The WW-P school district prides itself on its cutting edge technology, yet unlike other districts school board meetings are neither broadcast live nor video recorded.
In the recent school board election all five WW-P Board of Education contested candidates were asked by the League of Women Voters whether board meetings should be televised or videotaped, and every candidate indicated that they generally supported the idea. Furthermore West Windsor candidates Richard Kaye and Yingchao (YZ) Zhang voluntarily voiced support for either idea in The News’ candidates forum. Outspoken resident and former board candidate Pete Weale has also campaigned for video recording for years.
Depending on production quality and whether meetings are broadcast or streamed live, the cost estimate for broadcasting or video recording ranges from several thousand dollars to more than $70,000. Despite those favorable circumstances the idea has not gained traction.
Board President Anthony Fleres offers his opinion (and the opposing argument): “This issue has been raised before, particularly when Hemant Marathe was the board president, and Victoria Kniewel was the superintendent, and no action was taken because, at that time, no one on the Board was interested in pursuing the idea. There haven’t really been too many members of the public who have raised this issue, at least that I am aware of, during the eight years that I have been on the Board. When it was raised, the idea was not ‘buried’ by the then-administration; there was just no interest on the part of the board members to videotape the meetings.”
“But times change,” continued Fleres, “and people change. As of January, there will be five members of the Board that were not on the Board a year ago. So I will discuss the issue with the new Board, and if the members of the new Board are interested in finding out how we would go about doing this, I will pursue it.”
“I personally am not in favor of the idea, because I believe it gives the public and Board members more of an opportunity to ‘play’ to the public; to generate sound bites for the camera rather than engaging in thoughtful discussions on the issues. We share the cable station with West Windsor and Plainsboro townships, and while West Windsor has decided to televise their Council meetings, Plainsboro does not televise their Committee meetings. Our Board meetings are pretty routine, so I am not sure there will be a huge benefit to videotaping them.”
Fleres noted that once the new Board takes over in January, their first order of business will be to draw up the annual budget, which needs to be completed by March, and that the Board will be focusing on the budget at its retreat. But he will raise the issue with the new Board to find out if they want to pursue the idea.
“If so, we will reach out to Princeton and other districts to research the logistics of the process, what meetings they choose to record, and what the costs involved would be. This would all need to be researched before we decided on anything. The last thing I want to do is decide to record the meetings and then not do it right.”
Although he expressed no opinion about whether the Board should record or televise their meetings, Jamie Watson, the district’s cable station manager, was able to provide insight into how the recording process works.
“There are three slices of the cable station pie that I provide. I provide service to West Windsor, Plainsboro, and the WW-P school district. I don’t exercise control over the content; I function as producer/director and provide technical services for all three. Plainsboro doesn’t broadcast live to air, whereas West Windsor wants everything broadcast live to air, and then rebroadcasts their meetings every day until the next Council meeting is broadcast.”
“So in terms of what would be required logistically and technologically to record the Board of Education meetings, I can provide a general idea, based on what is done at the West Windsor town council meetings. But this is general information only, because no one has ever approached me about putting together a proposal on how to record the Board meetings, and so I have never prepared one,” Watson cautioned.
“There are the three possible alternatives. The first and probably best option is to permanently install three remote cameras. This is the system that West Windsor utilizes. This option allows one camera person to utilize all three cameras to pan the room, zoom in and out, tilt, and to choose which camera at any moment will broadcast live on air. The cost of three high-definition cameras would be approximately $72,000. West Windsor currently has three standard definition cameras, which cost less, but those are no longer even being sold, and the cable companies will soon require all broadcasts to use high definition cameras, so it would only make sense to purchase them. However, this option is less labor-intensive,” Watson explained.
The second option, according to Watson, would be to purchase a portable remote-control three-camera system, which could also be operated by a single person, and could travel to various sites. “Either of these options would allow for simultaneous live broadcast as well as re-broadcasting,” he said.
Finally, the third option would be three cameras on site to film the meeting live. “This is more labor-intensive,” said Watson. “You could not do it with less than three people. While theoretically you could use interns, their schedules do not always align with the scheduling needs, so it would likely need to be three paid staff members.”
Live feed options would also require installing cabling from the site of the broadcast back to High School North or South in order to broadcast Board meetings on the cable channel. “This is because, using the West Windsor Town Council ‘live’ broadcast as an example, although the live broadcast originates in Council Room A, the point from which all shows are sent to Comcast and Verizon home viewers is from our technical point of origin at High School South. The location of the Board meetings would dictate from which high school the live broadcast would be sourced. Right now, they seem to alternate between Grover and Community. If this pattern were to continue, it would thus make cabling for live Board meetings doubly expensive,” he said.
Watson is well-versed in broadcast production. Originally from Philadelphia, he attended Temple University where he majored in TV and film production. He has functioned as motion picture editor on six IMAX films, two independent feature films, dozens of films for the medical community, and hundreds of TV commercials. He also produced and directed promotional films for the Delaware Symphony Orchestra and two documentaries about the American Boychoir School, which he also attended.
“I take my work seriously, and want my broadcasts and productions to be of professional-level quality,” he said.
“Of course, you could just have one guy in the back of the room holding a recorder on a tripod, like the Middlesex County Freeholders use to record their meetings, which is a lot cheaper, but this produces a very sub-standard broadcast,” added Watson, “and is not something I would feel comfortable producing. But, until someone from the district tells me what they are looking for, asks me to evaluate the options, and prepare a proposal, I can’t specify which option would be the best for the district’s purpose.”
The Princeton school district board of education does record its meetings. Executive Director of Princeton Community Television George McCullough speculated on how WW-P could potentially record its meetings more economically. McCullough estimates that recording a “no frills production” and uploading it to the broadcast server or Internet would have a starting cost under $5,000, not including labor. This includes a camera and tripod, computer, and editing software, as well as miscellaneous cable and computer equipment.
“It’s a couple of step process to get it done but it’s not a difficult one to broadcast live on TV,” says Kurt Zimmerman, an audio and video technician for the Princeton school district. He also suggested that properly filmed and recorded meetings can be uploaded for online streaming, for example on iTunes.
Zimmerman says there are fiber wires linking in the district schools linking back to the administration. The district broadcasts board meetings live and replays it three times a day. In addition Zimmerman says the district is looking to stream meetings online.
In a statement that reflects the rapid advances in technology, Zimmerman said that “we have a NewTek TriCaster. You plug cameras and sound into it, you can do your transitions, wipes, and graphics in there. That’s what we record the board meeting from.” He called it “a TV studio in a box.” The cost: Around $10,000.
