News Briefs: Catch up on recent school and local news

Members of the National Art Honor Society volunteered at Imagine That! KC — a local arts outreach organization — on Dec. 8 and 9 to support the organization’s Winter Art Market fundraiser. 

Imagine That! specializes in helping individuals with developmental disabilities learn new art skills. The Winter Art Market allows the artists to sell art that they’ve created through the program. And the student volunteers, including senior Oliver Novo, helped distribute artists’ portfolios.

“It was really cool to see all of their art and how varied their views on the world were,” Novo said. “There was a lot of talent there. It was really eye-opening, and I’ve never really seen art that wasn’t just traditional fine arts go into a museum before, so this was a really cool new experience.”

The art available at the fundraiser was a variety of canvas paintings, ceramics, oil pastel works and graphite sketches.

The NAHS President and senior Greyson Imm plans to continue similar volunteering opportunities throughout the year with other art-related organizations in the community like Scraps KC and InterUrban Art House.

“Everybody needs service hours, but also I feel like people want to be a part of their community and engage in that,” Imm said. “[NAHS] gives them the unique opportunity if they’re artists inclined towards the arts that they can use that outlet to engage in their community and give back to people that they might not normally interact with on a day-to-day basis.”

International Baccalaureate Film will officially be a class option in the IB program at East next year, taught by English and Video Production teacher Jennifer Hunter. 

“We just need to get enrollment underway and actually see how many kids enroll,” Hunter said. “So there’ll be quite a bit of planning in the spring and in the summer to get ready, but I have so many ideas. It’s so exciting.”

During the year-long class, students will learn about the different production roles within the filming process. 

Contextualizing and reading films will also be an aspect of the class. Students will look at scripts and analyze how the director conveys their message, what that message is and the implications of that message.

According to IB coordinator Meredith Sternberg, the contextualization part of the class is significant because students will have discussions about how the story’s elements come together visually.

“We are such a visual culture at the moment,” Sternberg said. “Learning the art of visual storytelling is really important, so I can only imagine how great this class will be.”

In the class, students will eventually be able to make their own short film. Hunter will teach the technical aspects like editing, filming and connecting shots, so students don’t need a lot of experience to enroll. The only thing required is an interest in the art, according to Hunter.

“If you like the creative side of work, you’re very visual, and you like the discussions and then being able to take that and get something visual,” Hunter said. “I think it is a great opportunity.”

Cheer and dance had their annual Powderpuff football game on Dec. 10 with cheer and dance seniors defeating the juniors. The teams were coached by junior and senior varsity football players who performed a dance at halftime that they learned from the cheer and dance members.

The game started off as two-hand-touch football, but eventually got aggressive and the players transitioned to tackle football. According to senior dance captain Marin McElhinney, the game always gets heated between the two grades.

“It’s so competitive and everyone tries so hard,” McElhinney said. “People care a lot about that kind of game even though it’s just a silly game. We had special sweatshirts and everything made, it’s a big deal.”

With students and parents watching in the crowd, the seniors defeated the juniors with a final score of 28-7. 

“I feel like this year is a lot of lasts,” senior cheer captain Lulu McKee said. “It’s been really fun each year, so I think I ended on a good note.”