Each month of the 2023-24 school year, the Career and Technical Education department of Leander ISD will recognize a community partner that has made an exceptional impact on the district’s CTE students or programs. These partnerships are at the core of CTE’s mission to give students valuable, hands-on learning experiences with industry professionals.
Our September CTE Partner of the Month is KVUE-TV for their support of the broadcast program at Cedar Park High School. Over the summer, the station allowed four leadership members of the student-led “Wolfcast” team to spend a week shadowing staff and learning the latest trends in news production.
During their time at the station, students rotated between both behind the camera and on camera staff. CPHS News Sports Director and Junior Reese Elizondo joined KVUE Sports Reporter Tyler Fields on the scene as he covered a University of Texas Volleyball press conference.
“Trying to come up with questions on the spot was kind of nerve wracking because these were big name people who won a national championship last year,” Elizondo said. “But a soundbite from a question I asked ended up making it on KVUE sports report late in the week. It was so cool because this is something that I want to do in the future.”
Students didn’t just spend time in the news and sports departments. Brooklyn Collinsworth, senior and CPHS News Operations Manager, said her highlight was her time in weather with KVUE Chief Meteorologist Hunter Williams.
“My favorite memory was on the last day, going in front of the green screen with Hunter and learning the science part of their weather forecast,” Collinsworth said. “It was probably the most one-on-one experience I had at KVUE and one that I’ll remember for a long time.”
Cedar Park Broadcast Adviser Anthony Garcia said his student leaders’ time at KVUE helped spark new ideas for the high school students as they prepared for the return of their daily newscast, “The Wolfcast.”
“When we met right before school started you could tell they really took away so much because of new things they wanted to bring to our broadcast,” Garcia said. “Our assignment editor, Madi Cooper, came back excited over what she learned about finding better story angles and was ready to start a lesson to share with our entire team. It made my heart full to see how inspiring their time there was.”
While this is KVUE’s most recent investment in Leander CTE students, it’s worth noting donated their former set to the CPHS News team in 2018 where it has since been refurbished and used for the school’s daily broadcast.
Leander CTE is grateful to the KVUE staff who made this experience possible for our Audio/Video Production students.
