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Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
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." Copy the Story Link
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pingree told Mainers she's pushing back against Trump. Mainers told her it's not enough.
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree addresses more than 700 people who showed up for a town hall at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Photo by Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star) Mainers told U.S. Rep Chellie Pingree Monday night that she and other Democrats are not doing enough. A litany of questions at a town hall at Westbrook Performing Arts Center delivered a post-mortem of the 2024 election: Democrats have a messaging problem. Democrats lost young voters. Democrats don't say things plainly. Constituents also delivered sharp criticism of what they view as insufficient action from Democrats to stop President Donald Trump from dismantling the separation of powers and disregarding the rule of law. Pingree agreed. 'I take it all as valid criticism,' she said. The 1st District representative also told the crowd of more than 700 that she's working on it. 'I am in the fight every single day,' she vowed. Her constituents commended her for hosting the forum, noting the rest of Maine's congressional delegation has not afforded such opportunities. Pingree also hosted a town hall in Camden on Sunday but before that, the last in-person town hall she did was in 2017, when Republicans tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act during Trump's first term. Pingree also hosted a virtual town hall with state Attorney General Aaron Frey last month about the importance of state-level challenges to counter Trump. But attendees ultimately told Pingree she needs to take more of a stand. 'Why are Democrats not doing more to resist the Trump administration and putting on a united front?' asked Alex Wu, senior at Scarborough High School and founding member of the youth advocacy team of Democracy Maine, which focuses on making government more accessible. 'I've seen you wear pink,' Wu said, referring to disjointed messaging with some Democratic congresswomen sporting the color during a speech last month to call attention to Trump's actions negatively impacting women. 'I want to see disruption.' Wu and others also shared their desire for Pingree and other Democrats to deploy the strategies Republicans have used for decades, such as interrupting normal procedure. 'What is the vision? What's the mission? Where's our Project 2027 or 2029?' another attendee asked, referring to Project 2025, the blueprint written by the conservative Heritage Foundation for reshaping the federal government, some of which has now been executed by the Trump administration. Mainers requested Pingree take a page out of Trump's playbook, so-to-speak. Stop acting like politicians, they reiterated. Pingree did not go so far as to call Trump a Nazi who was sending people to concentration camps, as one attendee continuously requested before being escorted out by police for interrupting. However, Pingree did reiterate a statement she made earlier Monday on social media demanding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was in the U.S. legally that the Trump administration sent to, as Pingree put it, a 'Salvadoran gulag.' The Democratic caucus spends a lot of time trying to get messaging right, Pingree said, and in turn ends up making things complicated, though she vowed to try to make things as clear as possible. At the request of another attendee, she also said she'd pitch to her colleagues having short, to the point 'COVID-19-pandemic era style' press conferences to outline the implications of Trump's policies for all Americans. Ultimately, however, Pingree said she's never going to 'win' as just one member of Congress, nor can the 215 Democrats in the House. 'We've talked a lot about Democrats today and I'll take it all on my shoulders,' Pingree said. 'I will try to do everything better and I will do everything I can to get my colleagues to do it better. But in the long run, [Republicans] control the House. They control the Senate. We only need three of them to change their minds.' Not all attendees wanted Pingree to provide a better backstop against the Trump administration. One attendee from Portland questioned whether she'll always act reflexively against whatever Trump does. Pingree countered that she wouldn't always but so far she hasn't supported the president's actions. 'If Donald Trump does things that I'm in favor of — if there are tariffs that I think makes sense — I would be wholeheartedly behind them,' Pingree said. 'If there are things that [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] does to remove toxins from our food or get rid of dyes and colors or support regenerative agriculture, I will wholeheartedly be in favor of it.' While much of the night focused on federal policies, some attendees asked Pingree to weigh in on related state-level issues and had some local Democratic members of the state Legislature in attendance to listen in: Senate Assistant Majority Leader Jill Duson, Sen. Tim Nangle and Reps. Drew Gattine, Suzanne Salisbury and Morgan Rielly. One constituent raised concern about the dismantling of the federal Department of Education having implications for the state, which is separately facing a budget deficit. Anna Kellar, executive director of the League of Women Voters, asked Pingree if she would oppose the referendum to require identification at the polls. Pingree did not provide a direct answer, but Kellar raised this question in relation to the representative's recent vote against the SAVE Act that would require voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, which Pingree criticized as a sort of 'poll tax,' given the cost of passports and argued would disenfranchise married women, given that many change their name. Kellar told Maine Morning Star after the town hall that they weren't surprised Pingree did not weigh in on the state issue, adding that the League hasn't made a formal request to her office for a stance yet. However, Kellar appreciated Pingree's focus on some of the lesser known consequences of the SAVE Act, such as the implications for married women, and said the League is hoping to similarly highlight impacts of the state referendum that Kellar and others argue would make voting harder. 'I think [Pingree] can help us connect those dots,' Kellar said. 'I do think that there is a really important role that she could play here.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Maine student passes out, 11 taken to hospital as cause of illnesses remains unknown
Eleven third- and fourth-grade students were taken to the hospital on Thursday as a precautionary measure after reporting "respiratory distress," despite the fact that investigators could not determine a possible cause of illness. More than 100 students at Wentworth School in Scarborough, Maine, were assembled on risers on the school's cafeteria stage practicing for an upcoming concert when one student passed out and others began to "make physical complaints of a respiratory nature," the school's superintendent said during a press briefing. Emergency medical services were called to the scene just after 10 a.m., and the 11 students were taken to hospital "for further evaluation and precautionary measures," Scarborough schools' Superintendent Dr. Diane Nadeau said. The remaining students were walked to nearby Scarborough High School, while fire investigators worked to determine a possible cause of the reported illnesses. Trump Admin Declares Maine Violated Title Ix By Letting Trans Athletes Play In Girls' Sports Students and staff had "made a full return" to the building as of Monday afternoon, Nadeau said. Read On The Fox News App Scarborough Fire Chief Rich Kindelan echoed Nadeau's timeline of events, adding that they received a report of a potential gas leak "and some students in respiratory distress." Petition To Recall Maine Governor, Opposed To Trump's Trans Sports Order, Gets 22,000 Signees Ahead Of Protest "We did meter the building twice from two different fire department meters as a redundancy, just to make sure," Kindelan said. "And there were no hazards found in the building or in the area of the incident." "The school does have fire detection and carbon monoxide detection in the areas that it's required," he continued. The school's superintendent said the temperature was not assessed at the time the students were grouped together on the risers. She was unclear if the school concert would go on Thursday evening. Fox News' Jennifer Johnson contributed to this report. Original article source: Maine student passes out, 11 taken to hospital as cause of illnesses remains unknown
