With millions of students dealing with class disruptions due to the Coronavirus pandemic, a journalism class in Arcadia, California, took matters into their own hands. They decided to continue to produce their weekly news broadcast from home to provide information and comfort to their fellow Arcadia High School students.
"The Friday that schools got cancelled, thankfully we found out before school ended," said Frank Nunez, Faculty Advisor of Apache News. "So I pretty much grabbed anything that wasn't attached to the classroom and sent the students home with all of that stuff. It was cameras and we even sent them home with desktop iMac computers."
The class meets online to plan each newscast. Although students aren't getting extra credit for their work, they take pride in their efforts.
"I think of that class not like a class, but more like a job. I feel like we're doing something like any other news program might do," said Kyle Joo, a producer of the APN newscast. "We're still getting information out there for students, teachers and parents."
"Apache News is that symbol of continuity," said anchor/producer Andrew Liu. "We believe that it is our obligation to keep the shows going on no matter what. Even if the schools close down, the show must go on."