The Urban Scholastic Media Initiative (USMI) creates, supports, and sustains student media programs in inner-city schools in Northeast Ohio through inter-community collaboration.

http://www.urbanscholasticmedia.org/

This program is focused on reaching out to underserved students in socio-economically challenged schools and communities in the city of Cleveland, Ohio by establishing well-constructed and supported media literacy and school-based journalism production programs for grades 7-12. Media literacy is a key factor to becoming empowered contributors in the local and global community. When students are aware of what is going on in the community and larger world around them, they are more likely to become invested in it.
Additionally, participating in scholastic media is an excellent way to develop the skills needed for critical thinking and engaging in academic and civic issues

The Urban Scholastic Media Initiative (USMI) is proud to announce our first collaborative venture with Shaw High School in East Cleveland and Hawken Upper School in Gates Mills! This school year will be spent developing a relationship between each school's journalism program, and working to establish a strong model partnership.
 

The full pilot program is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2013 with our first pilot and partner schools.

Tentatively, our first pilot school (Shaw) and its students will:

* Have a scholastic media course offered to approximately 20 students for full course credit.

* Design, create, and improve school media (ex. newspaper, news magazine, yearbook, online, broadcast, etc.).

* Partner with another scholastic media program outside of the city (Hawken) which has a current scholastic media program to create a regularly updated joint online publication as well as accompanying print media.

* Have access to state-of-the-art and industry standard equipment to create media projects.

* Attend state and national scholastic media conventions and workshops together.

In time, the program will be developed to suit additional pilot and partner schools. If you are interested in more information about this initiative, please do not hesitate to contact Kate Klonowski at kate@urbansmi.org or 216-200-8687.
 

PLEASE NOTE: Family & Community Services of Portage County is currently sponsoring this initiative and will direct all donations made through this site to USMI.