Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, in second period, five minutes of class time are set aside to watch the bulletin: a video announcement that relays news to the Berkeley High School community, produced by students known as the chiefs of publicity.
According to John Villavicencio, director of student activities at BHS, the bulletin is a great way for the chiefs of publicity and the BHS student body as a whole to express creativity. Villavicencio enjoys writing the scripts and editing the videos, while the students like to add their own twists and make it humorous. BHS junior and chief of publicity Arjun Hermon explained, “We can really translate (news) into a comedic matter.”
2022 alumna Charlotte Dierks revealed that being a chief of publicity had its downsides, though. One of these downsides was name pronunciation. Dierks tried to pronounce people’s names correctly, but didn’t always succeed. She said, “A lot of the times I would get called out and be like, ‘Oh, she has no respect for people’s names’ … And there were a lot of teachers that didn’t really like me, I think, because of that.” She also shared that it was difficult to show up on the bulletin regularly when she was going through personal struggles.
When the bulletin began, it was a paper printout of information put together by the Vice Principal, which teachers read to their classes on a weekly basis. Around the 2000s, the bulletin became the responsibility of the video production class at BHS; however this didn’t last long, as it was difficult for them to manage.
Then, the bulletin evolved into an announcement over the PA system that the two chiefs of publicity would record in the vice principal’s office. It contained similar subject matters to what it covers today, like schoolwide news or event advertisements. Alumni remember the morning announcements fondly because of musical openers, catchphrases, or energy that the former chiefs of publicity incorporated. Villavicencio said that the loudspeaker announcements were not an effective communication system because of various variables. Some struggles included “the volume and the classroom environment and how things are going, how well the teacher gets everyone to be quiet,” according to Villavicencio.
The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed the nature of the bulletin. Felix Mousigian and Aaron Rumph were chiefs of publicity during the 2020-21 school year, but they were elected in the middle of the previous school year, pre-coronavirus. When they began their new roles from home, Mousigian and Rumph pivoted to making video bulletins over Zoom.
“I would have loved to go on the bulletin or go on the PA system and talk to the whole school, because that just sounded like a fun part of the job, but (that) didn’t end up happening because of COVID,” Mousigian said. The videos were emailed out weekly, but not many students watched them.
When everyone returned to school for the 2021-22 school year, the PA system was down, so new chiefs of publicity Jack and Adam Wilan and Charlotte Dierks, continued the video bulletins as a temporary solution. Villavicencio, who had taken over the role of managing the bulletin during COVID, realized that when played in class, the video format was very effective at keeping student’s attention, so the switch to video became permanent. Students were also allowed to start submitting their own video announcements to be put in the bulletin.
“Students are going from kind of just absorbing the information to feeling like they can create the content that they can share with their classmates,” Villavicencio said. The chiefs of publicity even started to incorporate skits that were purely for entertainment purposes, like weekly themes, or recurring segments. The 2021-22 school year was also the first year that there were three chiefs of publicity rather than two.
Over the next few years, the bulletin did not undergo any more major changes, but its energy has evolved with each publicity team. Villavicencio said, “As much as the campus kind of stays the same, the students and their personalities shine through in a different way.” Recently, nearly every video bulletin has included an infamous catchphrase usually adopted for advertising events: “Be there or be square.”
The 2025-26 school year is another year of transformation for the bulletin. This is due to the fact that there are now four chiefs of publicity: Reuben Maimon, Arjun Hermon, Kabir Hermon, and Ezmond Pioscobar. In recent bulletins there have been innovations such as funny skits, elaborate costumes, and green screen sets.
The bulletin has undergone many changes but has always served the same purpose: to bring together and inform BHS’ enormous student body.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source berkeleyhighjacket.com ’
