RENO – The students in Mark Towell’s We the People class at Reed High School already have proven they know their history by making it to the national level of a competition year after year. Now they’ve been called upon to add their knowledge to a new DVD series on the Constitution to be delivered to high schools and universities for classroom use.

Sam Shad, host of northern Nevada political television show Nevada Newsmakers and executive director of Nevada Newsmakers Outreach (NNO), has been partnering with presidential historian Clay Jenkinson to put together a series, divided into 15 half-hour shows, that would cover a variety of topics on the Constitution.

“With our nonprofit Nevada Newsmakers Outreach … we had a discussion all across education in the state and said if we have the ability to produce a program and if we’re going to do something for education, what would we do?” Shad said. “(NNO) came up with a series on the Constitution and we’ve been working on that now for the last three years.”

The show is shot against a green screen backdrop in a studio converted from a garage to a “stunningly beautiful” set, Shad said.

But Shad and Jenkinson realized as they were doing some of these interviews that to make it more appealing to their target audience – high school students – highlighting some of their cohorts would be more effective than just a conversation between two men.

So, through former district spokesman Steve Mulvenon, they called on Towell, who has taken many Reed students to the top of the We the People competition in Washington D.C. and whose knowledge of history in general is advanced.

Attempts to contact Towell were not successful.

Shad, however, said the students who did participate were eloquent and knowledgeable.

“They were very well-prepared,” Shad said.

The series focuses on separation of church and state, presidential war powers, separation of powers, the Bill of Rights and so forth.

“I had them shoot a bunch of responses on church and state, and then I had them shoot a sequence of various issues about the Fourth Amendment and search and seizures and the protection of your personal property,” he said.

A fundraiser was held to provide the money to complete the series, though Shad declined to comment on the amount.

“Donors really grasped the necessity of the project and really wanted to help,” he said. “It is in tough times and for the right projects that people do want to help out.”

As of last week, the students had not seen the finished product, Shad said, but he hopes the impact will be to supplement the local schools’ curriculum on the Constitution that had been updated in quite some time.

“I think that any time you get to hear somebody who has the excellent knowledge of Clay Jenkinson, he’s so eloquent and he makes (history) so alive not only for kids but adults, too, and I think that in itself has a tremendous value,” Shad said.