AUSD Students Dominate Anti-Smoking PSA Awards

Announcement submitted by Alameda Unified School District:

Students from Alameda High School (AHS) and the Alameda Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) placed in all four divisions in the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) Anti-Tobacco Public Service Announcement Contest last month.

The theme of this year’s contest, which is co-sponsored by the Tobacco Use Prevention Education program (TUPE), was “You’ll Regret that E-Cigarette.”

“What a great showing by AUSD students,” said Superintendent Sean McPhetridge.

“This is a contest that calls upon students’ creativity, analytical skills, media savvy, and ability to work in teams. I am delighted knowing our students were able to channel and harness their artistic abilities to help get healthy messages out to the public in this way.”

This is the fifth year ACOE and TUPE have sponsored the contest. The contest has four entry categories: video, audio clip, poster, and photo. Both AHS and ASTI students submitted entries. AUSD student winners are listed below.

ACOE and TUPE provided information to the schools about the dangers of e-cigarettes, AHS art teacher Charlene Milgrim explained.

“I supplied materials and let the students run with it,” she said. “I was really pleased that these very motivated and talented Art 1 students designed and painted this dramatic work.” Noted Kristen Jurkovich, a counselor at ASTI, “We are very proud of our students for placing in TUPE’s PSA competition. Our winning students work very hard in all that they do, and their dedication and motivation is evident in the thoughtfulness they put into their photo for the PSA assignment.”

John Dalton, the AHS TV Media/Filmmaking teacher whose students won in the video and audio divisions, was honored at the Board of Education meeting last week as the AUSD Teacher of the Year for 2014-2015. Earlier this spring, several of Dalton’s students also won the Special Recognition category in the State Farm Insurance’s “Driving the Message PSA” contest with their short “A True Story.”

“I am overjoyed and so proud of my students,” Dalton said. “I feel that my role is to get them versed in technical and creative content and then give them venues and opportunities to put their skills and imagination to the test. For us that’s film contests, and they have stepped up every time to that challenge on so many occasions.”

Winning Poster and Photography Entries

AHS students Sandy Zhu and Kimberly Buyannemekh created a poster that won first prize in the poster division in this year’s ACOE PSA contest.