The EAST Communications team decided to create a group in the Spring of 2023 to begin in the 2023-24 school year. It was evident that there were hidden stories within the programs, so this team was responsible for telling these stories from inside the EAST classrooms. The first year of this program, they had six students writing short pieces every month for the newsletter and lengthier pieces every 9 weeks. Moving to the second year, new roles were added so the program would have increased interest in different areas. Now the program consists of four roles: Content Creators, Social Media, Designers, and Podcasters. Through all of these positions, each student contributor gets to express their creativity and stories authentically. The Contributor program has immensely grown in its short time, and it has helped many EAST students grow and improve in many different ways.

“It truly is amazing to share just a glimpse of someone's EAST journey.” -Hayden Taylor, Batesville High School Charter

The Content Creator team is the only team that is the same as it was in the starting year of student contributors. The content creators serve a very important role of actually sitting down with someone face to face and telling the stories from inside the classroom. This lets spectators and readers get to experience what EAST actually is in and outside of the classroom from the student/facilitator perspective. Hayden Taylor, a content creator serving his second year says, “I have been able to share numerous students' stories about how they’ve made a difference, which is undoubtedly the most rewarding part of the entire thing.” Through this experience, Hayden has got to advance his journalism and writing skills. “Before joining the EAST Student Contributor team, I was not very sure what I wanted to do in the future, but now that I have experienced the world of journalism, I have decided to go into journalism or some other related field for my future career.” This team has helped Hayden realize that his passion for journalism could become his forever job. He also learned how to keep an audience engaged while effectively telling stories from others’ perspectives. The content creator team gets to experience storytelling from a different perspective while also making their writings their own through style and creativity. 

“Social media is the future.” -Logan McKelvey, Hamburg High School

The social media team, as mentioned before, creates content for the EAST social media. This content consists of graphics and media that showcases events and/or people that need to be highlighted. Creating graphics is a big part of this role, and Logan McKelvey says she has learned a lot about graphic design, as well as, networking. Logan was selected as a contributor this year to be on the social media team. She is most proud of her work on canva and how her skills have developed. The software, Canva, gives multiple pre-made templates for almost any kind of work. Logan has demonstrated the ability to develop her work independently, without relying on templates, and she enjoys the opportunity to fully express her creativity by designing her work without templates. Through canva and other work, Logan has also had the opportunity to highlight a couple of programs, and looking forward to the rest of the year, Logan has set a goal for herself to highlight at least 5 more. This role on the student contributor team capitalizes on reaching all students through one of the most popular resources, social media. This team really has the potential to grasp a larger audience not only for EAST classrooms but also EAST as a whole. 

Design is “Empowered by EAST,” and EAST empowers design. 

The design team consists of two students, and they are in charge of design work that is used in the magazine and at EAST conference. Through this experience, one of the design team members, Joanna Wijaya, said she has seen significant growth in her design work. Joanna has gotten to further develop her skills on software she already knew, like Canva, while also getting to learn new software, like Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. These two new pieces of software are more in depth and tedious than Canva is, so they have encouraged growth in all of her design work. Although learning new skills and software has been a challenge, Joanna said this has been her favorite part of the student contributor job so far. She is looking forward to the work she will get to do in preparation for and at EAST Conference because the presentation of her work motivates her. “I felt really accomplished to see it first used and to see the progression throughout the creation of it,” Joanna says in regards to her Empowered by EAST logo that she considers to be her best work. The design team is unlike the other teams because they get to fully express their creativity and their own interpretation of what EAST is through their work. 

“When I get to hear my voice… I know that I do belong here.” -Ainsley Featherston, Dover High School 

The Podcast team, also, consists of two students, but instead of design, they plan and host their own podcast, called Empowered by EAST. Planning the podcasts usually consists of Ainsley and Gabby, the hosts, working together to figure out who they want to interview in EAST, and they brainstorm types of questions they can ask their interviewees. Through the podcast, Ainsley has learned how to make the podcasting environment more comfortable by growing her approachability. In the production of a podcast, it is usually going to be silent all around except for the singular conversation that is being recorded, so that can be intimidating and create forced answers. It is crucial, for podcasters, to keep things comfortable for themselves, those they are interviewing, and listeners. This is also a skill that Ainsley will be able to take beyond the podcast. Ainsley has enjoyed getting the opportunity to travel and meet many students, facilitators, and others in the EAST world and learn from them. Looking forward to the remainder of the year, Ainsley says she is most excited for the ending episode, “Gabby and I get a chance to have a solo episode where we talk one-on-one about how this season has gone and reflect on our growth.” She is also proud of the past episode she and Gabby got to do with Matt Dozier, the CEO of EAST, “it gave me a better outlook on everything that EAST is doing…and I can point anyone who doesn't know what EAST is to that episode and it explains it perfectly.” Through this podcast, Ainsley and Gabby are able to meet many new people and programs that really showcase what EAST is all about, and this team has brought so much to the student contributors.

Reflecting on the last year and a half of this program, Bradley, the Communications Coordinator at EAST, said, “We've discovered multiple stories that we'd have never known about if it wasn't for our Student Contributors, and our website, email newsletter, and magazine are filled with more student-created content than ever.” Bradley’s goals for this program are to make it something every EAST student would want to do while also shining a spotlight on schools’ who are not celebrated as often. Student Contributors’ jobs are to highlight those who are excelling or who maybe don’t get celebrated as they should, but the student contributor job has yet to be highlighted itself. All of these teams come together to give multiple types and styles of content that shows what EAST is and what goes on in EAST. Student Contributors work year long to tell the hidden stories within every EAST classroom. Although this is a fairly new program, there has been so much growth. This program, in itself, showcases how even less celebrated schools are still doing things just as big as the well known programs.