No senioritis at this class No senioritis at this class (February 27, 2004)

by by Jeb Bing

S he's an accomplished equestrian, her designer purses are for sale on Main Street, she produced the award-winning video in her journalism class at Foothill High School, and now Michelle Ricks is in Atlanta for an expense-paid tour of CNN studios and a close look at what might be a future career in the broadcast media.

Ricks, 17, won the "Behind the Scenes at CNN" contest against five other team competitors with her video "The Decline of Senior Year." The video looked at what's commonly referred to as "senioritis," an emotional and academic slump that has become so widespread in the American high schools that the Department of Education has launched a study to seek remedies. In researching the subject, Ricks found a University of Michigan report that showed even some top-grade students were treating their senior year as a "prolonged farewell to adolescence," sleeping in class, skipping school and putting less effort into grades and classwork assignments.

With her project proposal accepted by Foothill's journalism teacher Margie McLaughlin, Ricks assembled a team to produce the show. First, the group prepared an outline stating the issues and resources, and included a production schedule and storyboard of scenes to be taped. Ricks and her team searched the Internet where they found more about senioritis from schools, teachers and reporters in Cincinnati, the National Education Association, Arcadia University in Michigan, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the federal government's little known Commission on the High School Senior Year, which was already looking at the problem

Then it was taping time. Ricks, the daughter of Allison and Stephen Ricks on Paragon Circle, has been the family's camcorder expert for years, so setting up the scenes and shooting came naturally. Her creativity shows in the video with campus scenes, including interviews with Foothill Counselor Larry Costanza and teacher John Nix and shots of bored seniors in a classroom, scenes that keep the 12-minute production moving at a lively and informative clip. The show left me convinced that these slumping seniors had better wake up. Colleges look at senior grades with transcripts required after the first semester and again after graduation. Ricks found that some seniors who thought they could take their final year off ended up having their college acceptance letters withdrawn.

McLaughlin, along with CNN and the Comcast cable company that sponsored the Foothill competition, asked me to help judge the six videos. At first, I thought it would take an hour or two of watching the videos and reviewing the written work. But with each of the productions absolutely first-rate, it took much more than that, with decisions to be made not only on the content, but also on the video quality, uniqueness and compelling nature of the story, clarity of expression and team participation. Subjects included the big business of running a high school band, recreational use of drugs among teens, the pressure on those playing youth sports, violence in Tri-Valley schools and teen-age pregnancy. If there's any senioritis at Foothill, it's clearly not in the class of Margie McLaughlin, the enterprising journalism teacher who, by the way, also got to go along with Michelle Rick's well-deserved trip to CNN in Atlanta.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.