MIDDLETOWN – Interim Superintendent Karen Bilbao wants to see students in the district not only in the classroom but also on the television screen.
“We want to promote public interest in what is actually going on in our schools,” Bilbao said. “We want to brag.”
During the Board of Education’s Jan. 16 workshop meeting, Bilbao spoke about expanding the district’s monthly television program, “Your Town, Your Schools.”
Bilbao said the school administration is in the process of requesting a channel devoted to Middletown School District programming.
“What we have done is send a letter to Comcast inquiring about securing our own municipal channel,” Bilbao said. “I think that you are all aware that we share the channel with the township. We’ve been receiving a lot of feedback from the community that when they turn to channel 20, all they see is the municipal broadcast.”
“Your Town, Your Schools” is currently aired three times daily and is produced once a month.
Content on the December 2007 episode of “Your Town, Your Schools” includes “Culture Boxes,” a short video about a student project on different cultures; “In-Service,” a broadcast of a teachers’ in-service program; and “Lincroft 50th Anniversary,” about a time capsule made by students at the Lincroft School that is labeled “Do not open until October 2032!”
Bilbao said she wants to be able to show more programming created by students.
“If we had our own channel, we would not only be able to show ‘Your Town, Your Schools’ but a lot of the other broadcasts from the schools,” Bilbao said. “Our schools are just producing such terrific things that I think we can have a really full schedule of programming on our schools.”
Another program is “Investigations: Numbers, Data and Space” which showcases events in the elementary schools.
One segment in the program features Nancy Rathjen’s fifth-grade class at Nut Swamp Elementary School as they investigate the concepts of probability on the “Likelihood Line.”
Also featured is Toni Alfano’s fourth grade at Leonardo Elementary School as they look into concepts of area with the “Crazy Cakes” puzzles.
Committeewoman PatriciaWalsh asked if the programming would also include showing Board of Education meetings, but that idea was quickly deflected.
Bilbao said that she wants to show the residents of Middletown what the youth of the school district are up to.
“We want to focus on the children,” Bilbao said. “We have somany things going on in our schools that the children should be what we show.”