A student documentary on Secaucus resident and Assemblyman Vincent Prieto will air on Cablevision at the end of the school year.
Cablevision recently kicked off its “Student Lens” program by giving money to a few schools to participate. East Side High School in Newark taped a session with U.S. Sen and former Newark Mayor Cory Booker. Then they gave $1,000 to Memorial High School in West New York to participate. Memorial chose to profile Prieto.
“We’re interested in future media broadcast professionals,” said Jen Ostrager, vice president of public affairs at Cablevision. “And this is a perfect pairing. We use our TV professionals to mentor kids. We work closely with Assemblyman Prieto’s office and they were very excited by the idea and eager to participate.”
Prieto said in a press release, “Projects such as ‘Student Lens’ help young people better understand the workings of the government and the multiple responsibilities of an elected official. It was a pleasure to interact and speak with each of the students involved in the taping of the video. Their questions were timely and perceptive and their commitment to bringing an accurate insider’s view of what it means to serve the public was evident.”
The students got a whirlwind tour of the State House, capped by an interview with Prieto, who is the Assembly speaker and also serves as a construction code official in Secaucus.

Memorial High School and Cablevision

“Memorial High School has a pretty extensive media program,” said Alix Polynice, media coordinator specialist at Memorial High School. “We have a program with about 200 kids this year. We have a TV studio in the building and portable studio we take to events. We record any talent shows or plays in the school.”
The relationship with Cablevision goes back three or four years, according to Polynice, who teaches an independent study class called Project Media. “We have a show that airs on public access on Cablevision called Tiger TV. We pre-tape it and submit it to Cablevision. It’s a magazine format type program. Students create video projects covering events in school. They also create artistic short films.”