Documenting the impact of closing schools on communities
by thenotebook on Jul 18 2013 Posted in Latest news
by Monika Zaleska
This summer, Amy Yeboah will release a short documentary on four Philadelphia schools that closed this year, working with the Notebook as part of her fellowship with the Samuel S. Fels Fund. Amy, who holds a doctorate in African American Studies from Temple University, talked to us about what she learned trailing teachers, students, and families during their last days of school and how their narrative unfolds on screen.
Tell me a little about your work and the project you’re working on this summer.
My dissertation was about education, particularly what’s going on with African American education and how we close the excellence gap. The Notebook wanted a short documentary focused on a couple of schools to try to give more meaning and narrative to what’s going on at a local level with families, students, communities, and how they’re impacted. The four schools we looked at are Germantown High School, Bok Technical High School, Fairhill Elementary School, and University City High School in West Philadelphia.
My dissertation was about education, particularly what’s going on with African American education and how we close the excellence gap. The Notebook wanted a short documentary focused on a couple of schools to try to give more meaning and narrative to what’s going on at a local level with families, students, communities, and how they’re impacted. The four schools we looked at are Germantown High School, Bok Technical High School, Fairhill Elementary School, and University City High School in West Philadelphia.
What does your process look like, first in going to these sites and talking to people and, later, in editing the footage and putting it together?
This is the first time I’ve been a journalist, which is a different angle than being a researcher. I went to the schools themselves and followed a couple of people for their last weeks and recorded. I observed, I did some sit-down interviews with principals, teachers, and community members and also documented events. Some schools had closing ceremonies. Particularly, I documented the last couple hours of each school being open. Then from there I wrote the narratives, from beginning to end, of what was the main theme or main story that stood out for that school. I
This is the first time I’ve been a journalist, which is a different angle than being a researcher. I went to the schools themselves and followed a couple of people for their last weeks and recorded. I observed, I did some sit-down interviews with principals, teachers, and community members and also documented events. Some schools had closing ceremonies. Particularly, I documented the last couple hours of each school being open. Then from there I wrote the narratives, from beginning to end, of what was the main theme or main story that stood out for that school. I