Student Video About HSD's Dropout Prevention Program Wins Statewide Contest

What’s super about public schools? Some may have more to say about what's wrong with public schools, but Hazelwood West High School Senior RJ Fentress earned a great honor for showing something very right. 

Fentress entered the Missouri School Boards’ Association’s “2013 What’s Super About Public Schools” student video contest. Each year, students are challenged to produce a 60-second video conveying the contest theme, as well as at least one of the recommendations in the Missouri Public Education Vision Project Report.

Fentress chose to highlight Project Walk, Hazelwood West's dropout prevention program. Project WALK gives students that need individualized attention a space where they can work one-on-one with an instructor to increase grades, earn graduation credits, increase attendance and decreasing the number of behavioral referrals.

To read more about Project Walk and the dropout prevention programs at all the Hazelwood School District high schools see: Hazelwood School District is Tackling the Dropout Rate

Fentress was awarded first place, and a $1,000 cash prize.

He said wanted to focus on Project WALK because he knows its successes. 

“I have seen the success of Project WALK first-hand as a student mentor, and I thought the video would be a great way to share the success of the program and help other students,” he said. "I want more people to graduate...WALK is a big deal and I have no problem sharing the information.”

Fentress shot the footage, wrote the script and read the voice-over for the video, but he wasn't alone. Josh Florida and Brendan Krause, both sophomores at West High helped produce the video.

“Josh and Brendan were great,” he said. “The video wouldn’t have turned out as well as it did without their help. They deserve a lot of the credit too.”

Fentress said Chris Holmes, a teacher and graduation coach at West High, encouraged him to create the video.