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A group of young journalists were honored at Thursday’s school board meeting. On Oct. 7 video interviews conducted by LaGrange High students, Alexandria Dowell, Tycianna Rome, Chariya Johnson and Kevis Parkmond, Jr., were published on the Georgia PBS website.

The students got involved in the Student Voice Collective workshop hosted by GPB through a local youth mentoring and mental health program, ELVTD Youth and Mentoring, Inc.. The program was founded by TCSS employee Dr. Nicholas Griffin and his wife, Kamenia, to prepare students for life beyond the classroom.

“[ELVTD] do anything for literacy, reading and comprehension, STEM. We also play games. We also do enrichment trips, like field trips

Due to his work within and outside of the school system, Griffin was nominated for the cohort. After being selected, he saw the collective as an opportunity for the kids in his mentoring program.

Griffin was selected to be one of the 40 educators and mentors to be in the fist Student Voices Collective Cohort, representing Troup County. According to the GBP website, the collective aims to allow secondary students, “To amplify student voices, boost media literacy, and ignite crucial conversations.”

The educators, along with support from GBP and PBS help students create media shorts on current issues. It aims to teach kids about media literacy, journalistic ethics and the production of media. This year, the cohort was tasked with picking a topic relating to the upcoming election or civic engagement. The ELVTD group chose the topic ‘What is Democracy?’.

Griffin said he chose the four representatives because they were originally more reluctant to be in front of the camera.

​​”I was trying to get them to work on their social skills…A few of them wanted to be behind the camera. So the day that we started recording, and I pulled out the microphones, and of course, they want to kind of jump on board,” Griffin said laughing.

After the kids recorded their interviews and submitted it, there was no word for a few weeks. Griffin thought there prompt was not selected this time. 

“[I said], ‘Well, we tried…It’s okay. We’ll do it again next time,’” he said. “So when those that three weeks came up and I saw the email, I started texting all the parents and stuff, and everyone was blowing up my phone. It was awesome.”

The video selected is up on GPBs website and can be found at https://www.gpb.org/blogs/student-voices-collective/2024/10/07/lagrange-high-school-students-interview-community.

In it the students interviewed LaGrange Police Officer, Bryan Mosley and members of the LaGrange College men’s basketball team on democracy.

“It took us a while,” said Dowell.

Johnson added, “It took us a couple of tries because it was our first time interviewing.”

All the kids agreed that the most challanging part was taking in information while interviewing, processing information and asking follow up questions on the spot.

The four all said the experience was “fun,” and that they learned a lot about interviewing and media. A couple of the students said they hadn’t considered journalism before, but are now having had the experience.

The Grangers received certificates of recognition for their work, at Thursday’s meeting, in front of a full crowd of supporters.