For the first time, today’s second-period morning announcements — followed by two other days this week — will be handled by the Regional Occupational Program’s [ROP] advanced video production class instead of representatives from the Associated Student Body [ASB], school officials said.
Teachers are scheduled to receive by the start of second period an email from either ASB adviser David Fenstermaker or ROP video production teacher Daniel Flores encouraging instructors to show their students the recorded video announcements.
At 9:27 a.m., Flores sent the following email to staff:
“Good morning. Below is the youtube link for the morning announcements: https://youtu.be/yGC46aKCSr8. The video will premiere at 9:35 a.m. We hope you enjoy it!”
Staff first learned about this pilot program from a Monday, March 24, email that ASB activities manager Jill Huss wrote.
“Video Production will be managing the morning announcements on Monday, Wednesday and Friday [starting Monday, March 31],” according to Huss’ written correspondence. “They have requested submissions be posted two days prior to allow time to film (ideally). … ASB will read the announcements as usual on Tuesday and Thursday.”
The videos will also include the flag salute, school officials said.
Fenstermaker said he and Flores met before spring break to discuss this project, and both said they had the concept in mind for nearly four years before its official launch today.
The ASB adviser said he took inspiration from learning about the weekly live video broadcast announcements that his daughter’s alma mater, Valencia High School in Placentia, produces, called Tiger Tube.
Flores said he’s been looking forward to producing the morning announcements as an end goal since joining the staff in the 2021-2022 school year.
The two agreed to start the change this week to tie into promoting the Saturday, April 5, prom.
“This also goes in collaboration with the prom release video we worked on with ASB,” Flores said. “It was the precursor, almost like a teaser, to us being part of the morning announcements.”
Anticipating difficulties, Fenstermaker said live broadcasts three days a week during second period are currently off the table.
“In theory, [the live announcements] look very good,” he said. “The issues are if the sound cuts out and they cut to a segment that’s pre-produced, and it doesn’t work, then what happens?”
To work around these concerns, Fenstermaker and Flores settled on the pre-produced idea, involving five-minute long videos and some segments covered by both the ASB executive cabinet and broadcast anchors from video production’s Sunny Side Up.
ASB president senior Sean Lee said while he finds this new version of morning announcements interesting, he prefers the original format.
“It’s a very unique and innovative approach to the morning announcements,” Lee said. “But why fix something that’s not really broken?”
ASB executive treasurer senior Jennie Jeong also shared her concerns as to how this might affect next year’s senior cabinet.
“I really looked forward to doing the morning announcements every day when I got elected,” Jeong said. “It’s a privilege to [say] the announcements, so I’d feel bad for them [missing out].”
While Sunny Side Up wellness anchor senior Micaiah Girma understands the ASB’s concerns, she said she looks forward to covering the broadcast and being a part of video production’s involvement.
“I’m very excited to see how it’s going to turn out because we’ve never had students that you can physically see doing the morning announcements,” Girma said. “It’s definitely going to help keep students’ attention, especially since a lot of us focus more when there are visual aspects involved.”
With the evolving media, Fenstermaker said it’s important to adjust to the times and use video production as an advantage to move forward with a technologically advancing society.
“I just think [the video announcements] would be more fun because we operate in a digital world, and we’re still reading the announcements like it’s 1969,” he said.
Flores said he hopes to see video production continuing the announcements in the future with a consistent morning broadcast schedule starting the 2025-2026 school year.
“We are going to be looking at the rest of the calendar of the school year and deciding with ASB if we want to slowly start doing the announcements on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays or work around the big events during the school year,” he said. “We are excited for the first step, but we want to make sure that we get all the technical issues out of the way first.”
