It was a three-year road from idea to air, but the Chartiers Valley School District finally has its own cable access channel.

The channel, available on both Comcast and Verizon, was the brainchild of video broadcasting class teacher Jeff Ackermann.

When he began teaching the class in 2002, he said, there were 18 students in one class. The next year, there were 80 kids in four classes. Now, he said, there are seven classes with nearly 150 students.

“Video is getting bigger and bigger,” Ackermann said. “When we first started, there was no YouTube. Now there is, and we can get ideas and see past students' work.”

In addition to the video broadcasting class, Ackermann also teaches one class of advanced video broadcasting.

“Kids like it because it's hands-on,” he said. “They like to be able to come in and not have to listen to a lecture for 41 minutes. They get to move around, go out and interview people and work at their own pace.”

Like the newscasters they see on television, though, the students do have deadlines.

“It's neat for the kids because it's almost like the real world,” he said. “They're interviewing people who aren't always their peers. They have deadlines to get everything done.”

The channel made its debut in late fall and is live 24 hours a day. When the student-produced shows are not on, school and community announcements are played. A server allows Ackermann and students to program and schedule shows that will air.

Because the school is in Collier Township, township Manager Sal Sirabella had to give the OK for Comcast and Verizon to pick up the channel.

“He was instrumental in getting the whole project done,” Ackermann said of Sirabella. In return, the students try to cover Collier events and run community announcements on the station.

In addition to Collier, Ackermann said, the students are working to cover the other communities in the Chartiers Valley district — Scott, Bridgeville and Heidelberg.

“We want to bring all four communities together – to have one thing we can all sit down and be proud of,” he said. “We want to cover all the communities, tie them together and make one big community out of four individual communities.”

Megan Guza is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-388-5810 or mguza@tribweb.com.

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