Brentwood Students Participate in PMEA Junior High Chorus Festival
Digital Media Arts Consortium Recognizes Brentwood Teacher
By Britney Lukasiewicz
rentwood cKeesport Borough
CITY SCHOOL OF MCKEESPORT DISTRICT NEWS
In 2016, the program Television Teachers( TVT) changed its name to Digital Media Arts Consortium( DMAC). The organization made this change because they wanted to include a wider range of digital medias to give more students a chance to participate in the competition. Along with this change, the DMAC program honored local Brentwood teacher, Jennifer Hughes, with the title of president.
TVT partnered with Robert Morris University 22 years ago to form the organization and has provided a fall teachers conference and spring student festival to western PA teachers ever since. But, with the ever changing world of communications, the group felt it necessary to change with the times and expand to include additional digital medias.
“ The advisory board met this summer with the Dean of the Communications and Information Systems Department at Robert Morris and decided to expand the organization to include additional digital media. At the collegiate level, most students in communications are working in various digital medias at the same time, so the connection starting at the high school level made sense to us,” said Hughes.
Along with expanding the categories offered for the spring student festival, DMAC also changed the format of the festival. Instead of a strictly awards ceremony, this year the event offered workshops in many different digital formats for students and teacher to expand their exposure.
“ The expansion allows us to include more students and more teachers from member schools making membership stronger and the competition more competitive,” said Hughes.
With Hughes as president of the program, more of her students are getting inspired to put their best work forward because of the
Brentwood Borough School District
competition and the potential of an award at hand.“ Being recognized publicly for my work in communications classes pushes me to try harder and to keep working on projects until they are done right, not just merely completed,” said senior Taryn Sherry.
Not only are the students getting inspired, but so is Hughes herself. She has been trying new projects with her classes to expand her knowledge and to give the students new options to also increase their knowledge. Additionally, she had one of her students teach the process of animation to her and the class.
“ As a two year member of the advisory board and serving as president this year, I’ ve learned a great deal about media programs, software, education websites, curriculum, etc., it’ s helped me make Brentwood more competitive with other larger schools with bigger budgets. It’ s reflected in us coming home with seven DMAC awards this year from the student festival,” said Hughes. Hughes being president has helped Brentwood gain a sense of gratitude and self-empowerment that as little as Brentwood is as a whole, their accomplishments are as big as the competing schools around them.
Brentwood Students Participate in PMEA Junior High Chorus Festival
Brentwood Middle School was proud to be represented at the PMEA District I Junior High Chorus Festival this year by two students- Juliana Kail & Madeline McBride. PMEA( Pennsylvania Music Educators Association) is a statewide non-profit organization dedicated to the musical development of Pennsylvania’ s students by providing enrichment performance opportunities. Students were selected by audition and participated in over 10 hours of rehearsal, followed by a concert of over 150 student voices. This year’ s concert was directed by guest conductor Barbara Spiri, who is also the founder and artistic director of the Eastern Area Youth Chorale. Congratulations Juliana & Madeline on a job well done!
78 Brentwood-Baldwin-Whitehall
Juliana Kail
Madeline McBride