South Brunswick District’s Media Literacy Program Makes National News

SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ — Earlier this year, South Brunswick School District began its media literacy program for students.

The program teaches high school students how to identify media bias and spot misinformation.

The commendable job by the school staff caught the attention of a national news channel. The high school was recently featured on CNN which highlighted how the class operates and what it teaches students.

History teacher Jeff Johnson and librarian Lisa Manganello were featured in the segment, explaining the district’s program.

During Thursday’s Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Scott Feder praised the staff for spearheading the program.

“That's a great honor for one of the main national news media to come to South Brunswick. It's not even the first time that that's happening. Earlier this year, we had another station come out to film this,” Feder said.

“So, kudos to Jeff Johnson and Lisa Manganello.”

Back in January, New Jersey became the first state to require K-12 students to learn how information is produced and spread, critical thinking skills, differentiating between facts and opinions and spotting misinformation.

This was followed by Delaware and Texas and soon California schools will be implementing a similar program.

“New Jersey is ahead of the curve on information literacy,” Feder said.

SBSD’s program builds on the NJ legislation that allows students to locate, evaluate, and effectively use the needed information.

In the CNN video Manganello talks about how students get their information off of social media, but thanks to the media literacy class, the teens are better at information gathering than their parents or grandparents.

To watch the entire video, click here.

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