New Voices

 Hi everyone. Now that the New Voices bill has been referred to the Public Education Committee and April is around the corner, it's time to push for the bill to get a hearing. 

We've made two action pages to share with supporters that should make it easier to send email to members of the Texas House Public Education Committee to ask them to schedule the bill for a hearing. April will be a critical month for us to move the ball on New Voices in Texas. If we don't get a hearing and a vote, the bill will die, again. I know it's a long shot for it to happen, but we have to move the ball as far as we can before the clock runs out. Sorry for the cliché sports metaphor. I'll stop now, but you get the idea.

USE AND SHARE THIS ACTION FOR NON-STUDENT NEW VOICES SUPPORTERS

https://actionnetwork.org/.../demand-a-hearing-for-a-new...

AND PLEASE SHARE THIS LINK WITH STUDENTS TO HELP THEM SEND EMAILS TO THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS. 

Please encourage students to customize the template letter with their own experiences.

https://actionnetwork.org/.../demand-a-hearing-for-a-new...

More New Voices Information:

New Voices Day at the Capitol

David Doerr, our Legislative and Policy chair and New Voices Texas adviser, needs our help:

It’s time to let your voices be heard at the Texas Capitol in Austin to demand that lawmakers support a New Voices law in Texas! 

We are working on scheduling appointments with lawmakers on Monday, March 13 to allow supporters to speak directly to lawmakers and their staffers, especially those on the Texas Public Education Committee. We have assurances that a lawmaker will announce a New Voices bill this week ahead of the March 10 bill filing deadline. Once the bill is filed, it’s our job to put pressure on lawmakers to pass it.

In particular, lawmakers need to hear from students so they understand that there is demand for this type of legislation in Texas. They don’t often get young people to visit their offices so your talking with them in person will make a lasting impression. 

We realize that timing may be difficult for you to attend with this late notice, but we are hoping that many of you are on Spring Break and will be able to travel to Austin for this important effort. 

Our plan is to meet outside the Capitol at 9 a.m. to train attendees and help everyone learn how to navigate the Capitol complex and where lawmakers’ offices are located. After meeting appointments with various lawmakers, we plan to finish our meetings by 2 p.m. and finish up with a debriefing by 3 p.m.

For now, we need students, teachers, parents and other supporters to sign up on our Google Form so we know how many to expect and to help us set up appointments with the lawmakers that represent you in the Legislature in addition to members of the House Public Education Committee.

We will send out more details later this weekend, but for now you should know that there is a low-cost parking garage for Capitol visitors and that we will meet up at the African American monument near the southern edge of the Capitol complex. See this map to find the meet-up spot.

If you can come, we recommend that you buy a New Voices Texas t-shirt from Bonfire so you can make a visual statement while walking the halls of the Capitol. We will have some expenses to pay for our lobby efforts so please consider making a financial contribution to help us pay our bills. 

Thank you all for your continued support of New Voices Texas. See you at the Capitol!

You can find more information here and you can join the social media accounts that New Voices uses - Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

https://newvoicestx.com

Music industry opportunity

 For those of you who might be interested in working as a music industry journalist in the future, here is an opportunity for you:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sKT-9bX0hkWp-fYPLWyVHOiJt9qVl_Hv/view?usp=sharing

Two things for people to do - New Voices at the Capitol AND UIL journalism

New Voices Day at the Capitol

David Doerr, our Legislative and Policy chair and New Voices Texas adviser, needs our help:

It’s time to let your voices be heard at the Texas Capitol in Austin to demand that lawmakers support a New Voices law in Texas! 

We are working on scheduling appointments with lawmakers on Monday, March 13 to allow supporters to speak directly to lawmakers and their staffers, especially those on the Texas Public Education Committee. We have assurances that a lawmaker will announce a New Voices bill this week ahead of the March 10 bill filing deadline. Once the bill is filed, it’s our job to put pressure on lawmakers to pass it.

In particular, lawmakers need to hear from students so they understand that there is demand for this type of legislation in Texas. They don’t often get young people to visit their offices so your talking with them in person will make a lasting impression. 

We realize that timing may be difficult for you to attend with this late notice, but we are hoping that many of you are on Spring Break and will be able to travel to Austin for this important effort. 

Our plan is to meet outside the Capitol at 9 a.m. to train attendees and help everyone learn how to navigate the Capitol complex and where lawmakers’ offices are located. After meeting appointments with various lawmakers, we plan to finish our meetings by 2 p.m. and finish up with a debriefing by 3 p.m.

