originally published — March 2008

Girls, Uninterrupted

A Curious Mom Tracks 12 Teens Through Four Years Of High School To Make One Eye-Opening Television Event.

By Lori Acken

High School Confidential Who were you in high school? The athlete? The mathlete? The party kid? The no one?

No matter how far removed you are from those formative years, or how much you loved or loathed them, the answer is probably still right there on the tip of your tongue. And the accompanying emotions still fresh enough to tickle ... or sting.

It was this realization, coupled with the idea that her 13-year-old daughter stood at its brink, that inspired single mom and first-time filmmaker Sharon Liese to grab her camera, seek the blessing of her suburban Kansas school district, and head back into the trenches to find out why the high school experience packs such a lifelong wallop.

The result is High School Confidential, an eight-episode documentary series debuting March 10 on WE tv that's a must-see for teens, teachers, parents -- and those of us who sometimes still feel like the kid who wasn't asked to the prom.

Training her camera on a dozen young women (and often parents and siblings) she hoped would best represent the interests, ideals and socioeconomic backgrounds of a typical high-school class, Liese tracked their physical and emotional evolution from their freshman trepidations in 2002 through graduation in 2006. And while she found many of the things you might expect -- peer pressure, booze bashes, positive pregnancy tests and family upheaval -- she also discovered an unexpected treasure-trove of wisdom and resilience. And a universal dose of social isolation.

Liese talked to Channel Guide about her very personal project:

CG: You said you did this to help your daughter through what was sure to be one of the more difficult seasons of her life. Was there some personal impetus, as well -- some unresolved thoughts about your own high school experience?

SL: It's so universal that a lot of who we are and the questions we ask about life were derived from our high school years. So part of my impetus for doing this was to derive for myself what happens to us as girls, as women, when we go through those four years. Who we are and the identity that we attach to ourselves is somewhat created in high school. You're on the launch pad and you finally get to launch -- and running down that runway at those high speeds can be so dangerous.

CG: Did you have any idea of what you hoped you'd capture, or was it basically a leap of faith?

SL: It really was a leap of faith that this was going to be something meaningful and something positive to do.

CG: How did you go about getting permission from the school to "infiltrate the ranks?"

SL: I first went to the school principal. My daughter went to the same school and she was in the same class as these girls that I am following, so I was familiar with the school district. And it took several presentations. But once they granted access, they pretty much granted total access. I could walk in there with cameras at any time and do whatever I needed to do.

CG: How did the other parents and students react? Was there any fear that this would be an MTV-type, voyeuristic show?

SL: There were rumors that it was some MTV show. But all the girls that were incoming freshman and their parents received letters over the summer and it described the project and solicited for people who were interested in participating. And final selections were so hard. I really would have loved to follow the whole class -- or all 40 of the girls who applied.

CG: Since you couldn't really know what they'd be like as they matured, how did you decide which girls to choose?

SL: From an intuitive standpoint, I tried to pick up on the girls who would want to stick with it. And all of them loved doing it.

I was really looking for diversity and not in just ethnic background -- although that was certainly one component of it. I was really looking for interests. I didn't want all girls from homes with two parents and two siblings and a dog. I wanted to make sure there was a difference in family structure. There are some girls who have single parents. One who was raised by her dad and then became part of a blended family.

And I wanted diversity in their interests. I didn't want to follow, you know, ten cheerleaders. It was based on their interests and then their stories, and, well, it could not have been scripted better. I mean, their stories were just incredibly interesting and incredibly diverse.

CG: Was there ever a point that you felt like you should drop your camera and stop the girls from doing whatever they were doing?

SL: Well, you know, I'm a mom. I have to admit, I have a lot of feelings for these girls. I followed them for four years ... I was inspired by them ... I was scared for them at times. But fortunately I got to see that all of their stories are stories of empowerment, so I really got to go through all the ups and downs with them, and then ultimately have it come out in the end that they came through it.

CG: The stories are all so different and compelling. Editing must have been a nightmare.

SL: I had about 500 hours of footage, so editing was a definite challenge. There were interview days and then more of the verité days. Verité days were more dictated by when someone had something going on, such as when Jessi had her acting school audition. But then there were days when I would schedule sit-down interviews with the girls and I tried to do those back to back.

And let me tell you, as those girls got older and I wasn't dealing with their parents to schedule those appointments, it got trickier. At 14, it's so much easier to call the mom and go, "Oh, will Sarah be available on Thursday at 4? Do you think you could drop her off?" But then, when they had their own cell phones and were keeping their own schedules, it was quite a challenge.

CG: Were there any parents who were OK with their daughters being on camera, but did not want to participate themselves?

SL: All of them wanted to participate. I'm just so grateful to the parents for taking this huge leap with me. I mean here they were, trusting me to tell the real stories of their daughters. I felt an incredible responsibility because they did trust me so much.

They were very involved in the interviews. And they were all supportive when I wanted to shoot the girls doing whatever they were doing.

And there were times when I reminded myself that I'm in no place to judge what these parents are doing. I had many times where I'd go, "Hmmm. That's an interesting decision." But I seriously was just taking it all in and learning from what the parents were doing. Even their curfews. This isn't even anything that got in the show, but when I had all the girls there at once, I'd be like, "Well what's your curfew?" Trying to take a little survey to see if my daughter was right that I was being too rigid.

CG: What was the most surprising thing for you, both as you were shooting and after all was said and done?

SL: Shooting in a school where there were 1,200 kids and 400 kids to a class, the big story to me was that "six degrees of separation" kind of thing. Here were several girls that I knew were walking around pregnant, or with eating disorders, a brain tumor, major family issues and they were passing each other in the hallway every day and they had no idea what the person next to them was carrying on her shoulders. These girls were so close, but so far apart.

CG: Was there ever a point at which you worried what you were doing could be seen as exploitive, or were there decisions made in advance to preclude that?

SL: I was really, really lucky because the two partners I worked with -- with New Line Television and with WE -- we all agreed in preproduction before we started editing about how one of our goals was to not sensationalize and not exploit the girls in any way. While we needed to make some creative decisions -- and it is an entertainment industry product -- we really wanted to stay true to the integrity of each girl's story. And it was really important to me to partner with a production company and network that felt the same way. And there were things that were edited so that we didn't [exploit them.]

CG: The series is rather remarkable in its objectivity, even though you deal with some pretty heavy-duty stuff at times.

SL: I'm so glad you think so! We wanted to have that neutrality through the lens; I did not want to impose any biases or opinions. I just wanted to let the journeys unfold before my eyes. And I think that in some ways it was easy, because I really went into it with the thought that I wanted to learn something. I wanted to learn lots of things. And I wanted to be objective and open to all the different ways that the girls were handling these situations, and that their parents were handling these situations.

For me, shooting this and going through the exact same thing at the exact same time -- I mean, I was in the same zone that these parents were. And I knew that I didn't have the answers to the questions that I was asking them. It was fascinating to me because we were all dealing with the same issues. I wasn't coming at this from the standpoint of someone who didn't have a kid yet, or someone who had a kid in high school a long time before. I was right there at the same point in time with them.

And as you'll see through the series, there are three pregnancies and three different outcomes. I think that's where you really get to see the neutrality of the production. There is no judgment -- this is the way it happened. And hopefully girls and their parents can learn from the choices that people made. They had such incredible wisdom and they were all so articulate.

CG: So what did your daughter ultimately think?

SL: She did enjoy it. And one of the huge benefits for me was that I got to have a backstage pass to my daughter's high school experience. Because high school is the time when most parents start getting kicked out of their kid's life. You don't bring cookies to school anymore. [Liese laughs] I brought a camera crew.