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Scarborough High revives student newspaper after 12 years of inactivity
Jun. 5—More than a dozen chatting high schoolers are sitting on the floor, laptops out, pouring over pages of the upcoming issue of The Storm, Scarborough High School's student newspaper.
Sophomore Dillon Jenkins doles out reminders.
"We need four columns, it should be in 16 font, titles 35, and remember the first letter of your article should be in 35 font," he says.
At the beginning of the year, Jenkins was looking through the school's catalog of activities and saw newspaper club listed. When he inquired about joining, however, he discovered it didn't exist.
Jenkins doesn't consider himself a writer — he prefers science and math — but was disappointed that his school didn't have a student paper, so much so that he decided to do something about it.
"I just like doing things, really. I like getting involved," he said. "And feel like the newspaper is a great way, because it covers so many topics and current events and things within the school."
Jenkins persuaded an adviser to get involved — video production and yearbook teacher Lorraine Aromando — then recruited a staff and started from scratch on design, taking inspiration from archival materials from a staff member's grandmother, who was a typist at a high school paper in the 1960s. The first issue of The Storm came out in December.
The Storm's 20 staffers meet during the school's homeroom-style period to discuss pitches and assign stories. They work collaboratively design pages, integrating art and photos. Most of the work happens outside of class, and Jenkins said it's been a challenge to get articles and formatting done on top of everyone's busy class and extracurricular schedules. After the paper is put together, it gets reviewed by Aromando, the school's activities director and the principal before being emailed out to all students and faculty.
Scarborough last had an active student newspaper in 2012. That drought aligns with a national pattern: between 2011 and 2021, the proportion of high schools in the U.S. with a student newspaper dropped from 64% to just 45%. In disadvantaged urban neighborhoods and rural areas, just 27% of schools have a student paper, according to recent reporting from the Columbia Journalism Review. It's unclear how many student newspapers there are currently operating in Maine.
The Storm is a digital-only publication, but the 15-page paper has everything: national news, local news, restaurant spotlights, film reviews, sports, club coverage, comics, horoscopes, science and innovation reporting, polls, exclusive interviews with teachers, book and movie recommendations and a word search.
For the upcoming issue, junior Isabella Del Rosso worked on a story about the science of sunscreen. In the previous issue, she wrote a feature about underrated school clubs.
Sophomore Nova Root is currently writing about the evolution of writing in film for the pop culture section, although she usually writes political news.
"You can find a lot of our different interests in the paper, but we also try and throw in articles that make it relevant, like school-related articles about clubs and events," Root said.
She wrote recently about national efforts to ban books in school libraries. The article traces the history of book banning in the U.S. and includes an interview with Scarborough High's librarian about how the school's library catalog is managed and what the process would be for a book to get banned at the school.
Sophomore Emily Clough is the creator of Pinenuts!!, a cartoon that runs in The Storm and riffs on the Peanuts comic strip. The characters are named and modeled after newspaper club members, and a recent installment was inspired by a real-life incident where Clough's friend put a pizza in the oven for 10 hours instead of 10 minutes.
Ayla Smith, a sophomore who likes to write science and innovation stories, said the biggest challenge is getting students to read the paper. It's distributed via email, and staff members said they get a lot of readership and positive feedback from teachers, but students are less engaged.
"But it's also just fun to do, even if people don't read it," Smith said. "It's fun to make, we read each others' articles, and it's just a fun way to explore different things that you're interested in and write about them."
The Storm is still figuring out its format in its first year back after a 12-year hiatus. There are no editors or set publication dates. Students write the stories they're interested in and put them on the pages themselves. But Jenkins and Aromando both hope that by next year the club will have more of a structure, and staff will set specific deadlines and produce more issues. Jenkins said that will probably involve finding a way to meet after school as well.
Aromando has been impressed with the group's tenacity, considering they started from scratch.
"Their turnaround time and their commitment to this has been outstanding," she said. "I've worked with students that wanted to start clubs before, wanted to write, and they just don't follow through. This group has a great follow-through."
In recent years, there's been a growing national focus on increasing student journalism opportunities. In states like New York and California, local governments and nonprofits have stepped in to fund and foster new student papers and high school journalism classes. It all comes at a time when young people are getting much of their news through social media, something the Storm staff acknowledged in their very first issue.
"School newspapers, like The Storm, bring a sense of community and school pride that isn't achieved in the same way by social media," staffer Helen Horrigan wrote. "Our newspaper is curated by students, for students, and is designed to stay relevant and exciting."
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