For now, we need students, teachers, parents and other supporters to sign up on our Google Form so we know how many to expect and to help us set up appointments with the lawmakers that represent you in the Legislature in addition to members of the House Public Education Committee.

We will send out more details later this weekend, but for now you should know that there is a low-cost parking garage for Capitol visitors and that we will meet up at the African American monument near the southern edge of the Capitol complex. See this map to find the meet-up spot.

If you can come, we recommend that you buy a New Voices Texas t-shirt from Bonfire so you can make a visual statement while walking the halls of the Capitol. We will have some expenses to pay for our lobby efforts so please consider making a financial contribution to help us pay our bills. 

Thank you all for your continued support of New Voices Texas. See you at the Capitol!

UIL

District tournament is Friday, March 24 at Johnson High School in Buda

Entries are due this Friday, March 10. We need 

Schedule for Friday, March 24

CONTESTS ARE IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS - you can compete in multiple and we will need 3 people per contest. I will provide some training to you before the end of the week so you are prepared. I need to fill each team. You will be cleared from school from my class on. You can drive yourself, and I will be there throughout the day. I can also provide transportation for those without a car, but you may have to go down early and stay for a bit. I will do my best to get people back and forth so you can be in some classes if you need to be.

Copy Editing - 1:30 pm (30 minute contest)
News Writing - 2:00 pm (1 hour contest)
Feature Writing - 3:00 pm (90 minute contest)
Editorial Writing - 4:30 pm (1 hour contest)
Headline Writing -5:30 pm (30 minute contest)

Natalie 2nd Runner-up for Texas Journalist of the Year - Let's Celebrate!!

Yesterday the Texas Association of Journalism Educators released that Bowie senior Natalie Cullen has been named 2^nd Runner-up Texas High School Journalist of the Year.

This was the first time the Dispatch had a student enter this highly competitive contest and for Natalie to finish 3^rd is awesome. It is an extremely brutal contest that requires a high standard of work across 12 distinct categories from design, photography, writing and multimedia, to law, ethics, news literacy, marketing and diversity. If she had won the competition, she would have represented the state at the Journalism Education Association National Journalist of the Year Competition.

To enter, Natalie had to create a website. It can be seen here: https://nataliecullenjoy.myportfolio.com/

Natalie has been an amazing Online Editor-in-Chief the past two years, and we will certainly miss her when she graduates this year. She is off to New York University where she will go into the Radio, Film and Television and Business school where she hopes to eventually double major. Please join me in congratulating her. 

This is the first of a number of major contests we have entered this year, so expect to hear more from me about Natalie and the rest of the Dispatch staff in the coming weeks and months.

Thank you,

Michael Reeves, MJE
James Bowie High School - Austin, Texas
Dispatch Media Adviser

Gmetrix is READY!!

 Setting up LearnKey Access for Certification Exam Prep for Photoshop

One important way to show you are ready to get a job in the creative industry is to pass a certification exam that shows your mastery level of industry-standard software. Currently, the state of Texas has approved the Adobe Certified Professional as a recognized exam that demonstrates your understanding of Adobe software.

You can choose which test you would like to take, InDesign, Photoshop or Illustrator.

To prepare you for these certification exams, we have purchased a curriculum called LearnKey that is designed to prepare you for these exams. This curriculum offers the following features:

• 5 different sections to study
• Pre-assessments for different sections
• Lessons on relevant issues working in the graphic design industry and terminology
• Video Lessons
• Guided Workbooks
• Follow-Along Files
• In-App Exercise Labs
• Post Assessments

We will be offering the certification exams in early May so we will set deadlines for you to complete these test prep modules throughout the spring semester.

Your first deadline to complete all parts of the Working in the Design Industry lessons will be Nov. 2.

Begin with the Domain 1 Pre-Assessment

I will announce deadlines for the rest of the modules later.

• Project Set-Up and Interface
• Organizing Documents
• Creating and Modifying Visual Elements
• Publishing Digital Media

How to Register for LearnKey Test Prep Access

To access the curriculum, go to GMetrix login page for students and register to create an account:

https://www.gmetrix.net/Public/Register.aspx

After you create your account:
Login and use the following Access Code to access the curriculum

Access Code: LKEY-93729-90934-Reeves

LKEY-74442-08104-Reevesa

Choose the option for Photoshop when you redeem the code

Open the course that you are interested in and start by taking the Pre-Assessment test.

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How to login to LeanKey if you Already Have an Account

If you have already registered for an account, use the link below to access the student login page.

https://www.gmetrix.net/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2F