Arts, Media, and Entertainment Magnet

Student Handbook

Signature Checklist:

  • Student Code of Integrity (page 9)
  • Program Service Requirement Completion (page 11)
  • Student Code of Ethics (page 12)

Table of Contents

  1. Program Rationale
  1. Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Educational Philosophy, Learning Outcomes
  1. Parent Engagement and Involvement
  1. AMEM Program Guidelines
  1. Appendices

1. Program Rationale.

The target content area for an Arts, Media, and Entertainment Magnet was selected because California, as a state, offers the most opportunities for employment and training than any other state in the U.S. for this proposed program. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics, California is listed as the following in comparison to other states under the category of Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations: has the highest employment level citing employment of 290,000, is ranked 3rd for having the highest concentration of jobs and location quotients in this occupation, and is ranked 3rd for top paying States for this occupation.

The statistics provided from the Bureau of Labor Statistics demonstrate a clear demand for employment for jobs directly related to the Arts, Media, and Entertainment pathway in both the state of California, and the L.A. metropolitan region of which the program will be located. The stated employment numbers for specific job occupations as listed above, demonstrate a demand for job occupations directly connected to the Arts, Media, and Entertainment pathway. As the statistical data demonstrates that the L.A. metropolitan region offers the most job opportunities in the state of California, there is clearly a strong connection between opportunity and education in this field, confirming a need for an Arts, Media, and Entertainment pathway.

This proposed Arts, Media, and Entertainment pathway will enable participating students the opportunity to gain experience within the Journalism and Film industry through such electives as Communication By Design, Media Communication, Documentary Studies, and Film Production as a means to develop “hands on” skills to translate into a career within the Entertainment industry or further college education. Students will have the choice between two specific career pathways: Design, Visual and Media Arts Pathway (video production of documentaries), and the Production andManagerial Pathway (broadcast journalism and live entertainment production). The program is unique in its focus on project- based curriculum within the proposed Arts, Media, and Entertainment pathways, but also in the culminating senior project requiring a senior portfolio that will be reviewed by a committee consisting of staff, parent, and community members. This senior portfolio will be a culmination of each student’s growth and personal experience within the program, showcasing each student’s talent and specialty, along with a specialized film production internship. These portfolios will be utilized to support each student’s future course into a career or college/university of his or her choice as well as speak to each student’s ‘real world’ career experience through a simultaneous work-based curriculum.

2. Vision Statement, Mission Statement, Educational Philosophy, Learning Outcomes

Vision Statement:

The Arts, Media and Entertainment Magnet (AMEM) empowers students to merge artistic imagination with technical skills to express their passions through media production, fostering an active, student-centered learning community.

Mission Statement.

The Arts, Media and Entertainment Magnet (AMEM):

  • Serves its community through project-based curriculum working with professionals in the Media and Entertainment industry through the Design, Visual and Media Arts Pathway and the Production and Managerial Pathway.
  • Provides broad in-depth academic and technical preparation allowing students opportunities for on-site job shadowing, work-based learning, live-concert production, and internships.
  • Creates real world projects involving multimedia presentations, film and documentary production, media broadcast journalism, and professional portfolios.
  • Shares within the larger community forum to produce their completed artistic works and projects, fostering growth through performance and professional review.

Educational Philosophy.

The 21st century is developing into a knowledge economy with growing inequality. As of October 29th, 2014, a broad-based group of organizations through the P21 Framework released “A New Social Compact for American Education” which focuses on student-centered learning with a solid writing base whereby students demonstrating accountability for their learning on a web-based portfolio. We stand at the 60th anniversary of Brown V. Board of Education, and the Arts, Media, and Entertainment Academy centers on the belief that all students can learn; therefore, it is our duty to advance meaningful learning that centers on the use of technology to aid students in a writing-based curriculum that allows for critical analysis, problem solving, and applying knowledge towards the proficiency of our career pathways through design, visual, and media arts (the online news magazine, video production of documentaries), and managerial production (broadcast journalism, live entertainment production). As the statistical data demonstrates that the L.A. metropolitan region offers the most job opportunities in the state of California, there is clearly a strong connection between opportunity and education in this field, confirming a need for an Arts, Media, and Entertainment pathway.

Our students live, work, and play within the region of the entertainment industry. Reseda High School already offers electives focused on skill sets such as drama, choreography, and musical performances. The uniqueness of our magnet introduces a wider range of skill sets that encompass the broader range of entertainment- writing for the public, production, design, along with creating and exploring communication through online venues and video documentaries. Most marketable jobs in the entertainment industry are performed “behind” the camera- and through our core curriculum centered on diversity and global awareness, along with providing 21st century sills that embed both literacy and technology through staff and entertainment partnerships, students will diversify their initial skill sets into developing extensive portfolios over the course of a 4- year cohort, allowing for a wide range of work to be evaluated and used for college or career readiness.

