Rejoice. Here's a film about good things happening in schools. This film is about how schools can--and should--be critical parts of the surrounding communities. It is about students and teachers learning they have value. It is about students and teachers getting up from their desks and doing important work..... We have schools doing good things, and this film highlights a few of them.  

- -Susan Ohanian

Schools That Change Communities 

Rights Begin: January 1, 2013   

1/60   

Producer:

Presenter:

"Rejoice. Here's a film about good things happening in schools."  This quotation does not contain an oxymoron: the words "rejoice" and "schools" next to each other. The fact that this quote expresses a truth is why KRCB and APT are so proud to be offering you Schools That Change Communities for your schedules beginning January 1, 2013. 

In Schools That Change Communities, viewers see a unique, upbeat documentary showcasing an experiment tried in five US schools with remarkable results: by breaking down the walls between the school and its surroundings, students become engaged and invigorated as the neighborhood benefits! When trying to solve real problems instead of standardized textbook, abstract, cookie-cutter questions, students learn the basics and so very much more.  They also develop understanding and the ability to think critically about some of the fundamental issues facing their lives.   

Schools That Change Communities turns the current focus of education on its head in a diverse range of K-12 public schools from economically challenged rural areas to crime-ridden urban neighborhoods in five states: Boston, MA, Crellin, MD, Howard, SD, Watsonville, CA and Cottage Grove, OR.  While most US schools  increasingly keep their students bottled up in classrooms as a way of increasing test scores, these schools tear down the walls that divide students from their neighborhoods resulting in a learning process using the community as a "living" classroom. Proponents say this new model creates both a different type of educational environment and a different kind of student.  

In the Boston neighborhood of Mattapan, with one of the highest levels of crime and poverty in the city, students learn to connect the dots between what their community seems to the outside world, and what they and their community might become.  In the small rural Appalachian town town of Crellin straddling the Maryland - West Virginia border, elementary school students help clean up an adjacent stream polluted by acid mine drainage from former coal mines.   Meanwhile students monitor river water because of possible contamination from the fracting process of a new gas drilling operation located in the school's watershed.   High school students in Howard, SD, build an interdisciplinary curriculum around a plan to save the town's economy before there is nothing left but dust blowing down main street.  In Watsonville, CA a farming community an hour's drive from Silicon Valley, high school students studying Roosevelt's New Deal try to come up with a New Deal for their community.  English, History, Science and Media Production classes spend time interviewing residents about the immigration, poverty, unemployment, and crime issues they face and how these issues might be solved. In Cottage Grove, OR students spend much of their school day outside the confines of their school helping build a sustainable environment, at the same time learning valuable science, engineering and math lessons.  

Please contact me if you have questions. I'll continue to be in touch with you about your carriage plans over the next months. Or, when you know them, please zap them over to me.  A fact sheet follows.  

Very truly yours,

Regina

Regina Eisenberg

R Eisenberg Presents

Program Summary:  

Parts/Length:

1/60

RIGHTS:

Broadcast Rights:  

Unlimited/2 Years     

(1/1/13-12/31/14)          

VOD: Yes        

Non-Commercial Cable: Granted. 

School Re-Record: Yes.   

Simulcast: Yes.       

NOLA Code:

HD Feed for Record:

Sunday, December 23, 1200-1300 ET/HD03

Visual:

Closed Captioned

Aspect Ratio:

16x9

TV Rating:

TV-G

View It At:    

Boston, MA

Crellin, MD

Watsonville, CA

Cottage Grove, OR

Howard, SD   

Producer:  

Long time award winning documentary producer and former Sociology Professor (San Jose State) has  filmed in some 35 countries including Russia, China, Viet Nam, Macedonia, Rwanda, Cuba, El Salvador, Israel, and Albania covering a wide range of topics including the transition from socialism to capitalism, land reform, political conflict, environmental degradation, and poverty alleviation, and, most recently on problems and possibilities facing public schools in the United States. Many of his 40 documentaries have aired on PBS stations throughout the country and are used by universities, libraries, and nonprofit organizations. Many of you have recently broadcast his last two documentaries on education, Democracy Left Behind (2007) and Lessons From the Real World (2011).   

KRCB  

Broadcast Distributor:

American Public Television (APT Exchange)  

Underwriter:

Local Underwriting:

Local underwriting is permissible.  

Websites:

www.stationrelations.com 

CONTACTS:

Station Relations & DVD Screener:

Regina Eisenberg

R Eisenberg Presents

regina@stationrelations.com 

510.550.1706

Publicity & Promotion, Viewer Questions & Comments: