Grant Request to the WVBA Educational Foundation
c/o Mr. Gary Bowden
340 Buckhannon Ave.
Clarksburg, WV 26301
Richard Zukowski
Grafton High School
400 Riverside Drive
Grafton, WV 26354
email: rzukowsk@access.k12.wv.us
School phone: 304-265-3046
This is grant request for the Grafton High School Media class. Grafton High School has approximately 700 students and serves all of Taylor County. We have 44% of the students receiving free or reduced lunch. This is my fourth year teaching Media class at the school and in none of those years have the program received funding from the school board budget to acquire and maintain equipment.
To acquire funds for new equipment, we record events at the school including graduations, band performances, show choir performances, and others and sell DVD copies of the events at minimal costs. But this nowhere comes close to acquiring equipment comparable to professional standards and even many other schools in the area.
The equipment we have acquired in recent years have been basic consumer standard-definition video camcorders with tripods that have been purchased from WalMart. These camcorders use SD cards to record video. We have been editing the footage using an older version of Pinnacle Studio video editing software on Windows computers. These video camcorders currently being used are sufficient for close-up recording, but they are not sufficient in recording events in large spaces such as the gymnasium and theater.
This year, the primary goal of the class is to produce a daily news broadcast that functions as daily announcements at the beginning of the school day. This broadcast is produced the day previous utilizing most of the class rotating responsibilities on a daily basis. The broadcast includes the Pledge of Allegiance, lunch of the day, daily sports information, club information, and counselor updates. We have a script producer, teleprompter/camera operator, anchor, and editor every day. The final product is then posted to the following website: http://www.schooltube.com/organization/213824/.
The students are also required to attend and record at least one extracurricular event per six weeks grading period. They are to take the raw footage and edit it to a “consumer” format and finalize it in DVD format. The student also has the responsibility to show the final product to the teacher/advisor to see if anyone would be interested in purchasing the product.
Other activities students complete through the school year are producing commercials, short documentaries, comedies, and dramas among other projects. On a daily basis, students are utilizing writing and creativity skills on their own and in cooperative projects.
The students also leave the class with an understanding of laws pertaining to public domain, Creative Commons licenses, and issues pertaining to First Amendment Free Speech. The students also leave with knowledge of digital citizenship and how to be a good “citizen” on the internet when dealing with social networking.
The goal of receiving this grant is to acquire new equipment that would be used in the professional video production environment. This new equipment should result increase quality of the final product. We have a cable access channel in Grafton and we should be able to increase our presence on that channel. This grant will be a very beneficial long term investment in the Grafton High School Media program.
Please see the attached sheet for an equipment request items.
Thank you to the committee for considering this request.
Richard Zukowski
Teacher
Grafton High School
Equipment Needs:
Cameras
JVC GY-HM150U Compact Handheld 3-CCD Camcorder
$1,995 x 3 = $5,985.00
Audio
Azden WLX-PRO Camera Mountable VHF Wireless Lavalier System with WR-PRO Receiver and WLT-PRO Body Pack Transmitter/Lavalier Microphone
$149.00 x 3 = $447.00
Audio-Technica AT8004L Handheld Omnidirectional Dynamic Microphone (Long Handle)
$88.95 x 3 = $29.65
On-Stage MS7701B Euro-Boom Mic Stand
$24.95 x 3 = $74.85
Tripods
Magnus VT-4000 Tripod System with Fluid Head
$149.95 x 3 = $449.85
Computers
21.5” iMac Computer $1,299.00 x 2 = $2,598.00
Video Editing Software
Media Storage
Apple Superdrive - $79.00 x 2 = $158.00
SD Card Lexar 64GB SDXC Memory Card Platinum II Class 10 UHS-I
$59.95 x 3 = $179.85
All prices quoted from http://www.bhphotovideo.com/