Our magnet promotes desegregation through its multifaceted elective courses open to any student in the greater Los Angeles school district. Students who favor performing arts, both in front of and behind the audience, will find their interests developed though diverse opportunities such as studying film in all its art forms, participating in Hollywood play productions, or analyzing the Latino legacy in Hollywood filmmaking. This magnet improves student academic achievement for all students by centering on three crucial areas: meaningful learning, adequate resources and educators’ professional capacity. We as teachers are accountable for offering rigorous training in the arts and core subjects, as well as taking advisory roles regarding technology and ethics in media. The students are accountable to enter school with an open mind, enabling them to flourish in a student-centered environment where they drive the inquiry process for extended learning.

AMEM Pathway Learning Outcomes

“Learning the skills and knowledge for creating, refining, and sharing work in the Arts, Media, and Entertainment industry sector promotes teamwork, communication, creative thinking, and decision-making abilities—traits that are necessary to function successfully in the competitive and media-rich twenty-first century. Through the manipulation of sight, sound, and motion, those choosing a pathway from this sector reach out in unique ways to enhance the quality of life for those around them” (CTE Arts, Media, and Entertainment Standards).

When students graduate from the AMEM program students will have:

  1. Integrated multiple sources of career information from diverse formats to make informed career decisions, solve problems, and manage personal career plans.
  2. Investigated, researched, and produced projects and services using existing and emerging technology, accurately employing industry terminology and protocols at the career and college readiness level for communicating effectively in oral, written, and multimedia formats
  3. Conducted short and more sustained research to create alternative solutions to answer a question or solve a problem, using critical and creative thinking, logical reasoning, analysis, inquiry, and problem-solving techniques.
  4. Demonstrated health and safety procedures specific to the Arts, Media and Entertainment domain and sector workplace environment.
  5. Initiated, and participated in, a range of collaborations demonstrating behaviors that reflect personal and professional responsibility, flexibility, and respect within a workplace, educational, and community environment.
  6. Practiced professional, ethical, and legal behavior, responding thoughtfully to diverse perspectives and resolving contradictions when possible, consistent with laws, regulations, and organizational norms.
  7. Worked with peers to promote divergent and creative perspectives, effective leadership, group dynamics, team and individual decision making, benefits of workforce diversity, and conflict resolution.
  8. Created and conducted a student-directed inquiry project through research to respond to a problem or sophisticated question.
  9. Contributed toward their community through a project that delved into research, community involvement, and benefited the community at large.
  10. Constructed and created an artistic work through creative expression and innovation that contributes to the artistic discipline and cultural traditions in a new and innovative way.

*Adopted from the CTE Arts, Media and Entertainment Standards

3. Parent Engagement and Involvement.

The Arts, Media and Entertainment Magnet’s vision is to gain parental perspective on curriculum, budget concerns, and cooperative practices in the classroom. Mester meetings for parents would center on parent’s engagement with the magnet measuring the spectrum of our educational program, from classroom observations and feedback to constructing a panel for portfolio assessment- the web-based student-produced evaluation reflecting their four years of education. At present, these are the top constructs for parent engagement and involvement:

  • Cooperative learning, thematic planning in the classroom (best practices): parents able to observe teaching, offer feedback, support
  • Learner concerns: SPED, ELD, different modalities, student-centered classroom: parents discuss their children’s needs, offer feedback on group work effectiveness v. individual efforts, ongoing discussion of theory and practice regarding multiple modality-driven accessibility to curriculum
  • Budget issues: technology needs as the magnet grows
  • Community partnerships: expertise within the community
  • Portfolio as a graduation requirement: parent feedback/assessment as to rigor/rubric construct; parents as panel for portfolio completion
  1. AMEM Program Guidelines

The Arts, Media, Entertainment Magnet follows the Los Angeles Unified School District’s voluntary, court-ordered integration program which attempts to ameliorate the five harms of racial isolation:

  • Low academic achievement
  • Low self-esteem
  • Lack of access to post-secondary opportunities
  • Interracial hostility and intolerance
  • Overcrowded school conditions

To end these harms, Reseda High School’s AMEM Program provides a highly structured, yet nurturing educational environment that meets the needs of each and every student by providing them:

  • The support needed to be academically successful
  • The nurturing needed to promote self-confidence and acceptance
  • The curriculum needed to teach tolerance for diversity through global awareness
  • The guidance and exposure to post-secondary opportunities needed to ensure students have a plethora of college and career choices
  • Lower class size (whenever possible) to ensure personalized instruction

Magnet programs agree to adhere to the following Integration mandates:

  • Establish a program specific mission & vision that permeates throughout the program
  • Adhere to students’ class size norms, magnet teacher selection process, & number of preparation period required for magnet teachers, the number of magnet classes (with a minimum of 75% purity).
  • Create a thematic curriculum that promotes college and career readiness, with the career portion specific to AMEM.

