By Andreae Downs
Globe Correspondent / January 25, 2009
Schools Superintendent Bill Lupini did it elsewhere, as did Peter Zawadzki, director of Brookline Access Television. Now the ink is dry on the contract, the architects are working full throttle, and the two are key players as Brookline attempts to follow suit this fall.
That, at least according to the plan, is when the town's community television station should move its operations into bigger digs at Brookline High School, with construction starting in June. The vision is scheduled to be presented Tuesday to the Board of Selectmen (and to anyone with a Brookline cable connection or Internet access, at www.batv.org).
Zawadzki sees the move as an opportunity to capitalize on the enthusiasm, energy, and availability of Brookline's youth - vital human capital in the nonprofit TV world. Lupini sees it as a way to get the latest in high-tech equipment and video training for the high school, free. Both have done this before - Lupini in Beverly and Zawadzki in Watertown.
"I saw advantages for the school system in this partnership," Lupini said. "There are natural advantages for Access and for students."
Will Slotnick, president of the station's board, agreed.
"These are our future producers," he said of high school video students. "I have a feeling they'll quickly want to produce their own content - and they'll show us what's next."
In Beverly, Lupini said, students went on to become staff at the access station, and several moved into television careers.
"We are on the way to something very special for our students," he said.
By the fall, Brookline Access should be moving boxes into 10,000 square feet on the third floor of the Unified Arts Building, which sits around the corner from the main high school and houses the school's arts and vocational education programs.
Beginning in September, students should be able to take courses on television production, and eventually video production for the Web. Adult training for volunteers interested in making television shows will begin later in the fall.
"The overarching goal is for the new facilities to be open and available to the community as much as possible," said Zawadzki. Students will have daytime access to two classrooms and a studio, and adults will be able to use the classrooms and both that studio and another during the evenings and some weekends. The classrooms will have up-to-date computer equipment that will allow classes in graphic design, video editing, animation, digital photography, and more.
"We will add on as we get going," Zawadzki said.
Already a staff person has been hired to coordinate the educational expansion, Slotnick said.
"We're hoping to start developing the programming piece well before we move in," he said.
Negotiations with the School Department started shortly after Zawadzki was hired, Slotnick said.
"The whole process has been a real collaboration," he said. Zawadzki, Lupini, principal Bob Weintraub, and the art department heads hammered out details starting in the summer of 2007. "We think everybody benefits from this."
The move represents the culmination of the Access board's efforts to expand the station into education - part of its mission that was not as well realized as the political-municipal coverage side, Slotnick said. By early 2006, the board was talking with the School Department about how schools could be more involved in programming and how the station could be providing more services to students. According to Slotnick, the station's former director wasn't interested in the direction the discussions were taking, and tendered his resignation.
While touring local access stations for other reasons, Slotnick noticed the work Zawadzki, a Chicopee native, was doing in Watertown, where he had moved the station into Watertown High School. Soon Lupini, who oversaw a similar effort at Beverly High, and the rest of the Access board were touring the Watertown High School/Access studios, and by the spring of 2007 Zawadzki was director of the Brookline station.
"We looked for an executive director who had this kind of experience," Slotnick said.
Another reason Access is interested in the Unified Arts building is the lack of space in its current digs - a "temporary" studio space in the old Lincoln School on Boylston Street that has been the station's home since it was kicked out of Amory Street space by
Those funds, plus money from subsequent cable contracts town officials and selectmen negotiated, can only be used on capital costs for the access station, Slotnick said. By locating in the high school, students get the benefit of the latest computer and video technology on the station's capital tab, plus the expertise in maintenance and operation.
Originally, the high school offered the station some basement space formerly used for auto repair classes. The third floor, which now houses art studios, is much more attractive, Slotnick said, and moving the art studios to the second floor will mean that all art classes, including ceramics and sculpture, will be on the same floor.
On a personal note, Slotnick is hoping his fifth-grade daughter will arrive at a fully-equipped Brookline High School and discover an interest in video production.
"In some ways, I wear two hats. On the one hand, I'm president of the Access board. On the other, I'm a parent and huge school supporter."
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.