New School Order

The rapid expansion of a once sleepy community prompts a painful contest for control of the public schools.

Premiere Date
October 3, 1997
Length
60 minutes
Funding Initiative
Series and Special Projects
Producer

Gini Reticker

Gini Reticker is an executive producer of Women, War & Peace and directed both Pray the Devil Back to Hell and the third film in the series about Afghanistan, Peace Unveiled. Reticker is one of the world’s leading documentary filmmakers putting a lens on the real-life dramatic stories of women’s rights and international social justice issues. Show more Reticker produced Asylum, the 2004 Academy Award®-nominated short focusing on the story of a Ghanaian woman who fled female genital mutilation to seek political asylum in the U.S.; and was the producer/co-director of 1994 Sundance Award-winning Heart of the Matter, the first full length documentary about the impact of HIV on women in the U.S. She produced and directed the 2005 Emmy Award-winning documentary Ladies First for the PBS series WIDE ANGLE, which focuses on the role of women in rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda. She also garnered an Emmy for directing and producing Out of the Darkness, focusing on women and depression. For WIDE ANGLE she has also directed The Class of 2006, which spotlights the first fifty women in Morocco to graduate from an imam academy in Rabat. Other credits include: Producer: A Decade Under the Influence, a look at the heyday of 1970s filmmakers, winner of a National Review Board Award and an Emmy nomination for Best Documentary; Director: In the Company of Women, IFC’s spotlight on women in Hollywood; Co-Producer: The Betrayal, Nerakhoon, Ellen Kuras, and Thavisouk Phravasath’s brilliant portrayal of a Laotian refugee family’s epic tale of survival and resilience, 2009 nominee for both an Academy Award and Independent Spirit Award; Executive Producer: Live Nude Girls Unite, Julia Query and Vicki Funari’s raucous look at the successful union organizing efforts of San Francisco-based strippers. Reticker is member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America. Show less

Producer

Jerry Kupfer

We fund untold stories for public media.

Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.

The Film

The once-sleepy rural community of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, has rapidly expanded recently, prompting unforeseen struggles — old-timers against new-comers, religious leader against religious leader, and conservatives against liberals — in a painful contest for control of the public schools. Opening with a watershed school board election, the program follows the efforts of the new board as it reshapes the school district and impacts the community over a school year.

Topics