5. Appendices

Reseda High School

AMEM Program

18230 KITTRIDGE STREET, RESEDA, CA 91335

TELEPHONE (818) 758-3600 Fax (818) 776-0452

Student Code of Integrity

Reseda High’s Arts, Media, and Entertainment Magnet has adopted the following code of Academic Integrity and all students are expected to adhere to its letter and spirit:

Reseda High’s AME Magnet, united in a spirit of mutual trust and fellowship, mindful of the values of a true education and the challenges posed by the world, agree to accept the responsibilities for honorable behavior in all academic activities, to assist one another in maintaining and promoting personal integrity, and to follow the principles and procedure in this Code of Academic Integrity.

Violation of the Code of Academic Integrity may take several forms. Cheating of any kind is obviously a violation of the Code, whether a student is cheating for him or herself, is working in groups on an individual assignment, or is helping another student cheat.

In addition, plagiarism is a violation of the Code. Any of the following, without full acknowledgement of the debt to the original source, counts as plagiarism:

  • Direct duplication, by copying (or allowing to be copied) another’s work, whether from a book, article, web site, another student’s assignment, etc., without proper citation or notification.
  • Duplication in any manner of another’s work during an exam.
  • Paraphrasing of another’s work closely, with minor changes but with the essential meaning, form and/or progression of ideas maintained.
  • Piecing together sections of the work of others into a new whole.
  • Submitting one’s own work which has already been submitted for assessment purposes in another subject.
  • Producing an assignment in conjunction with other people (e.g. another student, a parent, a tutor) which is expected to be your own independent work.

For examples of acceptable and unacceptable uses of sources in writing, visit the following websites: or lib/flashpresents/text plag.htm

Note: Students are responsible for clarifying expectations and following the Code with respect to all assignments and in all disciplines.

Consequences for Violation of the Code of Academic Integrity:

First Offense:

  • A fail on the assignment or 5% of course grade (whichever is greater)
  • A double “U” in the class
  • A 500 word essay on why cheating is wrong (due the next day of issuance)
  • Probation from all activities for ten weeks
  • Parent call home (by witnessing teacher)

Second Offense:

  • A fail on the assignment or 5% of course grade (whichever is greater)
  • A double “U” in the class
  • A 1000 word essay on the definition of personal integrity (due the next day of issuance)
  • Probation from all activities for a semester
  • A formal parent conference with coordinator, counselor, administrator and police officer
  • In-school suspension (plant management detail)

Third Offense:

*Varies from failure of the course to removal from the program.

“I have read over and reviewed the Student Code of Integrity Policy with my son/daughter, and understand the consequences involved with such integrity issues.”

Parent Name______Date______

Parent Signature______Date______

Student Name______Date______

Student Signature______Date ______

RESEDA HIGH SCHOOL AMEM PROGRAM SERVICE REQUIREMENTS

Each student enrolled in the AME Magnet at Reseda High School needs to complete a community service requirement. The community service requirement is part of your child’s permanent record here and is necessary for graduation and the prestigious graduation medallion.

MISSION STATEMENT: Community service provides character development, personal growth, and helps students recognize their connection to the community at large.

Service hours are also highly beneficial as a component in student portfolios that are evaluated for post-secondary education. Universities and scholarship organizations regard community service as an essential portion of a student’s experience.

The following guidelines may help you in completing the requirements

  • Each student in the program must have a minimum of 25 hours completed for each year a student is enrolled in the program.
  • Students may be compiling hours in May for the following year. Each year, all hours are due on May 1st.
  • Hours are turned in on your service sheet to the Magnet Office.
  • A verification letter must accompany service hours done for a non-school sponsored activity on organization letterhead.
  • Students and parents are to keep a record of service hours completed. If there is a discrepancy, you will need the service sheet. Make photocopies of your service hour sheets.

Hours may be earned for the following types of activities:

  • Service hours are to benefit the community in some way. Service hours are NOT earned when pay is received for the same job or when the service is part of the work in an academic course. (See below)
  • Up to five service hours are earned per year for participation in the following school activities or courses. Hours must be approved and signed off by sponsor. Number of hours earned are at the discretion of the sponsor.

•RHS sports teams

•Spirit Squads

•Performing arts, stage crew

•Leadership

•Yearbook, journalism

•Club Office (Club meetings do not count)

  • Service projects conducted by other service clubs. (Key Club, BSU, Debate Club, etc.)
  • One-on-one tutoring. Peer tutoring, magnet mentor programs (overseen by a teacher)
  • Involvement in community or civic projects
  • AMEM events
  • AMEM service projects
  • AMEM leadership

CERTIFICATION OF PARTICIPATION

Students need to be signed off by an authorized representative on the day of the event or within one week of the event. The event sponsor is not required to keep records for these activities. A verification letter, printed on organizational letterhead, MUST be attached to this service hour sheet if any non-school sponsored service project is completed. These letters are excellent letters of recommendation for your portfolio, your college applications, or your scholarship requests. These records need to be kept in a safe place with your important papers.