MEF keeping MHS at ‘cutting edge of innovation’

The Moorestown Education Foundation approved a $50,000 grant to start work on a production studio at Moorestown High School.

The Moorestown Education Foundation’s goal is to constantly find ways to enhance students’ educational experience, according to MEF president Debtosh Chakrabarti.

“Over the past few years, we’ve worked closely with the administration to keep Moorestown at the cutting edge of innovation,” Chakrabarti said.

In early October, the MEF approved a $50,000 grant to start work on a production studio at Moorestown High School. The MEF is a private foundation that raises funds from the community and corporate sponsors. Chakrabarti said the studio proposal was brought from the high school to the MEF this past spring, and the MEF provided the initial $50,000 grant and anticipates contributing again as plans for the studio get underway. He said they saw the idea as an opportunity for Moorestown to advance itself relative to other schools in the area.

MHS principal Andrew Seibel said the school has long discussed the idea of having students take video production courses.

“We’ve been working for several years on the idea of bringing in a video production course, and in doing so, we had a vision of eventually having our own studio to be an instructional studio that basically our students could plan and produce what they need to to do to make different type of segments.”

Last year, MHS ran its first introduction to video production course during which students spent time learning video production software, Seibel said. He said the one semester course taught students the foundational skills they would need before getting into the more “robust” aspects of video production.

This year, MHS implemented a second semester course, which gets into the finer details of video production, Seibel said. Through this new course, students will get exposure into working with lighting, cameras and sound recording. Looking ahead, MHS plans to continue to expand its offerings, eventually giving students an opportunity to take video production courses all four years, Seibel said.

MHS is working with a design team to plan the forthcoming studio the MEF is helping to fund. MHS has designated two classrooms, which will eventually host all the necessary equipment for students to direct and produce. Seibel said they are working with a design team to narrow their ideas for the forthcoming production studio.

He said as of now, the plan is for the school to start equipping the rooms when the students return from their winter break in February. Eventually, the studio will have at least three interactive camera systems, teleprompters, recording devices, an audio board and lighting elements.

Chakrabarti said he anticipates the studio being a multi-year project as they continue to expand students’ technological capabilities.

Seibel said video production courses allow students to tap into multiple areas of learning. He said production has students writing, expressing their creative sides and tapping into a technical skillset. The hope is to have students create something they can share with residents.

Seibel said MHS wants to get its students capturing key events going on at the school. This could mean having students create promotional videos for the fall and spring plays or shooting sports, he said.

“What we’re hoping to do is take things that go on in and around the high school to the community and give them more exposure to what we do and how we do it,” Seibel said.

For more information on the Moorestown Education Foundation, visit http://moorestowneducationfoundation.org/.