A team of students from the Career Center at Riverside High School made Ysleta ISD history when they brought home a silver medal in the Career Pathways Showcase – Arts, Audio Video and Communication category at the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference (NLSC) in Atlanta.

The Media Tech team consists of recently graduated seniors Alyssa Voight from Bel Air HS, Nichole Hernandez from Eastwood HS and Martin Alvarado from Riverside HS. This is the first NLSC medal for Ysleta ISD since 2004.

The road to silver was incredibly tough as the team competed in regionals, state and finally coming head-to-head with the best teams from across the United States. Student teams used their course of study as the basis of a project that benefit their class, school, community or industry. Upon completion of the project, the students developed a display and used it within the community to explain their training and project.

The students prepared by designing the physical layout of the contest display, scheduled and collected information on multiple community-based events they were involved in, including: 1) Live streaming sporting events, 2) recording community dance recitals and concerts, 3) creating public service announcements, 4) filming the Grins Talk series segments 5) live streaming the San Elizario Veteran's Day Parade. Throughout the year, students worked with industry, specifically Workforce Solutions Borderplex by recording bi-weekly program segments that are uploaded to their company Youtube Channel.

Alyssa plans to attend the University of New Mexico. She is deciding between broadcast news and video production.  She currently has appeared in two television commercials in El Paso. Nichole will attend EPCC to obtain an Associate's Degree in Special Education, continuing her education at UTEP for a BS in Education. Martin is currently interning with a local video production company and is planning to get into the video production/film industry after attending college.

The students are led by Riverside HS teacher Ricardo Vilardell.