Stauffer Middle School students create their own sitcom, 'Stauffer Things'

The cast and crew of "Stauffer Things." Photo by Alex Dominguez

DOWNEY – Stauffer Middle School teacher Andrea Pyle walks over to one of her students, a look of concern on her face.

“Hey, Bobby, do you know what’s going on with Tyler? He’s been missing a lot of class lately,” she asks.

Bobby looks up sheepishly.

“I think he’s been ditching,” he says.

With a look of shock and a bit of sadness, Pyle replies, “I better call the office.”

Just a few feet away, another student with a camera focused on her teacher and classmate, abruptly exclaims, “Cut!”

A scene has just been completed for an upcoming episode of “Stauffer Things,” and is now on its way to the editors.

“Stauffer Things” is a weekly scripted sitcom written and produced entirely by the students in Pyle’s class. The name is a loose reference to the popular Netflix series “Stranger Things.”

“As a class, they brainstormed 20 or 25 titles and then as a class they voted,” said Pyle. “Of course, they picked ‘Stauffer Things’ because they all like ‘Stranger Things.’ The only thing I had to figure out is I don’t want people to think this is like ‘Stranger Things’ because it’s not science fiction; it’s not anything like that…The ‘things’ in ‘Stauffer Things’ will be the things that kids face.”

Students film an episode of "Stauffer Things." Photo by Alex Dominguez

The show covers a wide range of subject matter surrounding issues, obstacles, and struggles that middle school students face in their day-to-day lives. Everything from stealing, bullying, cliques, fighting, jealousy, middle school romance, and relationships are covered.

Even heavier-handed themes such as depression, racism and sexual harassment have either been covered on the show or on the list of potential episodes to come.

“We’d have to be very careful,” said Pyle. “We don’t want to get too dark, but at the same time these are things that these kids face…What I try to tell them that this is a middle school so we have kids as young as 11 that go here. Whereas maybe an eighth grader can handle something a little more mature, this gets broadcasted to 1,500 students every Friday, so we have to make sure that there’s still some innocence out there.

“For depression, I wouldn’t want to get into suicide or cutting or anything like that; I’d want to keep it more light. Like they talked about someone’s family member passing away; that is sad and could make someone depressed but it’s not too dark to where I’m going to get phone calls from parents complaining.”

Students use Adobe Premiere to edit video content. Photo by Alex Dominguez

Pyle describes the show more as a “Saved by the Bell.”

“Lighthearted, but also tackle issues that these guys do deal with,” said Pyle.

The show airs Fridays during second period and is also posted on YouTube.

Pyle, who had the initial idea for a student-produced weekly episodic show, has been a teacher at Stauffer (formerly West) Middle School for 11 years.

“I was hired as an English teacher, but they partially hired me because I have a background in drama and they needed a drama teacher,” said Pyle. “Over the years I’ve just chugged along and slowly built a drama program where now we have an advanced class where we do musicals.

“We have two film classes…that’s where we do mini-movies and that’s where we also produce Spartan TV. Then this semester I decided ‘let’s try to do a weekly sitcom,’ because a lot of the students – I’d say three-fourths of the class – has been in since August, so they can get a little bit bored of just making movies. So, I thought this would be a little bit more of a challenge.”

Each student has an opportunity to be a part of the entire production process, rotating jobs monthly.

“We have a chance to edit, we have a chance to write, we have a chance to film twice,” said 13-year old eighth grader Joshuah Vargas.

Students use professional equipment to film episodes of "Stauffer Things." Photo by Alex Dominguez

Seventh-grader Bailey Canham, 12, says it took about a week of constant practice to become comfortable with video editing.

“It’s really interesting to me to see it go from a person standing in front of a green screen to a visual masterpiece with sets and sounds,” said Canham. “Adobe Premiere, the software that we use, is very complex. Some of the times I don’t even know what’s going on, but Mrs. Pyle really helps us. She knows a lot about it.”

“We all work together,” added Axel Juarez, another 13-year old eighth grader. “We can produce something that’s fun and entertaining for everyone.”

Students use a myriad of different high-tech equipment, including cameras, microphones, laptops, and editing software; they even have a green screen.

“The desktop Macs were all hand-me-downs…laptops [were] purchased through the district; I share them with the computer animation teacher,” said Pyle. “As far as the cameras [and] microphones, a lot of that stuff was actually through Dr. [Mary] Stauffer.”

Pyle says that she already has students asking to get involved in “Stauffer Things” next year. However, they might find themselves disappointed.

“I tell them this is a one-time thing; I want to keep it special,” said Pyle. “We can try it again in a couple years, but it stops being special if you do it every year.”