Documentary on digital divide premieres next week, featuring students and staff in Floyd Co. high schools and showing how schools help students who lack Internet access at home

Floyd County Chronicle, Prestonsburg, Sept. 22, 2017

Floyd staff, students to be highlighted in documentary
BY MARY MEADOWS

A documentary about the nation’s “digital divide” will highlight local students and staff next week. “Without a Net: The Digital Divide in America” is scheduled to air on Sept. 26 at 10 p.m. on Nat Geo, the National Geographic Channel.

The documentary, directed by Rory Kennedy and voiced by Jamie Foxx, was filmed last year, in part, at Betsy Layne High School, after the Floyd County Board of Education entered into an agreement to allow the filming on school property.

A spokesperson for the film company reported that it highlights Floyd Central High School teacher Christina Crase, and one of her former students at Betsy Layne High School, Elizabeth Hoffman, who now lives in Lexington. Belfry High School student Thomas Hager is also featured.

“The documentary highlights how many schools nationwide do not have access to computers and other electronic devices required to complete school work,” spokesperson Aditi Bhatkhande said in an email, pointing out that Kennedy chose to feature Eastern Kentucky to show how rural schools “have to fight against greater odds because of digital inequalities.”

Current and former officials at Betsy Layne High School were not aware of the release until they were contacted by the newspaper, and they voiced both excitement and worry about it.

“I always like to have exposure for our students, but it depends on how they do it,” Betsy Layne High School Principal Jody Roberts said. “You don’t want someone making fun or putting an unfair light on people, just because of where they are from.”

His concerns were also voiced by Floyd County Board of Education officials last year, when they approved the contract allowing the school district’s participation in the documentary.

When the board approved the contract, Sherry Robinson voiced concerns about whether the documentary would negatively highlight the school and said she was satisfied with the response she received when she asked whether administrators could view the fi lm prior to release.

Former Betsy Layne High School Principal Cassandra Akers said school district officials were concerned about how the documentary would portray Floyd County because film crew members asked to visit classrooms that were not using technology and they seemed surprised to learn that all classrooms were equipped.

“We were worried about it,” she said, also noting that Hoffman and her sisters who were highlighted in the film “weren’t in the best living situation” at that time, but were “wonderful kids” and bright students who excelled academically. The family moved to Lexington, she said.

The documentary preview shows Hoffman entering a mobile with others and an interview where she talks about how not having Internet at home creates stress for students who have to figure how they’ll get their homework done.

When Crase worked at Betsy Layne, she used a “flipped classroom” model, through which she recorded videos of herself teaching math courses, giving students the ability to download those videos while at school and refer to them, regardless of whether they have Internet, in the evenings at home. She is in the process of bringing that same program to Floyd Central.

She, too, is nervous about the documentary. “Honestly, it makes me nervous,” she said. “I didn’t expect that. I teach for the kids. That’s all I’m here for is for the students. I’m not here to get a big name and I’m not here for publicity.”

The contract approved by the board last year gives the company all rights to the film and photographs produced at the school. It notes that the school district or any affiliated party will not have any right of action against the fi lm company for issues that arise from the use of the materials, as long as the producer “takes all reasonable steps to ensure that the information presented is true and accurate.”

Floyd County Schools have ramped up its technology offerings over the past several years, updating classroom technologies, installing wireless capabilities in all classrooms, providing computers to all students in fifth through 12th grade, and creating a virtual library and a virtual arts program, among other advances.

Betsy Layne High School, for example, used grant funding from an app challenge students won last year to buy 3D printers that are now used at the school; and students there and at Prestonsburg High School have repeatedly earned honors in the app development contests. In May, 25 Prestonsburg High students became Certified Internet Webmaster coders.

The documentary is previewed online at digitaldivide.com.

That website reports that more than one million classrooms in America do not have access to Wi-Fi and half of America’s teachers are not trained to use technology in classrooms. It encourages visitors to help by visiting another site, weneedmore.com, hosted by Verizon Innovative Learning, where donations are being accepted to address the issue.

That company is pledging funds to help fix the national digital divide.