It isn’t your normal pow wow inside Happy Valley Middle School.
Nestled on top of Warrior Hill, a group of eighth grade students are taking a “tomahawk chop” to the way their yearbook class looks for the 2016-17 school year.
“We call it our media/yearbook class,” teacher Jennifer Phillips said. “We took yearbook and expanded on that. (Principal) Mr. (Jonathan) Minton had the idea for us to gather students that we felt like could handle the responsibility and had the talent to create ways for us to get information out to the students that their classmates would look at and appreciate.”
Phillips added that while the faculty chose the staff, it’s been all student led so far this year.
“We chose the students. We felt like eighth graders would do a good job with it and we let them run with it. We gave the goal, idea and vision, but they took it upon themselves to get us there”
Walking inside the school, students and faculty will notice a large monitor inside the cafeteria with work created by their classmates who take the yearbook/media class.
“We came up with a slideshow that does announcements in the morning and also plays during lunch,” Peters said. “It’s a way for us to cut down on class interruption so that morning and afternoon announcements are cut down on the screen. We also have the opportunity to recognize students for their accomplishments and activities we do in class. “
When it came to being part of the class, Eli Ayers stated that he wanted to grow from the work he currently does on the side.
“I needed to get better with cameras,” Ayers said. “I help my dad take pictures on the weekend. My family owns a restaurant and I take photos of people there. They also own a Christmas tree farm so during the winter, I’ll take photos of Christmas trees. I just figured it would be a good class.”
Following her classmates’ sentiments, Myra Holtsclaw also has a keen eye when it comes to using a camera.
“I wanted to take the class because I wanted to work on photography,” she said. “My mom does photography as a hobby so we always take a lot of pictures of different things.”
And the allure of seeing older students take part in the class only made the decision easier for Meagan Tittle.
“When I was in fifth grade, I saw the yearbook people going around and I would always say ‘pick me, I want to be in the picture,’” Tittle said with a laugh. “I always did that. I finally got to be in it but I wanted to see what it was like on the other side of the camera. Now that we’ve done the slideshow, now we get to show what we do. It’s not just people that take pictures, we do a lot more.”
With students just a couple of months into the academic year, Peters, who received ringing endorsements from her students Wednesday, said there’s still a lot of work to be done with different ideas brewing. One idea of having a newscast, however, does bring a chuckle to the teacher and her students.
“That’s the one that raises my blood pressure,” Peters added with a laugh. “The first idea we came up with was to do like a newscast like a news station. Have morning news … we’re working our way up to that. That’s far into the future. We’ve seen how much time it takes. We’ve also looked at doing social media and working with the website.”
And while the students seconded their teacher’s remarks, the trio added that the class is also showcasing what county schools have to offer.
“It was about getting pride back in the school,” Ayers said.