180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School
Washington Metropolitan High School (DC Met) is an alternative school with a devoted staff. To district leaders, it is a failure. To many of the school's students, it is home - a safe haven from sometimes unsparingly difficult lives. 180 Days: A Year inside an American High School provides an intimate portrait of this fledgling school's day-to-day stories. The film invites viewers in for an unprecedented first-hand account of life inside of Washington, D.C.'s volatile school reform movement. Staff and students at DC Met put a human face on policy debates. As teachers, administrators, and support staff struggle to help students navigate a wide range of life challenges - the death of a parent, becoming a parent, homelessness, violence, and more - they also work to help students succeed on mandated, standardized tests. The results of those tests affect more than just the students' futures; they will be used to determine teacher pay, school funding, and staff job security. Accustomed to a district graduation rate that, for years has hovered near twenty-five percent, few people expect the students to do well. But the spirit and resilience of these "at risk" students defies expectations.
VIDEO USAGE RIGHTS
Why the AV version? Because it provides additional usage options for PBS videos. AV versions come with limited performance rights so they can be shown in classrooms, at PTA meetings, during after school programs, and transmitted on a closed-circuit system within a building or on a single campus. They also can be enjoyed in admission-free public screenings, which also makes them ideal for use by library patrons and businesses involved in community clubs and organizations.