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Students Star In Music Video With Yankee Bernie Williams Of New Fairfield

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The hits just keep on coming for students at Jettie Tisdale School in Bridgeport, who are featured in a national music video debuting Friday across the country.

Turnaround Arts presents “Everyday People,” produced by Playing For Change.

Photo Credit: Playing For Change

This spring, a film crew came to the school and taped the children singing and playing Sly and the Family Stone’s hit “Everyday People” with former Yankee centerfielder Bernie Williams.

Williams, who is also an accomplished guitarist, is the school’s mentor in the Turnaround Arts program, a national effort through the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities to integrate art, dance, music and theater across school curricula.

On Wednesday, the children traveled to Washington, D.C., to perform live with Williams at the White House Talent Show presided over by First Lady Michelle Obama.

The new video features students from across the nation singing and dancing with their mentors, including actors Tim Robbins and Alfre Woodard, singer John Groban, ballerina Misty Copeland and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Tisdale is one of five Bridgeport schools taking advantage of the benefits of the Turnaround Arts program.

Since joining the program in 2015, Tisdale students put together the Modern Rock Band and put on several visual art exhibitions and the school’s first musical, “Willy Wonka, Jr.” The school has seen a 24 percent increase in oral fluency and attendance has been over 90 percent each month this year, school officials said.

“Turnaround Arts has enabled us to foster community partnerships and increase our parental involvement,” said Principal Charmaine Worthy.

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