By Ken Jackson
Staff Writer

Chris Pryor isn’t afraid to admit it: “When I was in high school, I didn’t like being there much.”

Well, now Chris is Mr. Pryor, digital media teacher at Poinciana High School in Kissimmee. And, thanks to a professional program that has turned a couple of his high-level classes into a business model that teaches teamwork, communication and delegation skills, his students don’t share the same disdain for coming to work, er, school.

Eagles Ink – called that because “Eagles Inc.” wasn’t available – is in its fourth year; it features students, as part of graphic design classes, designing advertising packages for the school. Student teams produce print- and web-related media promotional items, designing everything from a simple one-page flier to an entire website.

With Pryor’s initial direction, his students take roles on four levels – project managers, sales and account executives, graphic designers and technical directors.

The project began in 2007 when Pryor secured a grant from Best Buy to get started. His students have basically taken the ball and run with it from there.

Eagles Ink is often approached by Poinciana High School faculty for materials like creating a web- and print-based campaign for a recent curriculum fair, but also has been hired by outside companies to redesign their website architecture and vendor applications.

Those companies would spend a couple of thousand dollars in the marketplace for what Eagles Ink does for closer to $400. The students in the program are paid in “Eagle Dollars,” which they will redeem at an auction the end of the school year for cell phones and accessories, cameras and audio equipment.

But the biggest benefit is the corporate skills, tangible and inherent, they will take with them when they leave Poinciana’s hallways.

“My goal is to give these kids marketable tools that can push them toward a career,” Pryor said.

Students become proficient in software tools like Photoshop and Dreamweaver, and can earn industry certifications like Adobe Associate and MCAS (Microsoft Certified Application Specialist). Students will take the certification tests before they graduate, which would normally cost them $45 to $75 from their own pockets.

“I’ve had a few kids move on from this into the field professionally,” he said. “One is working for a website company. Another is taking production classes at Full Sail (a four-year university in Winter Park specializing in video and film production). I have another one who got a raise because of a certification they got from here.”

Senior Stefanie Messam doesn’t plan on a sales or marketing career – she wants to become a bioengineer – but said Eagles Ink can help anybody planning on entering the professional world.

“I had friends in the program, and they told me it’s run like a business, so I was excited to get into it,” she said. “Doing what we do fell into my character traits.”

Messam, an Eagles Ink project manager, said the program definitely has sharpened skills.

“We direct each other, but as we do we work as a team,” Messam said. “This program helps me with my corporate-type communication.”

Deandra Winston, an Eagles Ink account executive, wants to eventually enter into business and sales, partly because of what she’s learned in the program.

“Once I got in here I found that I love talking to people and doing the hands-on work with our products on the computer,” she said. “I’m glad I got into this, it’s given me a taste of what I want to do as a career.”

Winston said one of her main job responsibilities in-cludes approaching faculty members, including those involved with the Eagles’ sports teams, to see about their needs for promoting their events on the school website.

But, in the coming month, some of that will have to take a back seat.

“We start taking the certification tests in November,” Winston said. “I have to start studying.”

Pryor said that hearing that makes him realize that his students are absorbing real-world business experience.

“That’s a great challenge, learning to balance their business while setting time aside to work on their certifications,” he said.

And that’s enough to want to make him come to school every day.