teachers from Georgia “tapped in” to welcome students back to the new normal of online learning amid the ongoing pandemic with a rap video that has quickly captured everyone’s attention on the internet.” data-reactid=”12″>Two teachers from Georgia “tapped in” to welcome students back to the new normal of online learning amid the ongoing pandemic with a rap video that has quickly captured everyone’s attention on the internet.
Audrianna Williams and Callie Evans showed off their impressive rapping and dance skills with original lyrics set to the tune of Jack Harlow’s “What’s Poppin'” to get students excited about the start of this unique school year.
The two Monroe Comprehensive High School teachers in Albany, Georgia, enlisted the professional help of Jamel Overstreet to shoot, produce and edit the music video that has garnered over 13,000 views on Instagram in just two days.
“It was very fun, they are both so fun,” Overstreet told ABC News about working with the two creative educators. “It’s very catchy and it’s very different. It was a privilege to work with them. They’re every videographer’s dream, to work with someone that’s going to make your job easy and you just have to worry about doing the camera.”
“I knew that it was going to get a lot of attention in the community and where we are locally — but I didn’t know it would get this big on a national level,” he said.
PHOTO: Audrianna Williams, a teacher at Monroe Comprehensive High School in Albany, Georgia, performs her rendition ‘What’s Poppin’ teacher’s edition.’ (Overstreet Media Services )
The professional photographer and videographer said he had been wanting to work with the pair of teachers after seeing their past creative songs, so when Audrianna and Callie shared the timely song lyrics about learning amid COVID-19, he told them, “this is nice — of course I like this.”
“I thought the hallway spoke more to the whole scholastic feel,” Overstreet explained about how they chose the location for the shoot on Aug. 11.
The teachers and cheer coaches had a handful of their school’s cheer squad members as backup dancers, donning their best facial coverings and busting out trendy moves for the song which has been making the rounds on TikTok.
PHOTO: Callie Evans, a teacher at Monroe Comprehensive High School in Albany, Georgia, performs her rendition ‘What’s Poppin’ teacher’s edition.’ (Overstreet Media Services)
“They have worked with these girls for a number of years and they are all used to performing together,” LaKisha Bruce, the school district’s director of community relations told ABC News.
“We did everything, it probably took us an hour and fifteen minutes to film the whole thing,” Overstreet said.
Overstreet presented the final edited video to the educators on Sunday so that they could get it posted before the school year kicked off on Monday, Aug. 17.
“I made it and presented it to them — and they just loved everything about it,” he said of the ladies’ reactions.
Bruce said that the pair developed this original video concept together and “changed the lyrics to encourage our students to get excited about the school year and virtual learning.”
The dynamic duo have teamed up for other end-of-school year videos shot on iPhones over the last three years, Bruce said.
“This has grown to what you have seen today. This year they went into the studio and recorded the song and then created the video filmed by Mr. Overstreet,” she said.
The state of Georgia has been hard hit by the ongoing outbreak and spread of COVID-19 in recent months and despite more than 200,00 reported cases, with nearly 5,000 deaths, many schools across the state have returned for in-person instruction.
“Our students have been out of school since March and our community was impacted very hard by COVID-19. We were number three in cases in the world back in March to April,” Bruce explained. “So a lot of their students were impacted by family members being terribly ill and even transitioning in death.”
With their school district starting at 100% online, Bruce said “a lot of students and teachers are nervous about what that would mean.”
“This video was created to calm the fears and nerves of all involved and encourage them to strive for excellence this school term regardless of the online instructional model that we are in,” she said.
Both teachers were back in the classroom executing their virtual learning plans for online instruction at the time of publication and were unable to respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
The Dougherty County School District’s Responsible Restart Plan initially gave parents the choice of on-campus or online learning for their children, but Bruce explained “the plan is conditions-based so in the event that we had another spike of COVID-19 cases we would shift to fully online instruction to keep employees and students safe.”
Their district decided to begin school in the online instructional model with rolling start dates and has a 1:1 technology ratio that provides its students in need with a device.
“Any family that does not have internet service in their home to support online instruction can get a WiFi hotspot device to support their needs. Each school is distributing devices in a drive-thru manner and following all of our safety protocols,” Bruce added.
Teachers drop viral music video set to trendy TikTok song ahead of online school year originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com” data-reactid=”64″>Teachers drop viral music video set to trendy TikTok song ahead of online school year originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
