High School Television Production: Niagara Falls High School, Niagara Falls (N.Y.) City School District.

FOUR YEARS AGO WHEN THE NIAGARA FALLS HIGH SCHOOL BEGAN its own Educational Access Channel, Our Schools Channel (OSC) TV 21, fewer than 10 media production students created it. Now student involvement in the program has grown to nearly 200, requiring more computers capable of video editing and graphics manipulation.

Judie Gregory, public relations director for the Niagara Falls City School District in New York, is seeking grant monies to purchase the additional computers and editing software, as well as equipment to launch a new digital music production class.

High school students have taped city council meetings for public record as well as a variety of other local events, and students from other schools in the district are also becoming more involved in the production program. Every school now has at least one digital video camera.

Under the guidance of Media Education Director Rich Meranto, OSC alumni have taken their skills and gone on to major in television production and communications-related fields at various colleges and universities, Gregory says.

The district serves a poor community of 7,500 students in 11 schools. The OSC provides tangible, quantifiable skills in television production as well as professional networking built right into the school's curriculum.

Meranto and OSC coordinators also learned that the program fulfilled 24 out of 28 of the New York State Learning Standards due to the variety of projects it demands of the high achieving students.

"The sky is the limit," Gregory says. "And it's all about building a sense of community."