School Culture

5-Minute Film Festival: A Day in the Life of a Public School District

August 31, 2012

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With all the media chatter about test scores, merit pay, failing schools, and teacher quality, it's sometimes easy for those outside the school system to forget that it's people -- just everyday people with a calling for education -- who make up that system. Enter the Go Public Project, a labor of love by filmmakers and public school parents Jim and Dawn O'Keeffe. Jim and Dawn sent fifty film crews, both pro and student, into the twenty-eight schools in Pasadena, California to paint an intimate, and very human, portrait of a day in the life of an American public school district.

I tried to make sure not every clip was one that made me cry, but the truth is, getting such a close-up look at the passion and the beauty of the people who form the heart of public schools, and hearing their voices, is incredibly moving. With limited resources but limitless optimism in sometimes dire circumstances, these teachers, students, administrators, and support staff are making a difference every day. I'd like to share a few of the portraits I loved the most.

Video Playlist: Best of Go Public

Watch the first video below, or watch the whole playlist on Vimeo.

More About the Go Public Project

Pasadena Unified School District is a diverse district with four traditional and two alternative high schools, five middle schools, and seventeen elementary schools. The population in the district is about 60% Hispanic, with 68% free and reduced lunch. The Go Public team of forty professional film crews and ten student film crews covered every school in the district on May 8th, 2012.

Fifty films, each under five minutes, have already been posted online, and executive producers Dawn and Jim are now working on making a two-hour feature-length documentary out of the nearly 350 hours of footage captured. If you'd like to learn more about the project, check out the links below.

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