Video announcements are a major source of information for students of FUHS. For junior ASB member Caitlin Williamson, the video announcements play a huge role in her membership, as she edits, films and puts together the videos that are to be presented to all students on campus.

Each week, Williamson works for three days—during and after school—compiling news from organizations all over school to get the word out about the campus going-ons.

“The video announcements are a major part of ASB because we wanted a way to really get info out to the school because we know that people either don’t listen to regular announcements or are more visual learners,” Williamson said.

“They get people more excited for events, in my opinion, and they help us get info out to those who watch them. It’s under the publicity and communications commissioner job that we inform the students and video announcements are a huge source of that.”

According to a poll posted on the Tribe Tribune site, of the 167 that voted, 36 students claim to watch video announcements “sometimes,” and 20 claim to have “never” seen video announcements.

Clearly, we have a problem.

“We watched them sometimes at the beginning of the year and then we kind of just stopped. Now we never really watch them,” said junior Emily Thompson.

Thompson, and many others, are disappointed in their teacher’s failure to show video announcements, feeling as though they are missing out on important information.

“I’ve probably watched video announcements twice this whole year,” junior Julianna Enders said. “My teacher always says that we’ll watch them if we have time, but we never end up having enough time to watch them; which really sucks, because I like video announcements.”

Time seems to be a major hindrance for teachers who feel they are unable to show video announcements. However, fourth period has an extra five minutes, compared other class periods, specifically allocated for announcements; making the claim that “there’s not enough time” is invalid.

“[ASB] has gotten complaints about students ‘not knowing’ information about events but most, if not all, complaints could be resolved by listening to or watching video announcements,” said Williamson. “It’s hard to inform students if teachers don’t show video announcements. I think it’s really important that teachers show them in order for students to be aware of things going on around campus and to get students excited and involved.”