NBC continues to travel around the country renovating America’s schools on their hit show School Pride. This week, the team headed to a Detroit, Michigan high school that was in danger of being shut down by their school district.
Comparable to previous episodes, Former Miss USA and Designer Susie Castillo, Comedian Kim Whitley, Political Journalist Jacob Soboroff and Team Leader and Voice Over Host Tom Stroup, come together to spearhead the restoration project of the school.
Communications and Media Art High School (CMA) is one of the most academically successful schools in the state, yet the institution itself has been crumbling for years. It boasts a 97% attendance rate, proving that the students want to be in the building, it is just unfortunately unsafe, with no available funds to fix it.
Viewers quickly find out that the school has broken ceilings, leaky pipes, exposed electrical equipment, crumbling flooring, destroyed bathrooms and broken lockers, but they did not find broken Pharaohs’ school spirit. The library is unusable which hinders the high school students’ research and studying. Worst of all, when it rained, the ceiling and windows would leak, causing a huge distraction for the students and teachers.
The School Pride team and volunteers renovated every single classroom, the library, the exterior, the landscaping, added a student lounge, and fixed all of the problems previously stated.
Recognizing the students’ and teachers’ dedication and hard work, the School Pride team rewarded them all with a trip to Nascar Racing Experience.
There also was not previously a media department, and at a communications and media arts magnet school, the team felt that was a necessity, so they created a new multimedia lab.
Once again, in true NBC fashion, there was product placement from Walmart, Microsoft and On Star, but in this episode it was a little more apparent then in previous episodes. On Star even sent some volunteers to this restoration project.
The announcement at the conclusion of the episode was that Detroit Public School System promised that CMA would no longer appear on the “cut list” and would never been in danger of shutting down.
Image via Detroitk12.com
