The Smoke Signal

By: Laura Chen

Thanks to a $277,000 grant from the Fremont Bank Foundation, FUSD was able to fund not only the construction of a professional development center, but also a district-wide TV show.

The program, Community Conversations, airs Monday nights at 7:00 PM on Comcast channel 26. Each of its episodes are filmed and produced in FUSD’s two-month-old Professional Development Center and are broadcasted the following week. Since the debut of Community Conversations on February 4, FUSD Video Production Supervisor Walter Garcia has produced 12 episodes, all of which can be found here under the “Community” tab on the FUSD website.

“We’ve really had this vision for quite some time of helping the community to really understand more about the school district. We have incredible things that happen from Warm Springs to north Fremont, day after day after day and week after week,” FUSD Superintendent James Morris told Community Conversations Host KK Kaneshiro. A typical episode begins with an interview with Morris to provide the community insight into issues including relations between FUSD and the Fremont city council, educational advice to parents, and the development of the 2013-14 school calendar. In the second half of a show, students, teachers, and board members are invited to speak their minds on a different topic each episode, whether the topic be School Loop, bullying, Service Learning, or programs specific to FUSD’s various high schools, such as Kennedy High School’s AVID Program or Mission: SOS.

Students can get involved with Community Conversations by contacting Garcia or Morris to help run cameras on the program or suggest episode subjects. With contribution from the community, Morris has high hopes for the new show. “…This really gives us an opportunity to highlight some of the good things that are happening and pull community members in to have true conversations about the good things [and] the challenges we face as a school district,” said Morris.