An entire summer and $1.5 million later, CHS has seen its first new TV studio since the school opened in 2000. Decked out with three cameras, a fresh green screen and a renovated control room, the new TV station is a wonder.

This is great, especially for the TV kids who have been waiting for a teleprompter that didn’t require a PowerPoint presentation of the script to function properly. It’s great for the students who really love broadcast production and were able to take electives like Live Studio Production or Advanced TV.

But it’s not so great for former and prospective members of the Broadcast Club, whose club dissolved at the end of the 2014-15 school year.

We just spent $1.5 million on a brand new broadcast studio in the same year that we dissolved the broadcast club. Irony, thy name is CHS.

We have no intention to belittle the broadcast studio’s improvements. Trust us – we know that there are many, many purposes the studio will fulfill.

But here’s the thing; last year, most rising seniors were banned from taking double sciences in part because school administrators thought that the practice strayed from the school’s communications theme. If the school is having an identity crisis, both students and administrators alike have to agree that disbanding a club so closely related to the communications field just doesn’t make sense.

It makes even less sense to drop the club the very year that it has the potential to flourish the most. With the new TV studio – and perhaps a new adviser, too – student interest and participation in a revitalized Broadcast Club could be higher than ever. Last year’s Broadcast Club had at least 15 active members, and CHS has seen clubs that have blossomed under far more meager conditions.

The equipment in the new studio is comparable to that of broadcast studios in colleges, TV Production teacher Jennifer Cornine said. This experience is invaluable to CHS students, and it can lead to competitions, internships and careers.

The Student Television Network Convention, which the Broadcast Club attended annually during at least the last five years, is exhibit A.

Principal James Gleason told the Inkblot last year that the lack of a Broadcast Club doesn’t mean that CHS has to stop competing at STN. We agree. We would love for students to have the ability to compete in broadcast journalism. But who will chaperone the trip? Who will get underclassmen involved in years to come? This is why we need a Broadcast Club.

The convention gives students an opportunity to showcase their best broadcast abilities, and really, who better to brag about communications skills than Communications High School? We can’t take any STN prize back to CHS if we don’t compete.

Yes, the adviser problem still exists. We acknowledge this. But if students can learn how to use the new broadcast studio equipment, then so can teachers. At least a few teachers here at CHS are capable of learning the equipment and helping the Broadcast Club improve.

Now, we know what you’re thinking. The Inkblot could just absorb the Broadcast Club. We do have a video department … it has three members. We’re working on that. But we have a very specific broadcast department. We produce news content – interviews, podcasts, packages – and if that’s your thing, we’d love to have you.

But if your passion is to be at the news desk or to make commercials, PSAs and full-length productions, then you need access to the cutting-edge studio and state-of-the-art equipment down the hall in Room 148. If you simply love broadcast, come our way, but we’re not a permanent fix.

The Inkblot urges the administration to bring the Broadcast Club back to CHS. This is not an issue to put on the backburner. CHS has a want and a need for a Broadcast Club, and with the new TV studio, the timing has never been more right for a relaunch.