Melissa Wantz

 “We the Students: Building Community Through Digital Journalism” is Wantz’s winning project that will help build upon the award-winning Foothill Technology High School newspaper, The Foothill Dragon Press. With the help of ING grant funds, Wantz will take the newest digital tools and have her high school students teach the middle school students how to video, photograph, research, write and publish their stories. More than 10 Middle School Opportunity students who are being relocated to the high school next year will benefit from the project as well as the participating Dragon Press journalism mentors who will reinforce their own learning by teaching them how to create their own online newspaper. These “at risk” students, working with powerful digital tools, will have a chance to make their voices heard and build an online community that doesn’t exist yet. That’s just the first step. Next, the Dragon Press journalists will expand the program into neighborhood middle schools to build journalism clubs throughout the city. Wantz lives in Ventura.