Buckeye Local students to produce documentary with Ohio Arts Council grant

Buckeye Local Jr. High School’s gifted students are stepping behind the camera after the district secured a $6,400 Teach Arts Ohio grant through the Ohio Arts Council to develop a documentary.

Gifted teacher Stephanie Crust obtained the funding and said Rikki Santer, a Columbus-based journalist, teacher and the 2023 Ohio Poet of the Year, will spend 18 weeks teaching sixth- through eighth-graders about filmmaking.

“We’re having a teaching artist with the Ohio Arts Council come. Rikki Santer has worked with my gifted students in the past and she’ll come in to teach film studies, and the goal is to develop their own documentary,” Crust said. “The students will collaborate on the documentary and work with teacher Dan Davis’s media class to edit the film.”

The project, titled Lights, Action, Documentary, will give students the critical tools to analyze films and apply that knowledge to create their own documentary on a community issue. Santer will lead sessions and assist with production alongside Crust, while Davis will provide cameras and editing equipment. His technology students will serve as technical coaches.

Santer will be on site each week beginning in late October. Crust said she is eager to collaborate with her again.

“Rikki and I connected because my students participate heavily in creative writing opportunities, and she is an Ohio poet,” Crust said. “Last year, she traveled to Buckeye Local multiple times to work with my gifted high school creative writing team and with my gifted junior high students, and we discussed how we could collaborate more in the next school year. I think the kids and I will benefit greatly from her expertise.”

Santer has an extensive background as a journalist, editor, teacher and award-winning poet. She has authored multiple poetry collections, including "Resurrection Letter," which was short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, and "Shepherd’s Hour," which won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books. She has also served as vice president of the Ohio Poetry Association and as a teaching artist through the Ohio Arts Council, earning numerous honors for her work.