Stouthouse Media creates Award Winning Bulloch School District video on Diversity

February 15, 2019

Cultural Diversity can be a challenging topic for most adults, so Bulloch County Schools turned to kids to ask how they were different from each other and what diversity meant to them. Bulloch County Schools launched a Cultural Diversity Contest last April asking for students, from elementary to high school, to submit poems, essays, short stories, artwork, and videos as to what they believe makes them different from their peers.

Hayley Greene, Public Relations Marketing Specialist for Bulloch County Schools reached out to Stouthouse Media to capture the best responses on film and transform those responses into a six minute video. Mrs. Greene was impressed by videos Stouthouse produced for the Blue Mile and wanted to use someone locally, so she met with the team to give them an overview of the project.

Stouthouse owner, Jake Hallman, and videographer Jenni Kight, who both have children in Bulloch Co. Schools, took that vision and spent hours filming students at different schools across the district. “They were extremely patient and accommodating,” said Mrs. Greene. “They made the students feel at ease, which was crucial for getting good video and capturing off the cuff comments.”

According to Hallman, “The project was pretty intimidating at first – we were looking at multiple days of interviews, with lots of kids, in several locations. The Bulloch County School system has some amazing students, though who made it easy.” He added, “Working with Hailey and Allie was a dream. From planning to execution, they shepherded the project to success.”

The toughest part was narrowing down over 100 minutes of footage into the final six minute video. Greene stated that Stouthouse far exceeded expectations of the school board, superintendent and the staff. The video launched July 2018 and can be found on on the district’s website homepage or by clicking here.  

According to Phillip Tremble, the district’s Human Resources director, “This video is not the end of our work, but the beginning.”

The video received a Gold Award and a Best In Class Award from from the Georgia Public Relations Association’s annual media awards program. Judged by volunteers from the North Carolina School Public Relations Association, the video received a more than perfect score and multiple positive comments about how it addressed a difficult topic.

The video is part of a strategic objective of the school system’s 2020 plan to “Develop and implement a plan to attract, retain, and promote effective employees.” Part of that goal includes a strategic task to “Implement a diversity plan to attract and retain a more diverse group of qualified faculty and administrators.”

Bulloch County Schools serves children representing 24 different nationalities and speaking 18 different languages across its 15 campuses. Currently less than 20 percent of its faculty and less than 30 percent of its administrators represent Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, Black, Pacific Islander or multiple races. Minority candidates are more often than not choosing to work in more metropolitan areas, so the district is using the video to try to recruit more culturally diverse employees.

The video has also been used as an icebreaker for annual diversity training of faculty and staff. Children see things very differently than adults. Their answers by way of poetry, essays, visual arts, and video are helping invigorate conversations on the topic across the district.

The diversity video is being entered into a statewide School Human Resource Association competition as well as the National School Public Relations Association competition which will be announced this summer.

The school board plans to do more video, possibly using some of the footage that had to be cut. They’re also talking with Stouthouse about other completely different video options as well since they’re so happy with the work.

Congratulations to Stouthouse Media on their award-winning video.