Joplin Schools launched JET14 (Joplin Eagles Television) on March 1, 2005. The district received a Funds for Improvement in Education Grant from the Department of Education to purchase over $180,000 worth of industry-standard television equipment for students to use in operating the station. In addition, Cable One offered the district one of its cable channels to use to broadcast the station.
The district constructed a 1,300 square-foot building that served as the studio. This studio was connected to the Timothy T. Reynolds Multimedia Center, built in 1997 through fundraising efforts of the Joplin Schools Foundation and located on the Joplin High School campus. That facility, including the JET14 studio, was destroyed in the May 2011 tornado. A temporary JET14 studio was located at the JHS 11-12 Campus at Northpark Mall. A new studio was constructed at the new Joplin High School / Franklin Technology Center and it opened in August 2014. With the new location JET 14 transformed into JET HD. We live stream high definition broadcasts of sporting events on our Youtube and Facebook pages. We are working with Cable One to get a High Definition channel. The standard definition channel is now located on channel 60 for Cable One subscribers.
Joplin Schools has a long history of broadcasting student-produced programming and live Board of Education meetings to the community.
Joplin Schools and Franklin Tech currently offers a variety of classes at JET HD. Those classes are taught by Brad Douglas and David Smith.
The current classes include:
*TV Production
*Broadcast
*Audio
*Film
*Audio Engineering
Those classes fill up quickly and there is often a wait list of students who wish to enter the program.