Teaching ToThe Test Pattern: Jennifer Gaines from Statesboro (GA) high
Her ninth graders are coming in already comfortable on camera. They grew up on TikTok. They can hop in front of a lens, find the personality, and hit record without a second thought. The anchor desk doesn't intimidate them...It just isn't the only thing they want anymore.
Jennifer Gaines teaches AVTF at Statesboro High School, and by every reasonable measure, her program is working. Twelve episodes of SHS Spotlight this year. Eight live-streamed morning announcement shows. Students getting more confident, video quality climbing season over season. She could run the exact same playbook next year and nobody would blink.
She's not going to.
Next year, Statesboro is moving into short films. And here's the part worth paying attention to: Jennifer has never taught filmmaking. Her whole career has lived on the broadcast side. When I asked what she's doing to get ready, she talked about hunting for competitions and searching for curriculum, and then she said the quiet part out loud.
"It will be different for me. It'll be a change for me as well."
The Program You Built Can Become the Ceiling
You know how this goes. You spend years getting the show stable. The run of show works. The rotations work. The kids know their roles. And somewhere in there, without ever deciding to, you stop teaching what your students need and start teaching what your program does.
Those are not the same thing.
Jennifer noticed her incoming students wanted something her show wasn't built for. She could have ignored it... plenty do. The show is fine. The numbers are good. But "the show is fine" is exactly how a program goes stale while everyone is still smiling at the morning announcements.
This Isn't New for Her
Jennifer just finished LEAD CTAE, Georgia's year-long leadership development program for CTAE teachers and aspiring leaders. I went through it myself and I credit a lot of what I do now to that year. She applied because, in her words, she felt made for more beyond the classroom.
Same instinct, different scale. The teacher who raises her hand for a leadership cohort is the same teacher who looks at a successful broadcast program and asks, what's next.
And look at what happens to people who hold those instincts. I look back at my LEAD CTAE class and I see CTE directors, state staff, principals. The program didn't make them leaders. It found people already leaning forward and gave them room.
What It Costs
Being the rookie again is uncomfortable. Next year there will be a day when a student asks Jennifer a filmmaking question she can't answer, and she'll have to say "let's find out" in front of the whole room. That moment is the price.
It's also the lesson. Your students will learn more from watching you be a confident beginner than from watching you be a polished expert. They already know you can run the show you've run for years. Showing them how you attack something you don't know yet... that's the skill they'll actually need at twenty-five.
So here's your Monday morning move. Pick the thing your students keep asking about, the one your program doesn't do. Short films, podcasting, sports broadcasts, whatever it is. Find one competition in that lane and read the entry rules, start to finish. Don't commit to anything. Just read them.
That's how a program grows. Not with a five-year plan... with one teacher willing to be new at something again.
Meet the Author, Tom White
Tom White is the director of business development at Amitrace. Tom's role is to help educators build better programs through better training, planning, and equipment. Before joining Amitrace, Tom was the Broadcast Engineer at Grady College of Journalism and Communication at the University of Georgia. Prior to that role, Tom taught at Morgan County High School and Rockdale Career Academy where he and his student produced thousands of live streams for sports, news, and community events. Tom is a member of the SkillsUSA Georgia Board of Directors and also serves as a contest tech chair for SkillsUSA Alabama and Tennessee.
What does a marketing teacher in Gwinnett County know about broadcast education? More than you'd expect.
Tom sits down with Evan Rosenberry at Collins Hill High School — the first marketing teacher in Teaching to the Test Pattern history — and the conversation goes places. AI in the classroom, why banning it might be the worst thing you can do for your students, a student MLB franchise project that ended up in Seoul, Korea, and what happened when Evan handed his kids the VidPod and said "figure it out."