C-SPAN Recognizes Long Reach Student For Documentary On Equality

COLUMBIA, MD — A Long Reach High School student earned honorable mention in the annual C-SPAN video contest, organizers announced Wednesday.

This year, students created documentaries based on the following theme: "Your message to Washington: What is the most urgent issue for the new president and Congress to address in 2017?”

Sharon Jeon of Long Reach High School was recognized for her documentary “Equity in Education."

To bring equity to education, Jeon concluded that educators and community members needed to take on implicit racial bias.

She included interviews with experts from the Howard County Public School System and the U.S. Department of Education, among others.

See her video here, courtesy of C-SPAN.

For earning honorable mention in C-SPAN’s 2017 StudentCam competition, Jeon will receive $250.

The competition has been going on since 2006, and C-SPAN reported receiving 2,903 submissions this year, a record for the contest. Submissions came from students in 46 states and Washington, D.C.

The most popular topics that students chose in response to its question — "What is the most urgent issue for the new president and Congress to address in 2017?” — were as follows, according to C-SPAN:

• 16 percent said "equality" (including police brutality, racial/gender discrimination, women's rights)
• 13 percent said "the economy"
• 11 percent said "the environment"

The C-SPAN Education Foundation sponsors the competition. A panel of educators and C-SPAN representatives evaluates the entries based on the contest's theme, incorporation of different sides of the issue, the documentary's quality and the use of C-SPAN programming.

Image from "Equity in Education" documentary, courtesy of C-SPAN.