’s the best use of the board’s money. “Right now we’re desperately trying to get money for another guidance counselor for our high school,” she said.
This argument — putting money for education first — has a strong appeal. But the comparison isn’t apples to apples. The cost of taping board meetings for replay on local cable TV appears to be much less than $100,000-plus estimates for refurbishing the whole high school TV studio — or the $90,000 proposal that been made to add a full-time counselor and part-time secretary to the RHS guidance department.
There isn’t a defined cost for the meeting taping yet; board members are talking in the less than $5,000-to-$8,000 range to have meetings taped by a professional company that would come in with its own equipment.
According to the estimate, having the shows taped professionally would cost $250 for a two-hour meeting, and $50 an hour beyond two hours — which most meetings exceed.
The board had 26 meetings in the 2006-07 school year. At the $250 minimum, that’s $6,500. Based on an average of $300 per meeting, figuring most meetings run three hours, the cost would be $7,800.
“That’s bringing their own equipment, so no cost for that,” Ms. McGerald said. “And then the tape would just be handed to us at the end of the meeting.”
A school board member or school employee would have to deliver the tape to Comcast for broadcast.
Costs aren’t in yet on having the board’s meeting room set up to allow taping by knowledgeable amateurs, such as high school kids.
The selectmen’s meetings are taped and put on Comcast’s Channel 24, the same government access station that the school board meetings would be shown on. First selectman administrator Wendy Lionetti said believed the board paid $15 an hour for the taping, which is done on equipment that she believes was once used to show RHS sports events, but has long been in town hall.
TV studio
It would cost more to set up the high school’s television studio with digital equipment that would allow both teaching of courses and a Tiger TV club to operate in a way relevant to today’s digital TV workworld.
There were discussions last spring with high school Principal Jeff Jaslow and other staff members.
“They said to have a relatively state-of-the-art TV studio up there is $100,000-plus,” Mr. Miller said. “And for Rudy to tape the selectmen is about $5,000.
“You don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some people have said we should get the TV station going up at the high school — to link the taping of Board of Education meetings to having a TV facility at the high school. But those are two different things.”
Tiger TV lost
Both the high school’s television course and Tiger TV as a club were lost in one of the school system’s periodic budget squeezes a few years back.
“When they cut the media center staff, they cut the media center person who was in charge of Tiger TV,” Mr. Cox said. “That was in 2004, for the 2005 budget — two years ago.”
A former English teacher at Ridgefield High School, Mr. Cox cited “an incredible array” of former RHS students who were involved in Tiger TV and went on to media careers.
“Jennifer Street, head of the news department for CBS in Boston, Sam Feist who’s a producer for TV news, Dr. Yanity’s son, Pete, he’s been a sportscaster for like 25 years. Bill Lawrence fooled around with Tiger TV — look what he’s doing now.” (He’s the creator the television comedy “Scrubs” and was a screenwriter for “Spin City”.)
Even on the old equipment, the students were doing good things.
“They were regularly supporting the ‘Ridgefield: Now We’re Talking!’ program, broadcasting board meetings, broadcasting sports events. And students were doing some personal creative stuff,” Mr. Cox said. “There was creative comedic entertainment. Some of it was good,” Mr. Cox said.
Although a renovation of the TV studio was part of the high school expansion project, that didn’t include new television equipment.
One reason the television production course was dropped is that the equipment is pre-digital technology, and TV production — shooting, editing — is all done on digital equipment these days.
Learning to operate the old cameras would not be of much practical use to students who hoped to pursue careers.
Foundation effort
Ridgefield Foundation for Public Education was organized to support the town school system with private money in a way that enhances education but doesn’t substitute private funds for the board’s operating budget.
Re-equipping the high school’s television studio has been designated the foundation’s initial project, and led to estimates of $100,000 or more last spring.
Ms. Devine was among those who met with Mr. Jaslow and other RHS staff last spring to discuss the program’s goals and start-up costs.
“I think in order to get all the equipment and get rolling, it was a couple of hundred thousand dollars,” Ms. Devine said.
The studio is kind of patched together now, but it does function well enough for teacher volunteers to put out the “Ridgefield: Now We’re Talking!”
Board members don’t have a detailed plan for televising their meetings.
Once they have an estimate for getting the school board meeting room wired so “a high school kid” might be hired to tape the meetings, Ms. McGerald said, board members could talk further with the Danbury firm that bid $250-per-meeting to come in with its own equipment.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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