The Show Must Go On: High Schoolers Hold Remote Student Announcements Amid Coronavirus

DENVER (CBS4) - If you want to know what's going on at Thomas Jefferson High School in Denver, you watch "The Spartan Edition." The morning newscast is recorded and broadcast daily to the school, and then posted online for anyone else to see.

The program covers a wide range of topics from sports scores and dance updates to major school news. But when coronavirus hit Colorado, most students and staff thought the show was canceled for the rest of the year.

"Everyone had their mindset that well there's no way we can do our show if we can't be in the building and use our studio. I almost wanted to turn that into 'Oh yes we can…' like, I'm not sure how but I've got some ideas. We're going to do everything we can to make sure this show still happens," said Thomas Jefferson HS graduate and current teacher Grant Laman.

Their solution was to have students file reports on their phones and send them in to Laman at his home, since he has editing equipment. Each night he stays up late putting the show together, and it's then broadcast online the next day. Laman says it's hard work, but it's all worth it.

"From the students making the daily TV show to the faculty and students who get to watch it, it brings a slice or normalcy back to these crazy times," he told CBS4's Dominic Garcia.

For students, they say it helps get their mind off everything going on in the world right now.

"It's definitely something that helps because all of my other classes are either reading books or doing worksheets and stuff like that. But this is normal and we're putting together 'The Spartan Edition' and we're editing videos and all sorts of stuff," said Isaac Whistler, a junior at the school.

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They plan on continuing to do the show until the end of the school year. Grant Laman says it's not only a great lesson in broadcasting, but life.

"We can overcome hopefully anything if you have a good plan and you follow through with it."

To watch the show visit: https://tjhs.dpsk12.org/category/spartan-edition/