In a week where the Eastport-South Manor (ESM) Central School District thanked the community for voting to pass the upcoming 2025-2026 budget (492 to 308), young Sharks in multiple different elementary schools got to get a glimpse into what life could be like years from now.
At Eastport Elementary School, students recently learned the fundamentals of newscast production, courtesy of an Emmy Award-winning visitor: journalist Cheryl Willis of Spectrum TV News/NY 1.
The students were divided into groups, where they could act out producer, director, camera crew, audio crew, newscaster and guest roles from a prewritten script. They learned about the pressure cooker that is a live broadcast, and how some of the best breaking news-based work can be compiled under intense yet rewarding circumstances.
“There is not a time when putting out a newscast is not overwhelming,” Willis told the Eastport Elementary students. “But the process and outcome are very fulfilling.”
A watch party to view back their creation served as the crescendo at the tail end of one school day to remember for dozens of kids that are likely to watch the news with a different outlook next go around now that they can firsthand recall and appreciate how it all gets made.
Over at Tuttle Avenue, first-grade students welcomed their parents to Poetry Café. Victoria Reid’s class read select examples of the 13 poems they were assigned this past semester.
The coursework required students to be trained in a variety of different poetic forms, including: acrostic, pattern, diamante, pyramid, Cinquain and Haiku.
A hardback notebook.
And some words to write inside.
Tuttle gets it done.