EAST students showcase video for Project Search
Hot Springs World Class High School students in the Environmental and Spatial Technologies program are working to finetune a video project for the local Project Search High School Transition Program.
The Fountain Lake, Hot Springs and Lakeside school districts received a grant in 2015 for a lifetime license from Project Search. Participants in the workplace immersion program spend nine months on-site and learn through a combination of classroom instruction, career exploration and hands-on training through worksite rotations.
The joint program can accommodate as many as 13 interns each year at CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs. Each partner district can be represented by at least four students in each class.
Partner organizations include Arkansas Rehabilitation Services and Access Arkansas. Erin Riley, job development manager for Access, said the video will help inform students, parents, staff and members of the community about the program.
“The video is designed to be an informational piece to let the school districts that are involved share them to the classes, so they are aware of what the program is,” Riley said.
Project Search began in 1996 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, which hired workers with developmental disabilities to fill entry-level positions with high turnover rates. More than 300 Project Search sites now operate throughout the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland and Australia.
Many participants find employment at their Project Search sites after they graduate from the program. Some sites hire participants before they graduate, as CHI did in the first year of the program.
“These are individuals who are local to Hot Springs and this area,” Riley said. “They are young adults who want to go back to work in these communities and want to give back.
“They are a part of this program for nine months learning all of these transferable job skills. This is a way for us to show the community these guys are ready and they want
to go to work for you.”
Program partners met earlier this year and determined a need for an informational video. Riley said the districts felt their EAST programs had the resources and talent available to produce the content.
They agreed to a rotation. Hot Springs volunteered to create the first video, which will be used for about three years. Students in the EAST programs at Fountain Lake and Lakeside will be tasked with making future videos.
Terri Easter, special education designee for Hot Springs High, reached out to Cassandra Dixon, EAST facilitator, to coordinate the project.
“I selected Kerry Ferrell and Isabel Ritter for the project because they’d proven themselves time and time again with film projects and I knew we needed the absolute best on this commercial,” Dixon said.
Ritter, Ferrell and Gunner Evans won third prize earlier this year in the annual Arkansas Historic Places Film Prize competition of short documentaries, which focus on historic properties throughout the state, for their documentary, “John Lee Webb House.” Ferrell and fellow junior Ethan Lyles provided the audio and video components for Ritter to edit.
“Kerry is so talented when it comes to vision and Isabel is super quick and professional with editing,” Dixon said. “So, I knew they would do great together.”
Ritter, now a sophomore, began working with video editing in the seventh grade in the EAST program at Hot Springs Middle School, now Hot Springs Junior Academy. Her facilitator, John Stokes, is now at the high school and Dixon is at the intermediate school as personnel changes were made throughout the district.
“There is a lot of really specific tools you can use to do really specific things,” Ritter said. “It makes it kind of tedious. That’s why video production takes so long, but I still really enjoy it.”
“Overall, it has been a really great process,” Riley said. “These kids know what they are doing.”
The original cut of the video was about three minutes long and the latest version is more than six minutes. Riley said the group will meet to discuss how to improve the final product after students get settled back into the school year.
“When any video producer makes any kind of video, they are never happy with the outcome,” Ritter said. “There’s never really a perfect video. There is always going to be some details they couldn’t get to, because videos always have a time crunch.
“That’s exactly what happened to me. There are a couple of details I want to fix before they air it. Hopefully, I can get it to where I am really proud of it.”
Lyles previously designed and worked with numerous entities and officials to develop a wetland ecosystem and outdoor classroom at Hot Springs Intermediate School.
“There is a reason why they are in the EAST lab program,” Riley said. “They have dreams and aspirations to be in this field. They are not just halfway doing something. They are giving it their all, they are really focused and doing a great job with it.
“It is really neat to watch them. They come in prepared and focused.”
Ritter will have an opportunity to showcase her work and enter the video into contest next spring during the 18th annual EAST Conference at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
ARS disperses the funds for the state’s Project Search programs, which include a site at the Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville. Access funds the program in Hot Springs, as well as sites at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.