Journalism 1 students learn the basics of the world of journalism. After a semester in the class, students are promoted to write for the newspaper. This year, the two classes share the same period, but work separately. As the years have passed, the journalism and newspaper classes have gotten smaller.

It was brought to our attention that soon enough there would be no one that would want to take these courses. Or, sooner or later, the classes would be discontinued due to no interest in the class.

Last year, Journalism 1 students were switched in the end of the first semester to join the newspaper due to limited writers.

“The only reason the two classes were merged is because there was not enough interest in either class,” counselor Mrs. Brown-Miles said.

The question is if the merging of the Journalism 1 and newspaper is either beneficial or detrimental.

Not enough attention may be given to a student in Journalism 1. Similarly, the newspaper needs adult help to produce but might not be receiving that help.

Of course, the newspaper is student run, but it is beneficial to guidance from adult to produce interesting content.

In order to have kept these two classes there needs to be a fixed amount student to run each class.

The only way to keep the class running and the newspaper aswell was to merge both classes to meet the minimum requirement of 20 students in the class.

“There needs to be at least 20 students in order to have a class,” Brown-Miles said.

There was an ultimatum – either merge or lose both classes.

“It was an administrative decision to combine the classes,” Brown- Miles said.

If the programs were to ever be abolished and not be held as a class period during school, students are allowed to host an after school club to keep the newspaper running. It would be run through fundraisers that the students in the after school program set up and run.  Additionally, the program would most likely be funded by the school as well.

We hope that once the graduating class of 2017, there will still be a program running in the future and hopefully still produce content that is appealing to the students.