Staples High teachers Jim Honeycutt and Mike Zito spent many years running the school’s Media Lab.
Jim Honeycutt
They’re retired now, but have followed the radio and TV productions — and more — with great interest. In response to Sunday’s “06880” Opinion piece about the “On the Wreckord” show, they write:
We support Kasey Feeley and her passionate advocacy for “On the Wreckord.”
We started the Staples TV program “Good Morning Staples” around 2011. We had so much support from the Staples administration that our teaching load was reduced to 4 classes, to allow us the time to produce the show twice a week with our TV Production classes.
The 2 TV classes had 4 periods each week to produce a 20-minute “Good Morning Staples” show. We worked frantically, but managed for each class to get a show out each week.
The first “Good Morning Staples” show (including yours truly) …
Jim’s motto for the show was “Building Community Through Communication.” Twice a week during the school’s “Communication Time,” it was shown throughout the school. Everything stopped, in every classroom.
Our last “GMS” aired June 2016, the year we retired.
Unfortunately, the show was not sustained. The media program is still very successful, but went in a different direction.
Years later English instructor Mary Elizabeth Fulco contacted Jim for help. Inklings — the school paper — was interested in broadcasting a show similar to “GMS.”
Both of us helped. We worked with one student, and made some suggestions.
We watched the shows get better and better as time went by. They were well on their way.
Mike Zito, in the Staples Media Lab.
It would be more than a shame for “On the Wreckord” to go the way of “GMS.”
“On the Wreckord” will be a key to many students’ future college and career paths. We have had incredibly talented students over the years grace our TV shows. Eric Gallanty, DJ Sixsmith and Cooper Boardman are 3 who come immediately to mind. They are now broadcast professionals.
Jon Karmen went on to make the hit Netflix movie “Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admission Scandal.” While at Staples, he and Jake Andrews created the RubyDog 189 channel on YouTube. “Mentos: The Fresh Maker” had over 3 million views.
Many other students have gone on to careers, in a variety of media roles.
We told our students that more video is being shot now than ever before in world history. There are many jobs and careers out there.
A 4-part “Good Morning Staples” series starred TV Production student Charlie Greenwald (right) and Spanish teacher Horacio Ballesteros. Greenwald went on to study communications at Emerson College.
I am sure Kasey Feeley will find her place in that world as well. Keeping “On the Wreckord” supported is not only the right thing to do; it is something that should be supported and expanded.
We implore the Staples administration and Board of Education to support the development of media programs like “On the Wreckord” and “Good Morning Staples.” These programs build school community, and allow students to develop media skills that they can continue into college and careers beyond.
(NOTE: All “Good Morning Staples” shows can be found on YouTube.)
(“06880” Opinion pages are open to all. Email 06880blog@gmail.com.)
I find it surprising that our arts programs are struggling for funding. Aren’t they the hallmark of Staples & Westport, alongside sports programs, of course. Where does the funding of the Auditorium electrical upgrade stand? Why do students have to spend their own (or their parents) money for essential equipment? Why doesn’t WWPT offer programming other than sports? Why isn’t the Finance Committee meeting more regularly.
As a Staples alum and former WWPT general manager, I appreciate the value of these programs and they are one reason I moved back to Westport. If the programs are in need, we should be hearing about it through the school, board, and committees, not through our students & alum.
Jim Honeycutt and Mike Zito have opened a much broader conversation than saving one incredible program. As innovative and tireless teachers they understood and continue to bring to us an appreciation and understanding of of what is the foundation of a great school experience. Discipline, collaboration, creativity, allow opportunities for great individual progress but serve to develop better more involved citizens of any community.
Traditional academics fails students who are not given opportunities to use the bedrock learning of any school mission.
To see us even questioning the need for an innovative program such as On the Wreckord or GMS is alarming in this era of the lack of meaningful connections that technology has fostered.
We need to take a step back and ask ourselves what how we keep our students connected to each is by factoids or experiences that connect the academics.
Thanks to Jim Honeycutt and Mike Zito, as always. It’s true that many students eventually follow career paths in media (probably more than go into pro sports, though I have no info to back that up). But as Ms. Lefkowitz points out, the value of these programs extends beyond the specific skills they enable a large range of students to develop. How short-sighted to deprive students and the community of all they contribute.
Watching my acting in the Good Morning Staples video above made me as red as a beet, but thankfully that ill-fated venture into acting is in the distant past. But you know what shouldn’t be in the distant past? On the Wreckord! Thanks to Mike Zito and Jim Honeycutt — two absolutely beloved teachers in their day, who dedicated so much time to their students and who taught invaluable skills of video editing, public speaking and newsgathering in a video-first world — for speaking up about this, and to the obvious go-getting superstar Kasey Feeley for her initiative and courage. Staples is one of the best public schools in the world because people have the ability to fall into any number of programs that will nourish their interests. Yes, robotics and mathematics are important, but so are poetry, journalism and multimedia content creation. There are a lot of jobs out there that need kids like Kasey; hopefully Staples can continue to produce them.