One of the most longstanding school programs has undergone massive changes entering the school year. TV Production has been offered since 2004, and has been producing WOOF TV every day since. At least, until now.

In the past, WOOF TV aired every day during third and fourth period classes. Teachers would go to the YouTube channel and play each episode on whichever screen or projector was available. This was such an integral and routine part of the school day that both third and fourth period were scheduled to be a couple of minutes longer than other block periods in order to allow teachers to play the news for students. And on the projectors each day, students would be kept up to date on what had recently happened in the school, and what was coming.

The “Daily Announcements” did not leave much room for the creative expression, or unique student-produced segments. Some students behind its productions even conceded that it was sometimes ignored due to its repetitive nature.

“I think that [with] our old promos, nobody watched them,” executive producer Paul Noorlander said.

Therefore, running a program with constant deadlines, which was also sometimes ignored or not even played in classrooms, created multiple issues for those involved. But with a production and schedule so longstanding as WOOF TV, it would not be changed without a reason.

And that was that: TV Production switched its lens, and their focus is now on longer, biweekly programs. They still retained important school updates and announcements, as is expected of a “news” broadcast, but with multiple weeks of production, and over four times the average runtime, more things were to be expected.

“We can start doing things that we were never able to do before with TV,” Noorlander said. “For example, we can film on location for a lot of things. We can also try to be more creative in the segments that we’re doing. We have opportunities that we’d never had before, because we simply did not have the time when an episode had to be made in 35 minutes.” 

With food reviews, skits, short films, features on Hagerty clubs and programs, and much more, WOOF TV evolved from a regular news broadcast to a dynamic and innovative production that allows students and their creativity to truly shine.

And aside from its general heightened entertainment value and depth, the new length and level of craftsmanship has allowed it to be recognized in areas outside of the classroom.

“We have opportunities such as being able to submit that into [the Florida Scholastic Press Association] and [Student Television Network] and other conventions that we attend,” senior Jamari Abott said. “We could have [submitted last year’s]; however, I feel as though they weren’t up to as standard as compared to what we make now.” 

Another reason for the change was the lack of students. Heading into this year, the program was cut down to a single period, fourth, while the others were replaced with virtual labs.

This change reflects the recent boom of students participating in online classes across the district. Throughout the last couple years, the amount of students either replacing in-school periods with virtual school, or adding online classes on top of their in-person schedule has increased exponentially. As a result, the school was obligated to provide computer lab periods  in school, as opposed to taking the period off.

So very quickly, an issue arose: how would announcements be produced daily if the students didn’t have the class every day? It did not take long to realize that it simply was not possible, and changes to the news schedule had to be made, quickly.

The changes also presented their own set of problems. For example, the switch to a single TV Production class forced veterans to be in a class with new students who needed to be taught the basics.

“Being in a class with people that don’t know what they’re doing or people that haven’t done this yet, it’s hard,” Abbot said. “You want to do this, but you’ve got to teach them how.”

However, others believe the mixed bag of students can create positive opportunities for the production.

“The classes being merged is helpful because it puts enough people to be able to create this new show,” Noorlander said.

Another point of concern for some students this year had been a change to broadcasting school sporting events. Before, students in TV Production would manually attend and record games, but a new system based around artificial intelligence and mounted cameras has replaced any student involvement in exchange for opting into a paid subscription service.

However, the school environment is always changing, and teachers and their curriculums are adapting. What first appeared as a huge loss for the program, has opened up many more opportunities for TV Production. After many years of the daily school news, the changes to Parker’s classes have allowed for a new idea to bloom into what is now the newest and most carefully crafted version of Woof TV.