April van Buren, MJE & NBCT

April van Buren is a Business & Media teacher at Madison East High School in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the adviser of Tower Tales yearbook, Tower TV monthly TV program, Tower Times online news site.

What is your approach to recruiting students for your journalism program?

I do several things:

• At the end of every semester, I ask my current students to give me the names of 2-5 students who will be in 9-12 the following year that they would recommend to take the course (students they think would like it and/or who would be really good at it).

• I reach out to the guidance counselors and the sponsors for several affinity groups at my school (BSU, United Asians Club, Sisterhood, Raza United, the GSA, Gender Equity Club and student government) for recommendations.

• Just before they have to choose their classes for the following school year, I email everyone they've recommended (BCC) and tell them that they've been recommended and I encourage them to sign up for the class.

• I personally encourage specific students to sign up.

• If I still need to fill spots in my advanced classes at the start of the semester/year, I look up the study hall rosters for the periods I need to fill. If there are potential recruits in the bunch, I send them a personal email and CC their parents, saying they've been recommended to join an elite crew of... (name of program/publication).

• I have a newspaper and photography club that meets weekly at lunch. Even if they do nothing more than play around with DSLRs every week, a good number of the students in this club end up in my classes/program. I also have a digital art club that meets weekly after school. This is another good recruiting tool.

How do you go about making sure you recruit diverse students to make sure your program reflects your community?

• See above - affinity groups

• 1-1 recruiting

• peer recommendations

How has recruiting improved your program?

This is my 5th year at my current school and I had double the number of students signed up for yearbook than I had room for. My numbers are up in all my prereqs., and I am now focusing on building numbers for the Broadcast program.

What challenges have you faced in recruiting students for your program?

My biggest challenges are competing with other courses/programs offered at the same time. For instance, there are some awesome kids that will never be in my TV program because they are also diehard orchestra students and orchestra runs the same hour as my Advanced class. Also, some of my best students in my prereq. classes end up transferring to our STEM Academy off-campus for junior and senior year, meaning they can't participate in my classes/campus during the school day.

What is your best piece of recruiting advice for other advisers?

Put yourself out there, talk to your colleagues, chat up random students when you have the opportunity and get your students to help recruit.