Jefferson Middle School Principal Katie Zwald informs the Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education about the school’s journalism club. P-J photo by Michael Zabrodsky

Students in Jefferson Middle School’s journalism club just don’t read the morning announcements.

They actively seek and report on the happenings at the school.

Club adviser Alex Moore recently gave a video presentation to the Jamestown Public Schools Board of Education. He told board members that the club began in November of 2024.

“And ever since then, I’ve been taking every opportunity I could to kind of, let’s try something new, or let’s make this a little bit better,” Moore said.

For this school year, Moore began earlier, and had students sign behavior contracts for the club.

“We shot our first intro, and we started adding on to it each week, something new, something interesting, to get it actually going full steam,” Moore said.

“Alex had this amazing idea to not just broadcast our (morning) announcements, but he had some really great ways that we can incorporate our students, and bring them into that morning announcement broadcast,” Principal Katie Zwald said.

Zwald said the students in the club help plan, help edit, and help with shooting of video.

“All of it happens for the very next school day,” Zwald added. “A lot of work goes into a very short amount of time. They (students) use their time before school, after school or any time during the school day to do this.”

In the video presentation General News Anchor Piper said the announcements are fun because students get to collaborate with other students.

“We keep everybody informed every single day, and we film during our supervisory period,” she said.

Piper’s co-anchor Sunnie agreed.

“We get a lot of work done, but we still have fun doing it,” Sunnie said.

The announcements provide students information about what is happening at their school including sports, news, meme of the week, and name that tune.

The school, located at 195 Martin Road, serves approximately 400 students in grades 5 through 8.