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This report outlined considerations to implement the reception or distribution of Instructional Television programs in the Newark, Ohio City School District.

Newark Public Schools
Department of Instruction

Audio-Visual Services
February 5,1959


FROM: R. G. Powell, Audio-Visual Services


THROUGH: Forest Moran, Director of Instruction


THROUGH: Thomas B. Southard, Superintendent of Schools


TO: Officers and Members, Newark Board of Education


SUBJECT: Educational Television Status Report


PURPOSE:

The purpose of this report is to report on the progress of research that has been undertaken by various members of the staff of the Newark Public Schools concerning the possible applications and potentials that educational television offers to the Newark Public Schools.


(Note: Parts of the above listed document will be here excerpted to provide a sense of the scope of the original plan for television utilization in the Newark Public Schools.
The entire document contains eighteen (18) pages, including estimated construction and operating costs.)




(Excerpt)


THE NEWARK PLAN:


After much discussion and planning, a workable system for Newark has taken form. The basic plan has been reviewed by many persons associated with education and the telecasting industry and has gone through many revisions. It is presented here in the phases that we see it developing.


PHASE I: A building, perhaps of geodesic design, would be constructed on the high school campus to house the television facilities. It is believed that the building, itself, could be constructed in such a way as to make it unique to television application to school systems. Equipment would be purchased to allow us to connect to the co-axial cable system that is being installed in the three little schools, the science building, and the Hub,to distribute films, film-strips, slides, audio signals only, and live programs. At the same time, the persons assigned to the staff could be working with the studio equipment in preparation to presenting certain parts of our curriculum to classes throughout the school system


PHASE II: Co-axial cable would connect the television center with every school in the city, enabling each school to to receive as many as twelve different programs at one time.
.

PHASE III: Since the initial purchase of equipment would be along broadcast quality lines,this same equipment could be used for open-circuit telecasting. A transmitter would be purchased and an antenna erected, and certain programs would be transmitted to the public living within a certain radius of the center.


(End excerpt)


(Ed. NOTES: - A new campus-style high school was under design and/or construction at the time of the publication of this document in1959. The reference to the "three little schools" was the working designator for Newark High Buildings later known as 'C' 'D' and 'E' buildings.

Much of the 1959 'Newark Plan' was in fact accomplished, although in reverse order: (a) A television broadcast station was built on Horn's Hill, remote from the Newark High School campus, and operated from March 18, 1963 through June 30, 1976 (See Phase III above) (b) Co-axial cable (CATV) connected the television center with every school in the city of Newark (Phase II.) (c) It may be of interest to note that, by 1990, many other parts of the system proposed as Phase I in 1959 did in fact exist!


(1) - The TV Center was located in 'D' Building on the Newark High School Campus.

(2) - Live programs were broadcast from the TV Center's studio, not only to the High School Campus, but to the entire Newark School System, and the community at large, via the community-wide CATV system, on CATV Channel 19.
(3) - The TV Center staff scheduled, and distributed upon demand, video programs made possible through a State of Ohio network. The Newark Public Schools were a charter member of the Central Ohio ETV Foundation, a consortium that provided Instructional Television (ITV) programs from national sources.

(4) - The daily school announcements were provided to all teaching stations at Newark High School via television receivers in each classroom, and also by audio over the campus-wide Public Address system.
(5 - Audio only signals could be directed to selected buildings and classrooms, providing students with radio broadcasting experience.

(6) - Pick-up points throughout the high school campus also enabled and were used for telecasting from the Performing Arts Center (NHS Auditorium), the Jim Allen Gymnasium, and the new Library/classroom Building.
(7) - Several of the Elementary and Middle schools were operating their own closed circuit (CCTV) systems, in addition to the building-wide CATV distribution.

8) - Students and teachers in those buildings had received training in television production, telecast their own daily school announcements, and often participated in a weekly school report to the community (via CATV Channel 19) - Schools In Action.
(9 - The monthly Board of Education meetings were video-taped, and telecast to the community. Upon occasion, the Board meetings were aired "Live."

(10) - The TV Center utilized automation and other technology not envisioned in 1959 to maintain a full-time presence on the community-wide CATV channel 19, which included school announcements, program schedules, and telecasts of school activities.