The filmmakers behind the new PBS docu-series “The Class,” which debuts on PBS this week, originally intended to tag along with popular college advisor “Mr. Cam” — aka Cameron Schmidt-Temple — around Antioch’s Deer Valley High School so they could catalogue his interactions with students strategizing about their futures.
The inspirational Oakland native knows the Deer Valley High School turf ever so well since he graduated from there and was a former Wolverines basketball player. It’s his relatable background that partially contributes to why students respect him and like him so.
But when COVID-19 struck and lessons switched from in-person to Zoom format, everything changed.
“As things were shutting down and students lost their junior year, we thought, man, this is a really timely moment to film a year in the life of an advisor,” said Jaye Fenderson, who directed and executive produced the film with her husband Adam.
But what the award-winning filmmaking team imagined might be a temporary shutdown trudged on into an interminably long haul.
It created upheaval. For both sides.
“Our system was not built to go into distance learning,” sums up DVHS principal Bukky Oyebade in the series’ first episode.
Meanwhile, the filmmakers had their own schedule to keep in order to document the tumultuous 2020-2021 school year.
“Our first day of filming was in August and we showed up at the school with the principal and with Cam, and the principal said we’re not going back to school,” Jaye recalled.
That was a game changer for the series.
Executive-produced by Oakland native Daveed Diggs (“Blindspotting,” “Hamilton”), “The Class” aims, in part, to elevate public awareness about the crucial role that advisers such as “Mr. Cam” play in preparing teens nationwide to further their education. The series also calls attention to the stunning ratio between the number of public school students to counselors: 482:1.
Even as the crew and the students and parents and school administrators pivoted to uncharted territory, the emphasis of the series stayed on following six Deer Valley High School seniors slated to graduate in 2021. They were Kadynce Betancourt, Ahmad Woodard, Emily Huizar, Raven Ybona, Ebei Oiyenhomlan and Javonte Sellers.
But now, much of the footage was being shot at homes or from computers, since Schmidt-Temple’s interactions with all six migrated online. Those discussions often illuminate the frustration the teens felt over their school year being reduced to Zoom sessions.
The six-episode series anchors itself around the personal stories of Schmidt-Temple and his students. The sessions between counselor and student are interspersed with interviews of the teens at home, with their families or even hustling on their way to a job. We watch restless basketball player Woodard talking about his dreams (and anxieties) of playing college ball, and view how Huizar’s part-time work schedule at a Chipotle restaurant disrupts her school work.
“The Class” also provides an overview of how Antioch became a magnet for first-time Bay Area home buyers seeking affordable prices in 2008, and it looks at such issues as the protests that emerged over having cops at the school. As NPR reporter Sandhya Dirks points out, not all of the incoming students, representing a mix of backgrounds, were greeted with open arms.
Since he was a student and is now an adviser at Deer Valley High School, Schmidt-Temple saw how the school has changed over the years. He highlights a decrease in students, from about 2,700 students when he attended to “between 1,800 to 2,1000,” he said.
“I remember talking to teachers about that when I was a college advisor there,” Schmidt-Temple says in an email interview. “And they were saying that a lot of those students that ended up moving to Antioch, then grew up and weren’t necessarily staying in Antioch. … And I saw that they needed the same support that we needed when I was (a student) there as well.”
One of the goals behind “The Class” is to give students a chance to express what they went through.
“We felt like, and we still feel today, like the voices of students aren’t the ones that were being loud at that moment,” filmmaker Adam Fenderson said. “The students were at home, isolated. And the voices that we heard at that time were the politicians and the people on TV and the people out there protesting. It was so hard for the students to really have their voices heard.
“We want to show the students’ story and to really give their voice an opportunity to be heard and say this is something we need to talk about now because it affected us five years ago and here’s how it affected us.”
For Schmidt-Temple, getting his job done still brings him joy, even when things don’t go according to plan.
“The thing that I like most is just being able to see the smiles on students’ faces when they do eventually make it across the stage with a plan to go to college and eventually walk across the stage as a college graduate. Knowing that their lives have been impacted and changed by something that we do makes all of the long nights and the hard work worth it.”
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.
‘THE CLASS’
When and Where: 8 p.m. Fridays starting March 21, 6 p.m. Saturdays starting March 22, 9 p.m. Mondays starting March 24; KQED 9. Also available on KQED Plus beginning March 23.