The Bulldog News team arrived bright and early Monday morning to broadcast important information to tell their school community. Alannah McDole and Isaiah Lee were the morning’s anchors, with Luke Miller overseeing the livestream, graphics and transitions. (Photo courtesy of Yellow Springs Schools)
Good news for Mills Lawn Elementary
- Published: October 7, 2025
On Tuesday, Sept. 9, the Bulldog News at Mills Lawn made its first live broadcast since 2020.
Now, every school day, a rotating group of four sixth graders — two anchors and two technical crew — go live at 8:05 a.m. in the school’s STEM classroom. Working together under the direction of STEM teacher Megan Bachman, the Bulldog News team brings weather, lunch menus, meeting and birthday announcements, school election results, special guests and more to their Mills Lawn community.
The YS News stopped by the broadcast home of the Bulldog News early this week to check in with our fellow reporters just across Xenia Avenue. By 7:50 a.m. Monday morning, the Mills Lawn STEM room was already buzzing. Students shuffled in, backpacks still slung over their shoulders, and headed straight for their places: camera, laptop, green screen. The crew’s animator Muhammad Nguer pulled up graphics, while Isaiah Lee tested transitions. Anchor Alannah McDole looked over the morning’s script.
“We’ll need a microphone for Ms. Huber,” Bachman said, referring to that morning’s newscast guest.
“I’ve got it,” crew member Luke Miller said.
The Bulldog News was a long-standing tradition at Mills Lawn up until 2020; Bachman — no stranger to disseminating news, as former reporter and editor for this very paper — said she reckons the program was running for about two decades before the pandemic shut it down. In its last iteration, the program was overseen by villager Lynda Highlander, herself an alum of both the YS News and CNN.
“I talked to [Highlander] about how they ran the program — but not a single broadcast from those years survived,” Bachman said.
Thus, after securing a $5,000 grant from the Ohio STEM Learning Network Classroom Grant Program for broadcast equipment, Bachman and a group of students forged a new path forward, filming pre-recorded news broadcasts last spring as part of an after-school program. The programs were aired weekly, and Bachman said the first group of students helped shape the format for what would become the revived live news program.
“At the end of last year, we asked students and teachers whether they preferred a weekly broadcast or a daily one, and they preferred daily,” Bachman said.
The crew of students who comprise the news team changes throughout the week, and rotates in four-week shifts, owing to the large number of sixth graders who want to participate. Near the end of the year, Bachman hopes to offer the crew and anchor positions to fourth and fifth graders as well, so they’ll have their chance at being part of the news team before moving to the fifth- through eighth-grade wing at the forthcoming new East Enon Road school building. Next school year, Bachman said, Mills Lawn fourth graders will likely take over reporting the news.
Because they only have about 15 minutes each morning to prepare before going live, the Bulldog News crew is learning to think on their feet. On the morning of the News’ visit, in fact, the crew’s planned lineup shifted: Two anchors were scheduled, but with one absent, crew member Lee was pressed into service at the news desk. Miller, originally set to operate the camera, moved to the laptop to queue up graphics, and graphics animator Nguer — present that morning by happy circumstance — filled in as camera operator.
Nguer has already built a library of animations for the show using Adobe Elements, including themed outros and seasonal transitions, and in the minutes before the program went live, showed a few to the News. A Halloween-themed animation featured the iconic Bulldog mascot in a festive witch’s hat, along with two dancing skeletons.
“What I’m going to do next is try and change the green screen [behind the anchors] to more of a Halloween theme,” Nguer. “I actually made an animation tutorial and taught a few other people how to do it.”
Anchor McDole and last-minute co-anchor Lee ran through the script once ahead of the broadcast. Because there is so little time in the morning before each broadcast, at present, Bachman is writing their scripts.
“The goal is for them to take over more and more,” she said. “Right now, I try to leave places where they can ad lib or add information.”
At 8:05 sharp, the Bulldog News went live. The two anchors greeted their audience with bright smiles.
“Good morning, Mills Lawn,” they said.
McDole and Lee traded off stories: Hispanic Heritage Month spotlights on Selena Quintanilla-Perez and Dr. Antonia Novello, a rundown of the lunch menu (“corn dog with seasoned green beans”), the weather forecast and a segment on Fat Bear Week in Alaska. As she does every Monday, Principal Becca Huber joined the anchors on-screen for her “Motivation Monday” segment, this week focusing on the idea of doing one’s personal best.
“I’d like to start with a quote from Justice Sonia Sotomayor,” Huber said. “‘Success is its own reward, but failure is a great teacher too, and not to be feared. The important thing is to keep trying to always do your personal best.’ Take risks, put yourself out there and do your personal best this week.”
The crew wrapped the broadcast with a send-off, McDole and Lee spelling out “B-U-L-L-D-O-G-S” in unison while pounding on their news table in rhythm.
After the stream was cut and the mics went off, relief and critique seemed to follow in equal measure. The crew watched back the video of the broadcast, aiming to learn from their experience.
“It’s just kinda scary, because if you mess up, there’s no going back,” McDole said.
“I feel bad because I don’t think I did good,” Lee said.
“You weren’t bad!” Nguer said quickly.
“And that was your first time, right?” Bachman added.
In truth, the student team is learning the same way any professional newsroom does: on the fly, with mistakes and fixes rolled into the next day’s broadcast. Bachman said that, so far, the news crew has dealt with accidental hot mics, green screen woes and the discovery that one broadcast never went live. But as Principal Huber alluded in her segment, the Bulldog News crew is taking risks, putting themselves out there.
“They’re learning to go with it and pick up where they’re needed — which is how the news works, right?” Bachman said.
Before heading to class, the crew gave some ideas for future segments they’d like to work on — a quick pitch meeting ahead of the rest of their week.
“I want the news anchors and the techs to go explore the high school to show sixth graders what it’s like,” McDole said.
“I feel like sometimes there should be a special activity where you have to try something new,” Miller added.
Bachman has her own ideas; she hopes the students will write, shoot and edit more news segments like the two they’ve put together so far — one on where and how to use the school’s lost and found, and another on the nurse’s office.
“I can envision field trip footage, or bringing in footage of Ms. Reichert’s choir performance,” Bachman said. “Thinking about what it means to cover Mills Lawn, and how they can be those reporters — that’s the goal.”
Bachman added that the students aren’t pursuing any “hard-hitting” news at the moment, but rather learning what the news is. For now, she said, that means filling in informational gaps, and understanding that reporting the news is both a responsibility and a service to the school community.
“I try to tell them, ‘You’re giving your school community the important information of the day,’” Bachman said. “‘You’re giving a sense of community and connection.’”
And in the meantime, each of the members of the Bulldog News crew is picking up skills for life — not only in digital media, reporting and public performance, but in collaborative work and team-building.
“For an elementary school, I think we’re doing pretty good,” Nguer said.
“I’m excited to see what it’s going to be by the end of the year,” Bachman added. “Check back in.”
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