Blair High School Students Create “No More” Public Service Announcements

Blair High School’s Career Tech Education (CTE) student Evan Harper models for a PSA project about Sexual Assault Awareness for April 2017. Photo by student: Amara Young.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) and students in Blair High School’s Career Technical Education (CTE) Photography, Film and Video classes are creating public service announcements (PSA) using photos and videos to educate their community of followers via social media about the epidemic of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Steve Solis, the CTE digital arts teacher facilitating the project at Blair High School, stated, “One of my goals for this project is to engage students to participate in a cause outside of themselves while educating them about the seriousness of sexual assaults among their peers.”

The students were instructed to emulate the NoMore.org campaign, which helps raise public awareness and engage bystanders in ending domestic violence and sexual assault. Mr. Solis’ photography students used the campaign as a template to create their own PSAs. Students were assigned to create a series of three photos to share via their Instagram or SnapChat Stories.

“As an activist, sending a message of empathy and raising societal consciousness is extremely important to me,” said Yale University-bound senior Deon Brown. “As an artist, I find ways to share this message in the best way possible. This project has given me the outlet to do so.”

Another student, senior Amara Young, who has not yet decided which college to attend, stated, “Through this project, I have learned about the stigma surrounding sexual assault and domestic violence victims. The No More Campaign has made it clear that we as a society should make the shift from blaming the victims to blaming the perpetrators.”

In his classes, Mr. Solis showed news clips and testimonies from sexual assault victims along with segments of “The Hunting Ground,”, a groundbreaking documentary about the epidemic of sexual assaults on American college campuses.

“Some of our seniors are headed to universities where sexual assault crimes may have been suppressed. I want to make sure my seniors, as prospective college students, do their homework about any safety concerns they may have about assaults on college campuses,” said Mr. Solis.

Mr. Solis’ digital arts students have been working on their public service announcements for the past two weeks. Their photos and short video spots are scheduled to be completed by Friday, April 14, 2017. Videos will be posted at Viking Vision Blair High School.

Blair High School, 1135 S. Euclid Avenue (temporary address), Pasadena, (626) 396-5820 or visit www.pusd.us/site/Default.aspx?PageID=55.

About Blair School

Blair High School is one of five high schools in the Pasadena Unified School District, which also consists of three middle schools and 24 elementary schools. In 40 plus years of existence, the school has maintained an unwavering commitment to providing students with a firm, wide-ranging academic foundation on which to build a successful future. The school serves 1,090 students in grades 6-12.

Blair is an International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme world school and hosts both the Middle Years Programme for 6-10th grades and the Diploma Programme for 11th and 12th grades. These provide the framework for an integrated and international philosophy that is supported by academic rigor and opportunities to explore and learn about the world outside their immediate community.

About Career Technical Education (CTE)

With over 70,000 registered educators, CTE Online is the California resource devoted to connecting educators and leaders within the unique field of Career and Technical Education to quality curriculum models, shared communities of practice, and professional development tools that emphasize the role that rigorous academic skills play in supporting students’ pursuit of industry and career-related coursework.