Students Creating Woodland Hills Documentary, Aim to Change Perceptions

Cheyenne Holyfield is working on a student-run documentary film to show Pittsburgh—and the world—the real side of .

“I am finding that a lot of teachers do take the time to listen to their students and help as much as they can,” the junior said. “They honestly care, which is a good thing.”

Through the “Hear Me!” project, an initiative that aims to amplify the voices of youth in the community through technology in the hopes of creating social change, Holyfield of North Braddock is teaming up with another student, Calvin Daye, who is from the same neighborhood.

“They come in, provide us with video cameras and laptops to do the project,” Holyfield said. “We started filming a couple weeks ago.”

The Hear Me! project is an initiative of  the Consortium for Public Education, Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE lab, The Western Pennsylvania Writing Project and the Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

The purpose of the Hear Me! Project is to empower students to have a voice in matters that affect their communities and schools. Twelve students from Woodland Hills have been working through “Hear Me!” all year.

While she’s behind the camera, Daye is interviewing students, faculty and members of the community to show the faces behind Woodland Hills, a district that faces regular struggles with its portrayal in local media.

“I think this will help,” Holyfield said. “We are not as violent as the news portrays us to be.”

Daye said so far, he enjoys the opportunity to listen to others as they share their own stories of the school district.

“I like that I get to ask questions and engage them in how they feel,” Daye said. “I like to see everyone’s opinions on how we can improve. We are trying to change it from a negative to a positive. We are always on the news for bad things but the majority of us are good.”

Daye hopes that the end result of the film will change Pittsburgh’s perception of what it means to come from Woodland Hills.

“I think by getting the perspective of the students, teachers and people in the community, we can give people outside of the district a whole other view of what actually goes on in the district,” Daye said.

Holyfield said she loves being a student at the high school and that Woodland Hills is a family tradition.

“To me, Woodland Hills is high-achieving in many more things than sports,” Holyfield said. “We get merit scholars and for me, it’s amazing school district.”

Daye said in the beginning, his focus on coming to Woodland Hills was all about being with his friends.

“Before I came here, my mom wanted me to go to a different school because of all the distractions she has heard about, but I argued to come here,” he said. “At first, I just wanted to go because all of my friends go here, but one of my older friends graduated and I wanted to stay because you get so many different experiences here.”

Woodland Hills teacher Lesley Krasman said Woodland Hills was asked by the Consortium for Public Education to take on the project. It will be completed in April and presented at a two-day conference.

Krasman agreed with the students and said this is a platform for Woodland Hills to reshape its image.

“I think we get so much negative feedback in the press—we always here the bad and never the good,” she said. “There’s so much good going on here and you always hear about the isolated incidents.”

She wants people to see the great students at Woodland Hills through this film, along with the positive message many of them both carry and received as a member of this community.

“This is a great place to get your education—it’s not an awful place a lot of people imagine it to be or rumor it to be,” she said. “I think if people stopped in, they would be amazed.”

When the film is completed, Krasman said she’d love to share it with local media, present it to the faculty, staff and also the school board.

As the moderator of the project, she said Daye and Holyfield are energized and working daily.

“It’s fantastic. They basically don’t even need me anymore,” she said with a laugh. “They’re totally self-sufficient and doing everything on their own.”