Indie for Beginners

(Please visit www.indieprograms.org where longer explanations are available, especially our history)

What does Indie do?
Indie is an independent, not-for-profit educational organization, which collaborates with the public school system to offer classes for up to 120 high school students in our own facility, with our own staff.

What kind of kids does Indie work with?
We have two basic populations:
Students referred to us by the school and designated as ‘underachieving’ or ‘disengaged’ (community school);
Extremely gifted students who come to Indie on an Arts/Social studies elective (the Lab Class).

Is Indie a film school?
No. Indie uses new media (computers, graphics, video, internet) to enrich the curriculum and invite creative work in the electronic media, but our core is close relationship between staff and students and the ability to tailor our offer to the individual student.
Still, making films is one of the most visible activities of Indie, and the students’ films are very accomplished and win prizes in festivals.

When did Indie Start?
In 1998 at Woodstock day School as an experimental mentor program by Judy Upjohn
In 1999, she took the template to Barbara Ruben at Onteora and proposed self-financing a similar scheme for Onteora's most wanted. It started there with one small room at the school for 8 students. Next year a budget line was approved and about 50 kids were formed into classes. It was clear that being inside a high school structure was a large part of the problem these kids had and (being a philanthropist) Upjohn bought our current building.

What does Indie cost?
Indie and all Indie activities (classes, after-school, trips, extended learning and internships) are FREE to all students. Indie is committed to working with the public school system, offering its facilities to everyone, regardless of economic status.
Indie is financed by a patchwork contracts, sponsors, grants and fundraisers.

OK… what does Indie cost Onteora High School?
Onteora pays Indie (2007-08) $ 145,000 for a ten month contract.
(In 2006-07 this figure was $ 180,000.)
In addition, Onteora assigns an Onteora teacher to oversee our Lab Class at a cost of approx $16,000.
Our capacity is 120 students, though due to classes cut by Onteora we currently serve about 80 students.
Indie’s full annual cost is $300,000 of which Onteora’s contribution (ideally) represents approx 60%.
We believe the cost of one student following one course at Indie should be around $ 1,500 per year. (i.e. $180g / 120.)(Current under capacity raises this to around $ 2,200 at the moment)

What results does Indie get?
Indie works on three levels.
a) Almost without exception, students are happier at Indie than in a traditional school setting. This helps their mood and concentration and gives an overall improvement in behavior, attendance and grades.
b) We also directly teach English and Social Studies as credit bearing classes in our community school, which keeps the more difficult kids working together for a two or three hour block.
c) Lab Class is a college level filmmaking and film history course, which carries half credits in Art and Social Studies and mixes grades 9 through 12. All new media are taught to a high level (graphics; music software; web design; animation and video editing).

Our kids come to school more often, get into less trouble, and produce better work (higher grades) even in subjects Indie does not formally teach.
A student in danger of dropping out in 9th grade will stay through 11th.
Kids get their GEDs. A student settling for a GED is encouraged to actually graduate. Students who might barely graduate are encouraged and helped to get to college.

Who teaches at Indie?
Indie staff are professionals in areas of media. Currently we have one filmmaker/screenwriter; one professional cameraman/editor who is also a NY State certified Arts teacher; and our youngest member is a media graduate currently finishing her second degree on American History and Communication.
In addition, we network with film, music and art professionals locally who come in periodically to give short mentoring courses.

What does Indie do that a high school cannot?
Indie has a separate facility designed more like an office suite of college department than a high school building. We are carpeted, have soundproofed ceilings, smaller spaces, a cinema auditorium and edit rooms and no rigid division of ‘sitting behind desks’.
Indie is open and available from 8 a.m. till the end of the school day, then as independent (i.e. not financed by Onteora) after-school.
Indie staff also work many weekend workshops and film shoots and the facility is generally open 7 days a week as the end of term approaches so students can spend entire days here finishing their projects.



Why has Indie fallen out of favor with Onteora?
As long as Barbara Ruben was principal, the system worked fantastically, but the current school board disapproved of Barbara and 'her' program, so the last three years have been a constant struggle - we won each year so far, but no continuity has been possible.

I guess the overview is this: Indie evolves each year according to who the students are and which programs we give prove to work. There’s a constant feedback to make the courses better and fit the students' needs. What is not happening with the new admin is this dialogue. They see set classes and see they can cut some of them. We see groups of students whose needs can be met flexibly and in a changing manner. This isn't just rhetoric, it's actually the way we work.

If there's no Indie offered by Onteora, and disengaged or underachieving kids have to be sent to BOCES, what does it cost Onteora?
It is difficult as each kid and program is different
I have heard the cost of $ 18,000 per student in normal BOCES with much more for Special Ed.
Plus the cost of transportation over the year, which is around $5,000 per kid.
I.e. just the bus rides to BOCES cost twice as much as full tuition at Indie!
In 2006 Onteora to Indie was $ 180K while Onteora to BOCES was $ 2.9 million

I'm told Indie kids are out of control. They're seen smoking, hanging out, causing trouble, playing truant... They're not properly supervised. Please explain.
This I find most interesting.
A lot of teenagers hang out, smoke, run to the Chinese restaurant, play truant etc.; many of these are NOT Indie students and I personally ask all our students to be aware of the perception of Indie kids as 'trouble' and comport themselves as well as they can.
However, the general perception is this way.
The peculiar mindset works something like this:
School selects the most fractious and rebellious kids, who they do not want inside school for reasons of backchat, truancy, language, green hair, dress, piercings etc and sends them down to Indie.
The general school population then becomes a little bit more normalized, calm, malleable etc etc.
Then they look at (what are now) OUR kids and decide they do not like them, no not one little bit, so the very kids they selected to send us because of their superficial 'problems' now become seen as kids turned bad BY Indie.

Try as we may to show stats that we also have 50% AP kids doing wonderful work in film and festivals and as polite and personable as you'd like; and even when those bad kids start to behave better and better and get into college, the ultimate perception is INDIE BAD; High SCHOOL GOOD
Even better - ANY trouble that happens is blamed on Indie Kids: e.g. the recent spate of cat graffiti, which in fact began in the HS Art class with totally non-indie students.

How comes the District says it wants to "bring Indie back into the High School?" Was it originally in the High School?
Yes and no. Yes, briefly with only a few students, but we took it out of the school because it didn’t work effectively.
Plus, it has not been stated clearly enough that Indie (i.e. myself and current staff) will not work under the conditions proposed, and the Indie program will not consult or help plan unless the real offer has some sense for the kids.
Plus 'Indie' is a TM and Onteora will be sued if they try to use it for Indie related classes that don't involve Indie.

Is it true that the School District has to pay for a staff member to walk the children over and back every day? Is this a good reason to bring Indie back into the high school?
This is a good question. It never used to be true (for 7 years) but the last two years it's been cited as a legal responsibility for an Onteora staff member to supervise every single class.
As Lab Classes do not have an Onteora co-teacher (all others do) this means a teacher must be assigned. By now it's become a sort of punishment detail for very reluctant and hostile staff.

It's never been explained to me why our kids need the walk down supervision while the cross-country team, which RUNS along and across Route 28, does NOT need supervision.

There's been a haggle over this teacher salary for the past three years.
My experience working with other school districts (e.g. Catskill) is that the legal side of this is nonsense. We have disclaimers; we have three or four staff of our own who meet all criteria and we have ample accident insurance.

But it's a way of chipping off another $ 16,000.

What is the future of Indie?
Good question…